51³Ô¹Ï

Topic

The Quest for an Affordable Dante Implementation for Non-Perceivable Latency Rehearsal and Performance by Physically Distanced Musicians

Interdisciplinary Studies

Date & location

• Tuesday, May 13, 2025
• 3:00 P.M.
• Virtual Defence

Examining Committee

Supervisory Committee

• Dr. Andrew Schloss, School of Music, 51³Ô¹Ï (Supervisor)
• Dr. George Tzanetakis, Department of Computer Science, UVic (Co-Supervisor)
• Prof. Kirk McNally, School of Music, UVic (Member)

External Examiner

• Dr. Glenn Dickins, College of Engineering and Computer Science, Australian National University

Chair of Oral Examination

• Dr. Robert Kowalewski, Department of Physics and Astronomy, UVic

Abstract

The recent pandemic brought to light that most academic institutions had no means of allowing musicians to rehearse or engage in musical lessons without the ability to be in the same room together. Technology existed to enable doing so, however at high cost and often with considerable effort and time for installation. Even if the needed physical space was available, most institutions of average or modest means simply could not afford to install enabling systems that provided high quality audio and low latency.

The Dante digital audio networking protocol is well known for providing audio equipment with the ability to use standard Ethernet computer networks for transmitting hundreds of channels of high quality audio with ultra low latency, however most Dante capable equipment is very expensive.

Reasoning that most academic institutions had existing Ethernet infrastructure, or with the cost of installing new network lines comparatively low, the goal of this research was to find or devise an affordable Dante device that would allow physically distant musicians to hear each other and rehearse with high audio quality and non-perceivable latency. An additional goal was to advance research on making technology more affordable.

The project succeeded in creating a device with the needed functionality based on a Raspberry Pi, using Dante Embedded Platform to provide digital audio networking capability with low latency/high quality audio, and a touch screen graphical user interface. Human research experiments were conducted to determine usability, and placed each participant in separate, acoustically isolated rooms, with their own headphone mix controlled wirelessly from their smartphone.

Conclusions were: A) The goal of devising an affordable Dante device was met, with the device build cost being under $400 USD, and with multiple potential means of reducing the cost further. B) All experiment participants experienced high quality audio with non-perceivable latency, and reported the set up and operation of the Dante devices not difficult, nor was adjusting the mix in their headphones. C) The system as used in the experiment sessions could easily and affordably be put into actual use in an academic setting, and is easily scalable to accommodate many users, or groups of users. D) The goal of helping to advance making technology more affordable could be assisted by placing much of the project results and code in a publicly accessible online repository.