Mobile Lab

Overview

Mobile sound laboratory for field research with a focus on experimental work in the field of sound art. The mobile lab is a research unit designed as a vehicle trailer (the size of a caravan) and includes a variety of sound projection and recording capabilities, processing station, and sound system. The Mobile Lab can output sound on up to 12 channels.

Equipment

• Yamaha TF1 digital mixingconsole
• 8x JBL Control 28-L1 Outdoor Speakers
• Audinate Dante AVIO USB to Dante Adapter
• 4x Neumann KH 150 Studiomonitors
• 3x DAP Audio QI-4400 4 Channel Amplifier
• 2x DLINK DGS-1210-28 Smart Managed Switch

Dimensions

• Length (total):7890 mm
• Length (without drawbar): 6260 mm
• Drawbar: 1630 mm
• Width: 2550 mm
• Height: 3055 mm
• Weight: 3200 kg

Ressources

• Mobile Lab Base Ressources
• Blockdiagram Routing Mobile Lab Media: X052BSB V0.pdf
• Dimensions and Floorplan Media: Laborwagen Model.pdf
• Manual TF1 Media: Tf5-manual.pdf

Mixer Routing

The mixer can either be accesed via USB (32 channel plug-and-play) or via Dante. Dante requires a compatible soundcard or Dante Virtual Soundcard(we can provide a shareable license).

USB Mixer Routing

Input CH	Channel Mixer	Out	ASF	VCA Group
CH 11 / USB 11	AUX 11	Omni 11 / MPO 11	ABH LH	DCA 1
CH 13 / USB 13	AUX 13	Omni 13 / MPO 9	ABH LV	DCA 1
CH 14 / USB 14	AUX 14	Omni 14 / MPO 10	ABH RV	DCA 1
CH 12 / USB 12	AUX 12	Omni 12 / MPO 12	ABH RH	DCA 1
CH 1 / USB 1	AUX 1	Omni 1 / MPO 1	PA 1	DCA 1
CH 2 / USB 2	AUX 2	Omni 2 / MPO 2	PA 2	DCA 1
CH 3 / USB 3	AUX 3	Omni 3 / MPO 3	PA 3	DCA 1
CH 4 / USB 4	AUX 4	Omni 4 / MPO 4	PA 4	DCA 1
CH 5 / USB 5	AUX 5	Omni 5 / MPO 5	PA 5	DCA 1
CH 6 / USB 6	AUX 6	Omni 6 / MPO 6	PA 6	DCA 1
CH 7 / USB 7	AUX 7	Omni 7 / MPO 7	PA 7	DCA 1
CH 8 / USB 8	AUX 8	Omni 8 / MPO 8	PA 8	DCA 1
CH 9 / USB 9	AUX 9	Omni 9 / MPO 9	PAA	DCA 1
CH 10 / USB 10	AUX 10	Omni 10 / MPO 10	PAB	DCA 1

DANTE Mixer Routing

Input CH	Channel Mixer	Out	ASF	VCA Group
CH 17 / DANTE 17	AUX 1	Omni 1 / MPO 1	PA 1	DCA 2
CH 18 / DANTE 18	AUX 2	Omni 2 / MPO 2	PA 2	DCA 2
CH 19 / DANTE 19	AUX 3	Omni 3 / MPO 3	PA 3	DCA 2
CH 20 / DANTE 20	AUX 4	Omni 4 / MPO 4	PA 4	DCA 2
CH 21 / DANTE 21	AUX 5	Omni 5 / MPO 5	PA 5	DCA 2
CH 22 / DANTE 22	AUX 6	Omni 6 / MPO 6	PA 6	DCA 2
CH 23 / DANTE 23	AUX 7	Omni 7 / MPO 7	PA 7	DCA 2
CH 24 / DANTE 24	AUX 8	Omni 8 / MPO 8	PA 8	DCA 2
CH 25 / DANTE 25	AUX 9	Omni 9 / MPO 9	PAA	DCA 2
CH 26 / DANTE 26	AUX 10	Omni 10 / MPO 10	PAB	DCA 2
CH 27 / DANTE 27	AUX 11	Omni 7 / MPO 7	ABH LH	DCA 2
CH 28 / DANTE 28	AUX 12	Omni 8 / MPO 8	ABH RH	DCA 2
CH 29 / DANTE 29	AUX 13	Omni 9 / MPO 9	ABH LV	DCA 2
CH 30 / DANTE 30	AUX 14	Omni 10 / MPO 10	ABH RV	DCA 2

Speaker Setup Innen

Basic Ambisonic Template for 4 channel mixing can be found here:

• Reaper Ambisonics Template
• Ambisonics Decoder Mobile Lab

Speaker Setup Inside

Lautsprecher	Azimuth	Azimuth Elevation	Mixer Channel (Dante)	Mixer Channel (USB)
ABH LV	-30°	0°	CH 29	CH 13
ABH RV	30°	0°	CH 30	CH 14
ABH RH	130	0°	CH 27	CH 11
ABH LH	-130°	0°	CH 28	CH 12

Working with the Mobile Lab

Reaper

The AESR Lab provides a ready made Reaper-Template that can pan 8 soundsources to any speaker attached to the mobile lab. You can find it here.

If you are looking for a way create your own multichannel routing template, or modify the existing one, we have created an guide here:

Basic Setup

1. Create a new track (CTRL + t) "Track" > "Insert new track"
2. To be able to adress all 8 channels of the mobile lab, change the track channel count to 8 channels via "Route" > "Track channels"
3. Now we add a plugin called "ReaSurround" on your newly created channel. "ReaSurround" will enable us to route the sound via a graphic interface to the respective channels in realtime
4. Before we can start routing we should adapt the speaker configuration fitting the speaker layout of the Mobile Lab. There is a ready made preset you can find here: Then import "8chReadSurround.rpl" preset library into the Plugin, this will already setup a good speaker configuration to work with the Mobile Lab
5. We now also need to change the track channel count on our master track to handle 8 channels. We will use this master track to send our differently panned sound sources to the correct hardware outputs. Do this by clicking on the "Sends/Hardware Outputs" Section on your Master Track and add a new hardware output. You can find the output configuration inside this chart #Mixer Routing
6. Now you are ready to go to route your sound to the speakers of the Mobile Lab using ReaSurround

Audio Routing with ReaSurround

1. The interface of "ReaSurround" let's you visually move a sound source to different speakers. After you loadup the preset you will see a speaker configuration setup with 8 speakers (yellow) and a white dot which is your sound source. By clicking and dragging your soundsource you can move the sound to the respective speaker.
2. Using "Diffusion" you can make your sound source bigger covering a lager area of speakers

Automation and Modulation

Reaper let's you automate any paramter inside of the software, as well as using modulator like LFOs to control plugin and software parameters. To be able to create automation we have to enable the automation envelope of the corresponding track.

1. Click "Trim" on the track
2. Enable the parameters you want to automate by clicking "Arm" and "Visible"
3. A new envelope should appear under the track, where you can draw in your automation
4. Clicking on "Mod" opens a window where you can set LFOs or an audio signal as a modulation source

Open Sound Control

Reaper can be controlled via open sound control so you can control your reaper session via an OSC Controller (TouchOSC, PD, OSC Controller, MAX/MSP)

Table of OSC Messages

Parameter	OSC Message	Datatype
Track Volume	/track/@/volume	(float 0-1)
FX Parameter (ReaSurround X)	/track/@/fx/1/fxparam/6/value	(float 0-1)
FX Parameter (ReaSurround Y)	/track/@/fx/1/fxparam/7/value	(float 0-1)
FX Parameter (ReaSurround Diffusion)	/track/@/fx/1/fxparam/10/value	(float 0-1)

Controlling Reaper with an IPad

AESR provides a Touch OSC template that can be used to route sounds using the Reaper Template.

Preliminary Steps

1. Login (Code: 2468)
2. Start Touch OSC
3. Make sure that the computer and the Ipad are on the same network

Get the IP Adress of your computer:

1. Windows:
   1. . Open the Command Line ([Windows] + [R] enter “cmd”)
   2. Enter ipconfig
   3. Note IP-Adress under the network interface that you are using to connect to the network
2. Mac OS:
   1. Press “Alt” and right-click on the Wifi Symbol
   2. You should see your IP-Adress inside the context menu
3. Linux:
   1. Enter the commandline and type: ip a
   2. Note IP-Adress under the network interface that you are using to connect to the network

Edit Touch OSC Settings

1. Connections
2. OSC
3. Enter IP-Adress of host (your computer)
4. Choose a send port, that is not in use by another software (eg. 1234, 7777, 8888, 2562)

Touch OSC Template Overview

1. Selection of one of eight tracks
2. X/Y Routing Position of currently selected track
3. Track volume
4. Track Diffusion (perceived Size of sound)
5. Master Volume
6. Mute Master

Ableton Live

The AESR Lab provides a ready made Live-Template that can pan 8 sound sources to any speaker attached to the mobile lab. You can find it here.

If you are looking for a way create your own multichannel routing template, or modify the existing one, we have created an guide here. Please notice that Live has no native multichannel support and needs M4L to enable multichannel.

Setup

1. To be able to utilize multichannel routing you will need a M4L external called "Surround Panner". You can find it here or in our Resources Folder
2. Put onto a track you want to use for multichannel output
3. Select "Speaker Setup" "8-Center"
4. Select Outputs "1/2 > Ext.Out > 1/2, 3/4 > Ext.Out > 3/4, etc"
5. Add "Surround Panner" to more tracks if you need to
6. Use the graphical interface to move the sound around, you can use the focus parameter to expand the speaker range of the sound source or to make it smaller