Audiofusion In-Ear Monitoring System's SoundCaster
You've got to appreciate small companies that dream big. Sometimes they innovate in ways that larger, less-nimble companies just can't. With a pair of co-founders and a handful of patents, Audio Fusion Systems is a recent startup that's working to change the game in wireless in-ear monitoring. Audio Fusion has developed a software-based monitoring system that takes audio from a digital mixer into a Mac computer and spins it out to iPhones or iPads over WiFi.
With virtually every digital mixer offering control apps for portable devices, this may not seem like big news at first. What Audiofusion does, however, is send the actual audio to the device. Instead of controlling a personal mix that then goes to a floor wedge or in-ear beltpack, Audiofusion's Performer app routes your mix through your phone's headphone output.
Seems like a no-brainer, so why hasn't this been done before? Turns out WiFi was never meant for synchronous, real-time audio. WiFi can stream an HD movie or load a web page, and the delay (or latency) from those huge data buffers doesn't matter. That same latency is the death of music, as anyone who has tried to make music in a video conference can tell you. You need to all but eliminate buffering for low-latency audio, which for wireless networking represents a tremendous engineering challenge. Hence, the Audiofusion patents.
Trifecta
The Audiofusion system is made up of a trio of apps: SoundCaster on the computer, Performer on stage, and the Director app for additional control. Although SoundCaster is the heart of the system, it's also the simplest software. It essentially controls which digital mixer outputs get sent to the performers, and also allows you to label each channel and adjust overall levels. Performer receives the audio channels on an iPhone or iPad, and allows for the further customization of input naming, level, and stereo pan adjustments, as well as mute and solo. Director is an optional app that can listen in on any performer's mix and make changes or fix problems.
Installation and setup of the Audiofusion system is intuitive and fast.
SoundCaster will work with Mac-compatible digital mixers of any size, but you can only send 16 audio channels to the performers. The number 16 comes up again as the limit for devices (or "Connections") using Performer or Director apps simultaneously. Audiofusion's pricing is based on these connections: each costs $99. Compared to a typical stereo, wireless, in-ear system, that's a bargain.
Director and Performer features
Casting sound
Installation and setup of the Audiofusion system is intuitive and fast. You'll spend more time turning off iPhone features than you will installing the app. When you consider how many things can go wrong with a portable device, it makes sense that Audiofusion gives specific steps for making your system as fast and stable as possible. Airplane mode: check. Location Service off: check. Another key best practice is the use of a dedicated 5 GHz router, as 2.4 GHz routers just aren't fast enough (especially for multiple connections). Try as you might, though, it's still not likely to eliminate every variable inherent in WIFI networking and portable devices.
Once you've made your smartphone as dumb as possible, the music can flow. Mixing on the Performer app is easy, with left- and right-swipes moving through the various screens. The main screen shows all inputs with icons and labels (which you can change). Tap one, and you can adjust level and pan, as well as solo and mute. Performer divides all inputs into two groups: "Me" and "Band." Each group has a corresponding fader upstream of the main fader, making it easy to get your own channel(s) balanced against all the others.
If you're counting, that makes four different places you can adjust levels in Performer: channel, group, main and device volume. SoundCaster adds two more upstream of all this, with a level fader for each channel plus an overall level fader. Six places to adjust level is a few too many, and I don't like that the computer can so easily make changes that affect all of the Performer mixes. SoundCaster really shouldn't be mixing, but its main interface is, in fact, a mixer.
Intuitive design
The way SoundCaster handles levels is unorthodox. Its faders hit unity gain near the middle of their travel and they have an unheard-of 60 dB of gain above that. Also, the meters are all one color with no clip or peak indicators. We’d recommend they add multi-color, comprehensive metering.
I was pleased to discover that SoundCaster plays well with other software running on the Mac computer. I tested it with Logic X and had no problems running the monitoring system while recording multiple channels into the DAW. Users of other Mac audio software should experience the same results. Audio Fusion Systems makes no mention of developing for PC computers, but the Android version of Performer is in development now and will begin beta testing soon.
Audiofusion's claim to fame is real-time audio over WiFi. This implies delay times short enough that the human ear/brain system doesn't even hear the latency. In our testing we found that a trained ear could perceive the delay, but some users may not notice.
Closing thoughts
Is Audiofusion better than the established, hardware-based, in-ear monitoring systems out there? The short answer may be "no," but it also depends on what is important to you. As a personal monitor mixer, the CD quality audio quality from the iPhone is on par with systems like Aviom, Allen & Heath, HearBack, and others. The latency is a little higher, but Audiofusion is also wireless. As a wireless system stereo is a big advantage, at this price point and the frequency range of the Audiofusion broadcast is actually better than most wireless packs but, again, higher latency. But for $99 per user and an interface that everyone’s familiar with (a smartphone), the results are definitely worth exploring.
