A whole raft of remote working solutions have sprung up following recent world events. As the industry settles into more home-centric ways of working, we look at why using a pro solution instead of consumer VoIP tech is still relevant.

Latency - The Challenge

In the 21st century, the average user of computers and mobile devices enjoys an ever-increasing level of ease when it comes to their tech. A far cry from the embryonic ‘end user’ experience of yesterday, which could often seem more like a job as a tech with their head in the manual and labcoat sleeves rolled up. Users of today rightly expect an experience that is closer to ‘does’ just work as opposed to ‘should’ just work.

Those reading this will be aware of audio latency in computer systems. Digital audio takes a finite amount of time to travel along a system from input to output, and this is often longer than acoustic latency through the air by a noticeable margin. Despite the whole world using computer systems that are essentially very similar for anything from commerce, to research, or audio production, some tasks require a dedicated approach to optimise performance.

Elk Live

Elk describe themselves as experts on low latency audio. At the core of what they do is Elk Audio OS which they describe as the fastest audio OS on the planet. This tech has been licensed to audio hardware manufacturers, however, their own Elk Live ecosystem sees the company offer a single solution for musicians performing remotely with each other over the internet.

Powered by the company’s Elk Audio OS, performing musicians can enjoy delay that, provided a decent internet connection, can equal natural acoustic latency. Video and communications are supported, meaning that participants can interact using the now-familiar video ‘room’ paradigm.

The system comprises of the Elk Bridge hardware audio and network interface in one box, with Elk’s Studio GUI handling control of the Bridge including mixing, monitoring, that runs on the user’s internet browser. The system aims to slay latency as much as possible by making a complete end-to-end system.

For live capture, users can record a stereo mix minus themselves or others. I asked ​​Björn Ehlers from Elk if there were any plans for local multichannel audio recording with the system to allow separate track capture for all participants' channels. He confirmed that Elk intend to allow one participant to trigger local recording on all participants’ systems as opposed to multichannel capture on any one system. He continues:

At some point, you will be able to record all different stems locally in the Bridge. So when one person triggers the recording you start to record locally in all different locations. Once the recording is over anyone can download the individual stems from the cloud. By doing it this way you always make sure the recordings are unaffected by bad internet. So in a sense, the audio you hear while playing is just a monitor signal. This way also works better with limited bandwidth connections since you're only sending stereo at all times even if recording multiple stems.

The Bridge Audio And Network Interface

This very solid bright yellow box is the heart of the system that connects directly to the internet using an ethernet lead. It also is where audio and MIDI connections are made. It is digitally controlled via the Studio web app GUI which appears upon login to the user’s Elk Live account. Hardware specs:

• 2 analog inputs (XLR / TRS combo connector)

• Line (balanced and unbalanced +22dBu max input level)

• Microphone preamp (-12dBu max input level)

• Instrument (unbalanced on TRS/TS connector only +13dBu max input level)

• Selectable 48V phantom power per port (XLR only)

• Digital IN/OUTPUT: ADAT, S/PDIF

• USB class-compliant (UAC-2) Audio/MIDI device

• A/D and D/A conversion 24-bit up to 192kHz

• Network - Gigabit (1000BASE-T)

• Power - 5 V, 3 A(15W) USB type C

• Runs Elk Audio OS - Ultra Low-Latency Audio Operating System

• 4 analog outputs

• 2 unbalanced 1/4" line outputs, +2 dBu maximum output level

• Stereo headphone output (selectable 1/4" or 3,5mm), +4dBu maximum output level

Requirements for using Elk LIVE:

• A wired internet connection (ethernet)

• 10 Mbps minimum up/down speed

• Ping lower than 10 ms

• 1 Elk Bridge per user connected to a session

• 1 Elk LIVE subscription per user connected to a session

Elk Live In Use

Elk audio sent Bridge units over from their Swedish HQ along with subscriptions for Elk Live for Production Expert to check out. Watch in the video how we demonstrate its impressive ultra-low latency that is comparable to natural acoustic latency when playing together in the same room.

The test uses a fibre-to-cabinet internet connection at both ends over a distance of approximately 320miles/515km.

Note the camera feeds provided in the Elk Studio web GUI do not use full bandwidth and are latent as a result. This intended feature of the system prioritises resources to kill audio latency instead.

A Dedicated System Versus Consumer VoIP

In our recent podcast, ​​Björn Ehlers and Max Gendebien from Elk explained the thinking behind developing an entire OS for the task in hand. When using Windows, MacOS, or Linux, an audio application’s programmer cannot decide when that OS will give the program CPU. By running a separate OS, there is a guarantee that a certain call or certain process will terminate at a specific point in time, and also a guarantee when audio can be processed even if a CPU buffer is full. This affords what Elk describe as “extremely small” buffer sizes.

In one of the company’s earliest tests of the system, a connection of 435 miles (700km) was established between two performers, one in Stockholm, and the other to the south of the region. The system was able to run a 10 millisecond overall latency, which is similar to the acoustic latency the two would have experienced through the air standing roughly 10 feet or 3 metres apart. Impressive.

Musicians hoping to run live collaborative sessions over the internet cannot hope to achieve the same performance using a consumer service such as Zoom Or Skype. Regardless of these services’ desire to improve latency, such a system will be compromised by the use of a ‘standard’ operating system on top of any hardware driver considerations. For this reason, for now, we still need a dedicated system such as Elk Live to get around these factors. With that you get dedicated hardware running a dedicated OS, for end-to-end management of latency.

The Bridge as part of Elk Live is $340/£300 for the Bridge hardware, plus a monthly subscription of $15/Month.