Geekazine

Geekazine


Elk.Live Brings Musicians Together to Play Online

August 26, 2021

A regular question that gets asked – how can me and my bandmates play together when we are separated and shows are being cancelled? Live music online is a topic that Elk.Live is working on, and ready to release in Q4 of this year.

What is Elk.Live

This is a service with hardware that allows a musician to play with other musicians from miles, or continents away. The audio hardware includes a low-latency algorithm that allows the drummer to hear the bass in close-to-real time.

Whereas services like Zoom or Microsoft Teams has a latency of 100-300 ms or more, Elk.Live can get latency to a level where music can happen – around 30 ms.

Defying the Laws of Physics

Reality is, we have to deal with one thing – the speed of light. And with Internet signals, there is no direct path. But with Elk.Live’s appliance, they are able to get up to 5 people on a session.

And Elk is already working on a way to bring in 22 people at a given time.

The Elk Bridge

Elk.Live Bridge

This appliance works just like any other sound card adapter. You can use it with your favorite DAW, record to your favorite social media outlet, or bring it in to any meeting. When you are ready to jam, just call up the Elk service, log in, and get with other musicians to play live music online.

Does Elk Do Video?

While you can have a video aspect to your session, the focus is delivering audio. For musicians to be able to play online together, the latency has to get below 30ms. MIDI audio can do that, since it’s digital, but it’s tougher for analog audio.

More to Come

Bjorn Ehlers explains the process with me in the video. The service is in limited BETA right now, and plans to release publicly in Q4. To pre-order your bridge, check out Elk.Live