324. Matt Dale & Donny Kuser Of SoundBase

In Episode 324, the hosts talk with Matt Dale and Donny Kuser of SoundBase, a software platform that’s become a valuable asset in the world of wireless coordination over the past few years, to learn all about what it can do and where it’s going, including tools for intercom system design, stage plots and input lists, and much more. This episode is sponsored by Allen & Heath and RCF.

Donny and Matt share the history of where SoundBase started, how it differs from other tools commonly used for coordinating wireless systems, some new features the just released at the NAB conference, and the new SoundBase SE free version, which opens up to all users a number of the more advanced features that used to require an expensive paid license.

Episode Links:
SoundBase
Episode 324 Transcript

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Transcript

Episode 324 - Matt Dale and Donny Kuser of SoundBase

Note: This is an automatically generated transcript, so there might be mistakes--if you have any notes or feedback on it, please send them to us at signal2noise@prosoundweb.com so we can improve the transcripts for those who use them!

Voiceover: You’re listening to Signal to Noise, part of the ProSoundWeb podcast network, proudly brought to you this week by the following sponsors:

Allen & Heath, whose new dLive RackUltra FX upgrade levels up your console with 8 next-generation FX racks – putting powerful tools like vocal tuning, harmonizing, and amp simulation right at your fingertips. Learn more at allen-heath.com 

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Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green

[00:00:58] Andy Leviss: Hey, welcome to another episode of Signal to Noise. I'm your host, Andy Leviss. With me is always the enter to my modulation, Mr. Sean Walker. What's up Sean?

[00:01:08] Sean Walker: Hey buddy. How are you?

[00:01:10] Andy Leviss: You know, just here with the terrible jokes, like always

[00:01:12] Sean Walker: Yeah, that's right. We're coming to love him. We're coming to love him.

[00:01:15] Andy Leviss: came here to chew bubble gum and tell good jokes and I'm out of both of those. So,

but how you doing?

[00:01:21] Sean Walker: I'm great man. Just, uh, you know, venue walkthrough week for the next things. It's crazy. Bet. We're good dude.

[00:01:27] Andy Leviss: That's, that's good. You're good.

[00:01:28] Sean Walker: one convention center at a time, which is, which is cool 'cause I got some fucking nerd questions for today's guests later, so that'll be great.

[00:01:36] Andy Leviss: Well these are, so these are guests that, I mean, we'll, we'll hop in pretty quick, but these are two folks that I've been friendly with for one of them, for, you know, a handful of years and one of them for longer than I think either of us are gonna admit at this point, 'cause we can't be that old. But, um, and then we've been talking about getting them on the show for a while.

We've talked about them in their product on the show. Um, we've been talking with them about coming on. Um, so without further ado, we've got, uh, Matt and Donny from SoundBase. So, uh, I don't do you guys,

[00:02:07] Donny Kuser: Hey, what's going on?

[00:02:08] Matt Dale: Hello? Hello.

[00:02:09] Andy Leviss: so why don't, real quick, do you want to just like each introduce yourself and tell us a little about you and what kind of brought you to where we are? And then we'll kinda dig into to all the cool, uh, wireless coordination and, and software stuff.

[00:02:21] Donny Kuser: Sure. So my name's uh, Donny Kuser. I'm one of the founders of SoundBase, um, live in, uh, Northern New Jersey. Uh, I have a background in touring corporate work and, uh, broadcasting. Worked at a lot of different broadcast studios. Done a lot of, a bunch of different shows. Um. Kind of nestled myself into, uh, being, you know, focusing on comms and wireless, um, primarily with, uh, my, my freelance work. Um, and then I eventually found myself, uh, working at a, uh, sound shop in New Jersey, and that's where I eventually met Matt.

[00:03:00] Matt Dale: Yeah. I started, uh, at that sound shop right out of college. Um, did my internship there and my pretty much full audio career. I started, uh, freelancing on the side, doing some Broadway subbing, that sort of thing. Um, and near the end of my time there, I met Donnie and did some gigs with him. And the, uh, impetus for SoundBase came from that.

[00:03:24] Sean Walker: Cool. What was that? What, what made you guys go, you know what? Software company, that's where we're going.

[00:03:31] Donny Kuser: Well, didn't actually start that way. It more started off just a tool for ourselves. And then eventually, you know, people like Andy, they look over your, your, uh, shoulder on a show. They go, Hey, what's that? Can I try that? And then it just keeps growing and growing and growing. And then it ends up being where it is now. Um.

But

it was really, uh, something that spawned outta COVID. When COVID happened. There was a lot of downtime. Both Matt and I managed different accounts at this, uh, sound shop and, uh, the way that we had to share information because a lot of people couldn't be on show site and be face to face. You know, raised some challenges and, uh, the existing solutions and tools that we were using didn't really necessarily offer a great way to share information. Um, obviously there's Google Sheets and Office 365, but not tailored towards our industry.

[00:04:23] Andy Leviss: So, and I guess we should a lot of folks listening know what we're talking about, but we should probably for, for the folks who don't give them the quick of what, what the effort is, we're actually talking about. Um, theres one of, you want to give the, give the quick rundown on, on what, what kind of tools we're talking about and what, what SoundBase is, where SoundBase is going, that kind of thing.

[00:04:43] Matt Dale: Yeah, the, uh, short and suite of it could be considered kind of like an a suite of tools for the audio technician on show site, the person who's operating the equipment day in, day out. There is some planning phase tools in, in this suite as well, but typically it's for the boots on the ground types of people. Um, and you can think of it kind of like, uh, Microsoft Office or Google Sheets and the fact that there are like a suite of four applications. In Google's scenario, it would be like sheets and docs and slides and that sort of thing. We have ones called Cord Nexus, dashboard and Harmony, and each of those applications, just like the office tools are tailored to a specific task.

Cord, is tailored towards wireless mics and coordination and management. Nexus is for Intercom, dashboard is for project planning, logistics, uh, IP tables, that sort of thing. And harmony is for input output lists, stage plots, and everything kind of links together in one overall project, so you can see your input list and your frequency allocations all in the same place.

[00:05:51] Sean Walker: That's ball.

[00:05:52] Andy Leviss: Yeah. And, and that's a, that's a cool thing to share with folks too. 'cause I think at this point, because so much of the push and the early development has been on the coordination side, I think a lot of folks have like associate SoundBase and that as like the same thing and don't know about these other sides to it.

[00:06:09] Sean Walker: I mean, guilty as charged, your Honor. That was me. I, I knew about the, you know, coordination part. I didn't realize, you know, the other stuff. That's fricking baller. I love that. Now we're diving in, we're going all the way down the rabbit hole. Let's do it.

[00:06:22] Andy Leviss: Um, yeah, so, I mean, do you want, oh, here, Sean, you go, you ask questions. You,

[00:06:26] Sean Walker: I'm the one that doesn't know anything about it.

[00:06:28] Andy Leviss: yeah. No, go for it.

[00:06:28] Sean Walker: get my questions answered here, bud. Uh,

so tell me about what's, like, your intended workflow, you know what I mean? When you, you had a vision for this, you were like, here's the fucking problem I gotta solve 'cause this sucks. Like, what, what's your your vibe on how people can best use this suite of tools to stop bashing their heads against the desk and have a kick ass show?

[00:06:52] Matt Dale: Well, you want collaboration. So we wanted to be able to share the information quickly and efficiently on show site. So, you know, Donnie being in the shop or me being in the shop and one of us on show site, we can easily do that with one project. You have collaboration, just like the Google tools and, uh, sharing and permissions and all that sort of thing. The typical workflow, I think maybe Donnie can speak to more, um, come from coming from a wireless side of things, but generally it's. A project is your highest level thing. And then within that project there are different data types. You know, whether it's wireless mics or input lists, all within that same project. And a project could represent a tour. It could represent one performance at a venue at a time. It's kind of all up to how the user decides because we've developed it with users, so, uh, heavily. Um, there are many, many ways of doing the same thing. Uh, so that's both a feature and a bug, I would say. Uh, so sometimes it's a little, uh, difficult for some people to get their head around it at times. Um, but it's extremely versatile in that regard.

[00:07:58] Donny Kuser: Yeah, somebody, uh, earlier today gave me a call and said, Hey, I want to do this. Um, what, which way do you recommend to do it? And I'm like, man, that's a loaded question. 'cause there's like four different ways you can do that, you know, and everyone does it a different way. Even just the way that things are done between, uh, touring and uh, Broadway. Alone or corporate, everyone has a different workflow. So trying to have one tool that covers all those different areas of live audio has been interesting. But, you know, working with people from all different backgrounds and in different parts of, uh, the audio industry has helped us to add in all these different workflows.

[00:08:39] Andy Leviss: Yeah. And it's, it's been really cool watching you guys iterate so much as like, you know, as, as at times a user and at times a, a friendly observer who's, who's a little sidelined from that world, uh, day to day sometimes. Um, it's been cool watching, like all the changes and tweaks in. Like you guys are, so there's, they have a discord or, or you guys are so accessible and like both answering questions on how I'm like, oh yeah, we can make it do that.

Uh, there's an update coming out tomorrow. Hang on. Um, which is really cool. Um, and then I know I'm, I'm trying to, there's like so many things we want to dig into in like this hour. I'm trying to think where to. Where to go next. Um, and like I don't wanna super focus on the coordination side 'cause I know it is more of an expansive platform, but I also think we should, 'cause that's, I think what folks know you for the most and are, uh, still using you for the most.

[00:09:29] Sean Walker: Cool. So if we're coming from wireless workbench where, you know, most of us started, how, how is it best for us to onboard into what you're doing? And, uh. know it's platform agnostic, right? You'll do any manufacturing in your software, is that right? So how do what, there's a workflow change that, that Andy had to walk me through from being able to be able to use it. How do you, how do you speak to your software? Different than we would all speak to workbench, like we're, A lot of us are accustomed to, right. Especially in like corporate audio.

[00:09:59] Donny Kuser: Yeah, so when we first started the Frequency Coordination app, it was definitely a replacement of a different piece of software. Uh, IAS Intermod, inter intermodulation analysis systems, I think, I believe is S is Systems, um, not software. Um. And that was an additive workflow. So, which is very different than, uh, the inventory first workflow that wireless workbench uses. Since then, we have added in a new feature called Autopilot, which allows you to add in all of your inventory that you want to use on site, and then it'll add all the gear in, get all the proper quantities of each make, uh, model and band, and then calculate for you.

[00:10:40] Andy Leviss: So, so basically the, the difference

[00:10:42] Sean Walker: work like Workbench does. It used to be an IAS workflow and now it can has, now it has a workbench workflow, also

[00:10:48] Donny Kuser: correct.

[00:10:49] Sean Walker: sick.

I

[00:10:50] Andy Leviss: just, and just to resummarize that for folks, basically the difference is in that like that inventory first workflow, you're saying, I need X number of these, Y number of those. Try and find me that. Whereas in an additive workflow, you're basically starting from scratch and filling in as many of each thing as you can and kind of work in the other direction.

[00:11:11] Donny Kuser: Correct. There's advantages to both. Um, so, you know, there, I don't think there's necessarily one and correct way to do it, but uh, we want to give users the different options. If I were to be doing a large show like the Super Bowl. I would probably want to use the additive workflow, but if I'm just doing like a quick, you know, band pop up at a bar or like a club or a corporate event, the uh, inventory first workflow is more than sufficient.

[00:11:38] Andy Leviss: So, and is the reason for that just. Assumption that on a larger event where you need more channels, you've got more inventory available, so it's easier to fit the used inventory to what you can make work best.

[00:11:50] Donny Kuser: It's more of, uh, being able to decide and make every decision because you know, when, when it comes to wireless and calculating frequencies, as you know Andy, it's a game of compromises. So when you're doing the additive workflow, you're basically choosing what compromises you want to make as you go. And most, uh, you know, the top level frequency coordinators that we're all friendly with, they'll, they'll create a coordination four or five times until they find the best way that they did it.

'cause it, every decision in each step matters.

[00:12:23] Andy Leviss: So like on that token for the deep nerds among us is, is there a solid work, like, or is there a recommended workflow in it to, to do that, like to do a couple different test fits of the coordination like. Would you be doing just like multiple ver like multiple versions of the site and then keeping the one that works the best?

[00:12:41] Donny Kuser: Some people use sites for multi geographical locations. Some people use it for versioning, so they'll like, you know, name the site V one or. Time and date, and then they'll duplicate it or start from scratch all over again. And I just wanna make a comment. It, you can use, uh, inventory first programs like wireless work bench to do massive shows. Uh, there's definitely no limitation there with the, it is just, uh, a little bit more precision I guess, in what you're doing, uh, or in your selection of frequencies

[00:13:11] Andy Leviss: Yeah, like a, a little more control.

[00:13:14] Donny Kuser: control. Yes.

[00:13:17] Andy Leviss: Um, so, and one thing that I, I don't think folks know exists, maybe like folks because. Let me rewind and rephrase that. So, O one of the things we wanna get out there, and that I think folks do know is that like SoundBase has always had some version of it that is totally free for folks. Which is like super cool to have this powerful tool that like is cost hundreds of bucks and we're doing the same thing in even more powerful features for free.

And then, was it like a year or two ago, you guys added a paid pro version that added like the ability to use it offline, the ability to tie in a tiny essay spectrum analyzer directly into it. To control hardware, which is like super cool. 'cause not only can you fully replace Workbench with it at that point, but you can literally have a grid of like the receivers up that you're monitoring in real time that you're pushing frequency updates to.

And they can have like, you know, three different brands of wireless manufacturers side by side in the rack and just all monitoring them in the same ui, which is super cool.

Uh, right.

[00:14:21] Sean Walker: Oh, that's sick dude.

[00:14:22] Andy Leviss: And, but now I'm seeing, first of all, you guys just reached the point of I'm seeing Facebook ads for y'all. So first of all, whatever you're doing for targeting them is working 'cause I'm seeing them.

Um, but, uh, past that, uh, you guys, you guys have a new, uh, new pricing scheme, or I should say in certain aspects, a new not pricing scheme. So do you wanna talk about that a little bit?

[00:14:44] Matt Dale: Yeah, definitely. So SoundBase se is our free offering that is exactly the same as a standalone application you can install, use offline and control hardware with. There are limitations obviously with this free version. Uh, you can control one manufacturer's devices. Uh, per project, whereas the pro version will allow you, like Andy said, to co-locate multiple manufacturers all in the same project, all at the same time, control and push up frequencies. Um, the other features that we get with the pro version are, um, a live scanning, live, uh, spectrum analysis with a tiny SA device and some advanced calculation features, um, multiple time ranges for times of use. Uh, you know, I there's, there's many. Deep, deep calculation features in there that come with the pro features. Uh, so that was released this year at ISE. Um, and the growth has been pretty, pretty optimistic so far. Um, and as such, we're now becoming a, um, a software company. So we have to now support these users, become more of a real company.

[00:15:54] Andy Leviss: Uh, and so like I know a big change that, uh, that. Add to that was you guys, um, I guess, uh, partnered, were acquired by well, what, what, most of us in the community, we say by Sennheiser, but my, my understanding is there's a little more finesse than that.

[00:16:10] Sean Walker: This sitting as a group, right? The, the people that own a bunch of this stuff.

[00:16:13] Donny Kuser: correct. They, yeah, it's the ER group. So now Sunrise are electronics, so Soer group is Sunrise, Heiser, electronic, Norman merging, and a few other brands. Um, but basically what happened was, is that this app kind of just grew to so big. It was just, Matt and I were doing this on the nights and weekends, and so we've, we talked to a few different people, but the cool part about, um. The Sennheiser family, um, is that they promise to keep it brand agnostic, which is kind of like the specialty of SoundBase, you know? Um, being a, a, a standalone product on its own not tied to any hardware or firmware updates or like, we can push out updates however we wish. We can work with whoever we want. Um, and that's like one of the biggest appeals of the app.

[00:16:59] Sean Walker: Dude, that's awesome. So now you've got the support of Sennheiser and, and you know, potentially the budget, right? And the r and d help or whatever. But you've also got all the cool things you were doing before and still staying brand agnostic. Is that right? That's killer. That seems like a perfect deal.

Like why wouldn't you do that? That's awesome.

[00:17:19] Donny Kuser: Yeah, it's, it's allowed us to take, um, this app that's, um, again, was just like a, like something that Matt and I worked on the site as a passion and turn it into a real product. And last year was like our first year, uh, under the group. And it, you know, tons of updates, ton of performance, bug fixes,

and uh, a lot of cool new features.

[00:17:40] Sean Walker: Killer fellas. Good work. That's awesome. And so the, the, uh, speaking of updates and stuff, so the new SE platform is basically like your version of what we can already download for free from other manufacturers and then monitor and that kind of thing, one manufacturer at a time. And then if we get the pro paid upgrade for the pro version, now we can get all our. PA salad or wireless salad altogether in one window and monitor and update and push frequencies and coordinate it all together a lot easier and simpler. Is that is I'm understanding? That's right.

[00:18:14] Donny Kuser: correct.

And like one of the big advantages of like the SoundBase se is that like Sean, I know you own a sound company. Um, and I'm sure you have a lot of, uh, freelance techs and on staff techs, um, training them in all the different softwares across multiple brands. Yeah. It's a, it's a pain in the butt. The cool part about this is you can be doing a show on Friday with Sure. A show on Saturday with Wko, and then a show on Sunday with er. And it can all, they can use the same program across all three days and connect and control and monitor all three, uh, different manufacturers

[00:18:50] Sean Walker: That's amazing. Thank you for doing that for us. That's awesome.

[00:18:54] Andy Leviss: Yeah. And just to, to be super clear, uh, the, the se limitation of one brand is just for the monitoring features. Like you, you can still, you can coordinate as many different things as you need to.

[00:19:07] Donny Kuser: correct.

[00:19:08] Sean Walker: them all in the se, but I can only monitor one brand.

[00:19:12] Donny Kuser: Correct.

[00:19:14] Sean Walker: Ah, all right.

[00:19:14] Andy Leviss: And, that's one brand at a time. It's not just Sennheiser is the one brand.

[00:19:17] Sean Walker: No, I, I understand. But

like if I'm on an all sure package on Friday, I can do it all there. If I've got a mixture of Sennheiser Ensure I can coordinate it all, but I can only monitor, pick one brand to monitor. Right. But in the pro, I can do it all at the same time. Right. Yeah. Cool. How much is pro.

[00:19:35] Donny Kuser: It's, uh, $400 a year. Um, we are looking into, I know many people have asked for, uh, maybe s like special, uh, timing licenses, like maybe like a month or for a weekend. That's something that we're open to. But like right now, because we just launched this new business model with a free version, we think that we, uh, included a lot of. Big stuff or big improvements for users that don't have to, uh, subscribe to sound

[00:20:01] Sean Walker: Killer and.

[00:20:01] Donny Kuser: starting there and then we'll eventually add more options.

[00:20:05] Andy Leviss: And then, and you've got some like institutional, uh, like options too for companies that have like a bunch of different texts that need to use it and that

[00:20:12] Sean Walker: Ooh, talk to, talk dirty to me. What's up?

[00:20:15] Donny Kuser: Yeah, so we, we do have a special pricing if you basically bulk pricing. Um, but uh, we find that most people, you know, just the free version alone is more than sufficient for what they're doing. So, um, two weeks ago, the Lollapalooza in Chile was. And I think there was 11 frequency coordinators and only two of them were paying users, and they calculated thousands of frequencies across multiple uh, stages

on the show.

[00:20:46] Sean Walker: dude. That's killer. And does your, it run on Mac or or PC or is it one or the other?

[00:20:55] Matt Dale: it's, it's cross, cross platform.

Uh, eventually we'll probably do, uh, Linux as well,

[00:21:00] Sean Walker: Yes.

[00:21:01] Matt Dale: yet.

[00:21:02] Donny Kuser: Yeah, so

we have, uh, Mac os, Intel, Macs arm Windows, and then you can also still use it on any modern web browser. So Safari Chrome, Firefox Edge, and you can access it there. The

only downside is you requires internet in order to access it through the, uh, cloud app.

[00:21:20] Sean Walker: if I start on my computer in the app, can I then get on the internet and it syncs to the web and I can then That's how you can share, right? Is that how you share is like, Hey, I can make this here and share it once I have internet access.

[00:21:31] Donny Kuser: That's correct. Yeah. So if, if you use the offline application, SoundBased desktop, the locally installed instance, when you lose internet, and as you make changes, as soon as you regain internet, it automatically pushes those changes to the cloud for you.

[00:21:45] Sean Walker: Cool. That's dope.

[00:21:48] Donny Kuser: We do also offer for, uh, some users that, uh, are concerned about privacy. 'cause like all the data is stored on our servers, um,

we

do offer with

[00:21:58] Andy Leviss: about your data, Sean.

[00:21:59] Sean Walker: Oh, bro, yes they do. Google will be stalking my ass bud.

[00:22:03] Donny Kuser: We do offer, uh, in SoundBased desktop, and including in the free version, you can create a local project. That means that all the data stays on your device and never touches our servers. So it's just basically when you create a new project, you just select how you want it to work. Um, this also helps to, we, we had a user who did a show recently for Cisco, and, uh, they didn't want anything, I guess, on, uh, outside of their servers.

You know nothing about the show data. Uh,

[00:22:31] Sean Walker: Oh, the network company, not the same. Here.

[00:22:33] Donny Kuser: Yes. Yes. So, um, so you know, to also appease some clients, uh, we do have the, uh, we have an option if you choose not to sync with the cloud. You don't have to use it as a cloud app

[00:22:46] Sean Walker: That's awesome. A lot. The Cisco's not the only one. Right. In corporate, there's a lot of companies that feel that way, and

[00:22:52] Donny Kuser: and leaks and some of the leagues too.

Yeah.

[00:22:56] Sean Walker: dude. Yeah. Yeah. That's

[00:22:57] Andy Leviss: Yeah. And so obviously then that you, the trade off for that is that you don't have the collaboration functionality, but

[00:23:04] Donny Kuser: that's,

[00:23:05] Andy Leviss: that's the trade off, uh, that, that needs to be made for that.

[00:23:09] Sean Walker: If that's all good though, like that's a, a trade off you're willing to make if you don't want to, you know, if you don't keep, I assume your cloud server is absolutely secure and you're not like pawning people's data off to the rest of the world and you know what I mean?

[00:23:21] Donny Kuser: Oh no, no abs Absolutely, yes.

Very secure. We are compliant with all the, especially with all the European. Yeah, it's, no, no concerns there. Okay.

[00:23:32] Sean Walker: Perfect. I love that.

[00:23:35] Andy Leviss: So in.

[00:23:35] Sean Walker: I got my tin hat on with the, uh, web stalker, so thanks. Thanks for doing that.

[00:23:40] Andy Leviss: Um,

[00:23:41] Donny Kuser: um, an example of a feature request or a feature request by a user. You know, like, you know, everyone has a different perspective and people argued like, this is important to us to, you know, not have our data live on your servers. So that's something that we implemented.

[00:23:58] Sean Walker: Thank

you. That's awesome.

[00:24:00] Andy Leviss: So, I mean, do, before we dig into like other topics, branching off of that, do you want to get, like is there anything else we haven't touched on that are like, unique or cool things that it does that folks may not know about that are, you know, worth putting? Like, I know we, we sort of in

[00:24:13] Sean Walker: makes espresso

[00:24:15] Andy Leviss: you know, that you gotta hire me for,

um, like I know we mentioned in passing, like time of use.

I know that might, that might be worth, um, like. Telling folks about, 'cause that's kind of a pretty cool thing that that was new to you guys. And I, I don't know if there's anything else or if there's anything coming up that you wanna tease.

[00:24:32] Donny Kuser: Sure. So, uh, time of use, um, is time-based frequency calculation. So we o obviously have interactions where you can set channel spacing and uh, and, uh, IMD thirds spits, um, triple beats, uh, settings in between zones or even sites. But, uh, between groups you can actually reuse frequencies. So imagine if you're on a festival and you have a performance happening in the morning and you want to reuse that performances frequencies for the performance at night. You now can, uh, do that by setting a time window for both bands or both groups

[00:25:10] Sean Walker: Yeah, that's awesome. Or same in corporate for like general session of breakouts when they're not all happening together and you're like, cool, I need 200 trillion fricking frequencies. But they don't all happen at the same time. You can kind of leapfrog or however you gotta do to make it all work.

[00:25:23] Donny Kuser: e exactly.

[00:25:24] Sean Walker: Dope. I love that For

[00:25:25] Andy Leviss: And that that's where like some of the other cool stuff y'all are doing in terms of workflow becomes really helpful to. 'cause there's a lot of really fine-grained ability to tune the interactions between different groups, different sites, uh, stuff like that. I don't know if you want to like, give the kind of quick like elevator pitch of that stuff.

[00:25:43] Matt Dale: Yeah, I guess one of the newer things that we, uh, added to CORD is the sites at higher level. Um, normally, I guess in the other software, you'll, you'll have zones will be your top level and then you'll have multiple zones, all with their own interactions. We added this other level site on top of it, which can have multiple zones inside. Uh, this now allows us to have. Multiple locations operating in the same, uh, spectrum. If you want that to use it that way, you can use it as multiple tour stops. Um, you can have, for example, a telethon that's happening in multiple cities, but you have another group, maybe that's the ENG group, uh, that's traveling in between each of those cities. You can then turn on interactions between that ENG crew and those two other cities that the telethon is happening at, and their freaks will be clean the entire time. They don't have to. Because you can coordinate with interactions in that way.

[00:26:35] Sean Walker: That's dope. if I, if I we're in corporate, so forgive me for just always going back to the same fricking question, but, so sites I can think about, like that's the convention center is the site and then all the general session, the breakouts, different things can be the different zones or whatever we wanna do.

And then it can just also time hop between all of those as needed.

[00:26:55] Donny Kuser: Y Yeah, you could do, uh, maybe zones are like a wing of a building,

[00:26:58] Sean Walker: Yeah. Cool.

[00:26:59] Donny Kuser: building is its own site. And then each breakout room is its own group.

Um, you can do it multi, you know, multitude of different ways. Um,

uh.

[00:27:07] Sean Walker: Sick.

[00:27:09] Andy Leviss: Yeah, so that gets handy like when you're getting into like this huge like show I was saying with like breakouts and stuff where you might have rooms that, yeah, you're a little concerned about like direct hits, but like they're far enough away and through enough. Air walls that you're not gonna get, you know, too, too much intermod going on.

So you can say between these two rooms, I don't really care about this, but that room's directly above that one, you know, so, so these, I do care about these type of interactions and kind of get really fine grain to help squeeze out, you know, those like, you know, 500,000 frequency shows, which sounds crazy to folks that are used to doing like 20 something frequency festivals, but like those add up fast.

[00:27:47] Donny Kuser: and it's important to note that all of these, uh, frequency coordination applications, they all use the same math equation. So it's really what. Knobs and levers does the application give you to try and find more frequencies? So a lot of these things are, you know, either compromises or just, you know, different tools, uh, in the toolkit to help get the results you need.

I.

[00:28:11] Sean Walker: Cool. And then how does that inter, how does that interact or interplay with the other three applica we've been talking about Cord, right? How does that work with the other applications you guys have in the suite to make a holistic system for us that are, you know, trying to go get it did.

[00:28:28] Matt Dale: Yeah, so the current, uh, one that is released in addition to cord is Nexus Harmony and dashboard are, are coming, we're working on them. Um, so you can search between the applications. For example, maybe I am coordinating, you know, maybe I've got BTRs, some old RF thing that I need to coordinate

for my

[00:28:44] Sean Walker: seen. Why would, why would you do that to me?

[00:28:48] Matt Dale: Showing my age again,

[00:28:49] Sean Walker: Yeah. Right.

[00:28:50] Matt Dale: so, so you'd wanna know maybe, uh, Sean's pack is screwed up and I'm, I'm over in Nexus working on allocating his headsets, determining the last time he checked it in last, last charge cycle, because we're, we're tracking all of that over in Nexus, but I need to check his freak real quick.

I can just go to the top. In the nav bar, search Sean real quick, and it'll pop up with what frequency he's on, and if I click that, it'll bring you right into cord and highlight that frequency for me,

uh, pretty seamlessly.

[00:29:18] Sean Walker: And that that's also a desktop app.

[00:29:20] Matt Dale: Yep.

[00:29:21] Sean Walker: Cool. And then that they all live on the cloud, so you can just do a web browser if you want to. Right. If you've got the internet.

[00:29:26] Matt Dale: Yeah, it's all the same actual application, like you just install SoundBase and then you get these kind of modules. That's what we

call a separate

[00:29:34] Sean Walker: cool. So it's not separate applications like from the app store, it's like one SoundBase is the one app and you just got different mod. I get it. That's cool. That's way easier than trying to like flip between different applications. That's dope. And then you've got one coming so that that's. Wireless and comms, and you've got one coming that's gonna be inputs and then also like stage plots and project management kind of a thing, or what was the, what was the other part?

I'm sorry. Or was that it?

[00:30:00] Matt Dale: Yep, you're right. You got it. Spot on.

[00:30:03] Sean Walker: Fuck. Would you tell my wife I'm right once. Jesus. That's

[00:30:05] Andy Leviss: We're not waiting into that buddy.

Remember, divorce prevention plan, bud. That's

[00:30:13] Sean Walker: A hundred percent. A hundred percent, a hundred percent. Yes ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Got it. I understand. What, when are those, do you have a, like timeline for when those are coming or when that gets up? Or is that too, too soon?

[00:30:24] Donny Kuser: uh, not too soon, but it's a very vague answer. We're hoping, uh, towards the end of this year we have, uh, the main features that we want in each of those apps to be deployed. So.

[00:30:36] Sean Walker: Cool.

[00:30:37] Matt Dale: And I don't know how much you lurk around those Facebook groups, um, but there's been so many. Vibe coded applications of late that, um, are in the similar vein of trying to do organizational tools for live event workflows, um, which we think is awesome. And like, that's kind of how we build our stuff too.

You know, you try to just come up with a problem to solve and then help use AI to help, uh, get it done. Uh, so like, I think as we see more of these applications come out, we can kind of tailor our solution to our workflow and our users because they are telling us exactly what they want. It's not just me as some technician guessing as at the way that I want the software to work.

Um, so that's kind of the advantage that we have in, in that space.

[00:31:24] Donny Kuser: Or

just AI spitting it out, you know, um, like we're trying to take a, you know, the workflow of users and directly I implement that into the app.

[00:31:38] Andy Leviss: Yeah, because yeah, there's, I, I mean, I guess the thing with like stage plot has been there's, I I, I don't play enough in that world to know. I know there were like a one or two like really popular solutions that kinda went away the last few years. So folks are, haven't either learned how to do it the hard way again, or trying to come up with an, with an answer and solution to make it easy to do, like clean, clear stage plots.

Um, like do you guys have, like what, aside from just making a stage plot that looks pretty and communicates clearly, is there, like, what's do you, do you have thoughts on like what the SoundBase twist to that is gonna be?

[00:32:13] Matt Dale: Yeah, I don't know. I guess, uh, stage, uh, stage plot pro was kind of like the defacto standard back way, way back when, when I was working. And you, in the similar vein that you would, uh, add an element to the plot and then you could link it to an, uh, an input or an output on your input or output list. You can take that now a step further. Now I can link that to a frequency in my coordination app, uh, application. I can link that to a zone. Uh, for, for example, uh, I could do a stage plot per zone. I could do a stage plot for a group. And now all of these things are linked together, so when you change one, they all update across the board. So you don't need to constantly update and regenerate PDFs and, and all that noise that we used to have to do.

[00:32:54] Sean Walker: Dude, that's killer. You missed one giant step in the stage fought pro thing, though you didn't swear at your stage fought pro as it moved, shit that you didn't move and wiggled and it wasn't the right size. Then you're like, oh, why'd they go two blocks over? Fuck. You know?

[00:33:08] Donny Kuser: And,

[00:33:08] Matt Dale: add that as a feature

[00:33:10] Sean Walker: Yeah. It's, it's a feature, not a bug. Thanks.

[00:33:13] Donny Kuser: and, uh, that's really like the main benefit of SoundBase is just trying to bring some consistency to the, uh, industry. The, I mean the first thing that Matt and I created was actually Nexus, not cord, the FI know that's like the thing that we've seen we focus on most right now and most people are using. But it was actually Nexus and the reason that started was because I was so tired of going to so many different shows and everybody has a different comms request, P, D, F, and I was like, every single time I, I would always have to like dissect what, what are they actually asking for? They all lay it out differently. I'm like, can't there be somewhat of a uniformed layout? Or at least if they prefer to use Google Sheets? 'cause it's pretty hard to be Google sheets, right? It's like, can is there a way we can at least import that in and then we can all view it in the same common way? And, and that's really. You know the main part of SoundBase, so whether you're in the Frequency Coordination app or you're the frequency coordinator today, and then tomorrow you're in A two, you open up Harmony.

It's gonna be the same hierarchy, same navigation flow, same everything. You're not relearning multiple softwares and

having multiple tools open.

[00:34:22] Sean Walker: That's killer. Thank you. Some, is it too early for a hug and a shot? This is awesome. Especially

[00:34:28] Andy Leviss: all around.

[00:34:29] Sean Walker: well, dude, especially as like everybody gets on board now. We just have one thing to fricking use. I don't have to have like 700 fricking programs every ready to try to figure out and coordinate and Dropbox together and could shoot me in the face.

You know what I mean? 'cause every. Everybody's got their preferred workflow and the preferred software, and you know, you get fucking a thousand of these fucking things loaded in your show machines. Dude, it's fucking silly.

[00:34:50] Donny Kuser: and something I wanna note too is like when, I don't think SoundBase will ever necessarily. Place any software. Um, it's just another tool in the toolbox. You know, some people prefer to use wireless workbench still for calculating frequencies, but they find sound days helpful for collecting scan data or managing scan data, um, or distributing information. So, you know, it's just another tool in the toolbox. There is no correct tool. It's whatever helps you get the job done the best on show site. And, uh, the one thing we do say though is if you don't like SoundBased or there's something you don't like, just please reach out to us and explain why.

[00:35:30] Sean Walker: Okay. Just like hop on your Discord server and start blasting away. Oh, I love that.

[00:35:35] Andy Leviss: I mean

[00:35:36] Donny Kuser: mean,

[00:35:36] Sean Walker: I'm, oh, I'm

[00:35:37] Andy Leviss: and ask nicely,

[00:35:37] Sean Walker: Oh, I'm in. I'm just kidding. I'm just busting your chops for no reason. Just try to be funny. But yeah, that's, dude, that's awesome. 'cause then you're like, Hey, we can either fix it or, Hey, here's a way to do that. Or rather than just, this sucks, but like, oh, why? Oh, actually you can do it like this. Wow. I didn't even think about that. Great. Well, it maybe doesn't suck anymore now it's cool. Right.

[00:35:57] Andy Leviss: it's. It's funny, I feel like with the three of us, with like our backgrounds and various sides of like development and support and whatnot, we could probably do a whole episode on, on how to or how not to reach out for helper with feature requests. It's there, there, there's an art to it as well.

And I mean, at the end of the day, you know, whether you're on support side like I am or on the like sort of combined support and development side, as you guys are like the end of the day, we want to try and make everybody happy, but there's certainly approaches people will take that make it a lot easier for us to want to help you faster.

[00:36:31] Sean Walker: Yeah, totally dude. Yeah, don't be a dick. Can we just start there?

[00:36:34] Andy Leviss: I mean that's, that's a big one.

[00:36:36] Sean Walker: Yeah. Okay.

[00:36:38] Andy Leviss: And then banish the phrase, this is a real easy ad, so can you do it real quick?

[00:36:42] Sean Walker: A hundred percent. Yeah. Obviously it's easy. Duh.

[00:36:45] Donny Kuser: And you know, Matt and I, we have a, we have a similar background in like the type of, you know, live audio that we've worked or that we did. But you know, sometimes people reach out, Hey, I'm on a cruise. I'm on a cruise ship, you know, and this is the way we do it. I'm like, I never thought of it like that, you know?

And they explain it to us and then we go, yeah, we can help you with that. We can maybe make some changes here or there that fits that workflow.

[00:37:14] Sean Walker: Okay, so we've talked about coordinated wireless, we've talked about comms, but how, how do you use it with comms? Like if I does, it doesn't replace the CC M, right? You still gotta have like your free speaker, your read or whatever. Like how do, how does your comms thing interact with comms or what does it do for us for comms?

[00:37:33] Donny Kuser: Yeah, today it's just purely documentational. Um,

we have had conversations with some manufacturers about. Maybe, uh, incorporating control in. Um, but as of today, it's just purely for documentation.

[00:37:47] Sean Walker: Oh dude. Talk dirty to me. If we can coordinate comms and wireless in the same program. Come on bro. Let's, let's roll. I'll pay for that. I'll pay double for that. dope.

[00:37:57] Andy Leviss: I think every one of us who's, who's done larger scale comms is like redone or done or borrowed and tweak like different versions like Google Sheets to organize everything a thousand times. So if. Like, we can all get onto a standard platform that does basically everything we need in a way that we can all reach and share.

It's like,

[00:38:14] Sean Walker: And then you can control it when you get on site. Like you can plan ahead or you can be on site taking all the requests, getting all the people lined out named whatever, and then go push it to free speak or Bolero or whatever you're on. Like that's sick, dude.

[00:38:26] Andy Leviss: Yeah. Which, and, and again, to be clear doesn't do that part yet, but we're all, we're

[00:38:31] Sean Walker: an easy change, so you guys can just do it right now. Just vibe, code that shit right on in. Come on, fellas. We already had, we had this talk. We had this talk. It's easy. It's easy change. Easy change. free update. Don't worry about it.

[00:38:42] Matt Dale: Yep.

[00:38:46] Sean Walker: For those of you that can't see, they're looking at me like I'm fucking crazy right now.

[00:38:51] Andy Leviss: Yeah, that's, that's basically the face I make at 'em all the time.

[00:38:53] Sean Walker: Yeah, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. Jesus. Who let this guy out again?

[00:38:56] Andy Leviss: I mean, you know.

[00:38:58] Sean Walker: Well, that, that's dope. And then the, the other parts keep, keep going here. The other harmony, what's that guy doing for us when it shows up?

[00:39:07] Matt Dale: Yeah, that's the stage plot and input list.

Uh, Yeah.

so that's gonna be your, your bread and butter for your a twos. Um, and again, like, so, so I guess we didn't talk too much about the features of cloud, like why, why we went to the cloud, uh, with, with SoundBase in general. Uh, one of those is sharing information over, uh, real time links so you don't have to have an account, a SoundBase account.

And, uh, Andy as a coordinator could share out a link and give me all the frequencies and just scope it to the list of frequencies just for my group. Maybe, maybe my breakout room, maybe my band if I'm the monitor tech, something like that. So

now do the same thing for input lists. You kind of reorganize your entire workflow around the, distributing the information out from the centralized location.

So now my input list can have my frequency allocations on it just for my band. I don't need to as, as Andy as the coordinator, or me as the technician. I don't need to shuffle through PDFs and, and all of that just to find the information I need.

[00:40:05] Sean Walker: Steve, that's amazing. Or as the sound company owner, you can just send people the link to the show and it's already live and updated and they don't have to like, is this the latest version? Is this it? Version 75 7 7 7 5 5. Final. Final three. Final.

Final. Again.

[00:40:18] Andy Leviss: literally they'll generate a QR code for you that you can just print out on a sheet of paper, tack it to the side of the split rack, and everybody who needs it can just scan that on their phone or their tablet and just pull up the webpage with the live updating version. And the second, you know, your a two year coordinator, whoever makes a change, it's gonna live update for everybody.

I mean,

[00:40:37] Donny Kuser: how a lot of festivals are going right now is, uh, like on lollapalooza.com, they'll put the, uh, link to the actual SoundBase report or SoundBase request form, and then all the bands can submit all their requests that way. That way we don't have multiple emails going back and forth. If I was to this producer, then this producer has to remember to forward it to that person and then to this person.

It kind of all goes, funnels right into the frequency coordinator.

[00:41:03] Sean Walker: Oh my God. That's dope. So the bands show up from around the world. They got frequencies from all around the world. And the one band that didn't do it 'cause they were too busy at the bar, you can tell to kick rocks like, sorry dog. We had the whole thing set up slick. Like there's no way to fuck this up.

And you fucked it up. Kick rocks.

[00:41:19] Andy Leviss: No, just scan that form. Tell me how many you need. I'll see what I can do. No. Promises, but We'll, we'll, we'll

[00:41:23] Sean Walker: you're so much nicer than me. See, that's why they let you on site and they don't let me talk to talk to people anymore.

[00:41:29] Donny Kuser: I

don't have a ton of, I don't have a ton of festivals under my belt, but one thing I've learned quickly is it never goes to plan.

Bands show up when they wanna show up.

[00:41:39] Sean Walker: A hundred percent. Dude,

[00:41:40] Andy Leviss: Put in that

[00:41:40] Sean Walker: again cracking bad jokes, dude. You don't ever get to tell people to kick rocks. I, I'm with you. But you want to though. You want to tell

[00:41:49] Andy Leviss: You just wait until the set goes up and then you, you go way off into the parking lot. You just scream for a minute.

[00:41:54] Sean Walker: Totally. Actually, that's not true. I was on a show one time. Uh. For the NFL and they absolutely told the band Kick Rocks. The NFL coordinator was like, not a chance. You're bringing that bullshit into my stadium. Nope. Plug that shit in. I don't what to tell you.

[00:42:09] Andy Leviss: Oh, yeah. If, if there, if there's a sports league involved, it's a whole

[00:42:13] Sean Walker: Oh yeah, yeah. The band. The band guy told the Kick Rocks for sure. It was like a pre-show kind of a thing

outside, you know what

[00:42:18] Andy Leviss: run a cable.

[00:42:18] Sean Walker: They were like, not a chance, Doug. Plug it in. It was kind of beautiful to see. I was like, yeah, get somebody. You do. You go.

[00:42:27] Andy Leviss: It's, yeah, like I've, I've definitely, uh, I'm trying to think how I can vaguely talk about this without, without

[00:42:33] Sean Walker: do it. You're gonna get yourself in trouble. Nope,

[00:42:36] Andy Leviss: but I, I've done, you know, large ancillary event for large sporting organization where I was doing the ancillary event and somebody else was doing the main event. And because we were with two different companies and there wasn't quite the advanced planning that meant there was media going back and forth between the two that weren't necessarily coordinated and that hadn't been communicated well to them.

So they were coming over to me and I'd have to change them, and they'd be like, well, we were already like, you know, cleared over there, like, you know, this, this should be good. And as I'm trying to go back and forth. Going back and forth with the head coordinator on the main event. At a certain point he was like, you let me know, man.

Like if somebody's giving you trouble and you need to shut 'em down there, you tell me. And I'll pull their, you know, I'll pull their frequencies at my venue too, and they'll have to play nice. So that, thankfully we did not have to play that card, but it was good to know I had that, had that support if needed.

[00:43:28] Sean Walker: There you go.

No,

[00:43:29] Andy Leviss: said, when, when you're doing it.

[00:43:30] Sean Walker: talk tough, but we're in customer service, man. You know what I mean? Like, we're, we're here to get people sorted out. So I, I'm. I'm piping off of the mouth over here trying to be funny, but really you're like, yeah, lemme see how I can figure it out for sure.

[00:43:42] Andy Leviss: Um, I mean, I don't like, is there, is there other stuff about any of this that we haven't asked you about that you guys, you know, that I think we should have or wanna, wanna brag or, or clear up?

[00:43:52] Sean Walker: do some bragging. I wanna hear some bragging.

[00:43:54] Donny Kuser: Um, well, we can, uh, just talk about at the time of the release of this episode, we are gonna have some new features, uh, being announced, and they'll be on display at, uh, NAB. Uh, we, we will be at NAB too. We're at a C four, uh, 9 3 1. Um, so if, if you come to NAB, please swing by say hello. Um. Matt, do you want to kind of start and just going through some of the stuff we're kinda about to do?

[00:44:21] Matt Dale: Sure. So, so the, the biggest one, um, will be Sennheiser Spectera Control and Monitoring. Um,

[00:44:28] Sean Walker: Oh my God.

I can propose right now, bro.

[00:44:31] Matt Dale: we have been getting asked for this since Spectera was released to the market and we're finally. Uh, bringing it out. Um, and it is gonna follow our standard SoundBase workflow, so you'll have it co-located with whatever other brands you want in there, um, and including, uh, control, just like the Spectera web ui.

[00:44:50] Donny Kuser: Um, it may be important too to know what brands we currently support. So, um, right now we, uh, support, uh, the some shore devices, Sennheiser, uh, w com, uh, sound devices and Electrosonics. Uh, we are talking to some additional manufacturers about adding, um, some more things in. But, uh, for right now it's, and it's not all of the devices from those, uh, five brands I named, but it's like they're more flagship. Uh, most commonly seen out in the field devices.

[00:45:25] Matt Dale: So in addition to the Specter release, uh, we're gonna be adding a thing called remote view to SoundBase desktop. This is

gonna allow you to. Uh, monitor your wireless devices through the web browser on a local network. So SoundBased desktop can be monitoring whatever channels you want in whatever zone, and then you can set up these dedicated views that contain monitoring cards for, maybe it's a breakout room and you just wanna distribute that to that breakout room so that a two there can monitor. And this is just over your standard web browser on the same, uh, network that SoundBased desktop is on. So it's gonna cut down on network traffic traffic, and also you don't have multiple people trying to communicate with the hardware, uh, with competing softwares, which sometimes happens if you have multiple workbenches open or,

or WSM.

[00:46:18] Donny Kuser: So, you know, the, no matter, this isn't specific to one brand, but. You know, if you have multiple of their companion softwares open and connected to their hardware, you'll probably notice like the meters start getting a little bit more sluggish, or there's a lot of unnecessary traffic on the network. So a good example is look for touring.

Um, if the front house engineer wanted to monitor, uh, the r. And the monitors, uh, engineer wanted to mo monitor, and the RF tech wanted to. Now you have three different instances of software connected to these wireless devices. With our solution is you have just one, and then you can create dedicated views that are self-hosted using that, uh, one instance of sound-based desktop connected. So it dramatically cuts down the amount of network traffic in this, uh, in this scenario three times. Um, and, uh, and another cool, uh, way this could be used is if you're on a, uh, festival. You have a house system, maybe you have like a channel 16 microphones and 24 ims, um, that are shared across different hacks. You can just give them a unique link and they can monitor their rf, uh, themselves. You don't actually have to have them connect their laptop to your wireless rack and then you know the chances of them pushing changes or making or doing whatever. You kind of keep everything isolated. Um. And of course, because this is a unique link, you can view it on your phone, your iPad, uh, on any device.

[00:47:54] Andy Leviss: That's super cool and yeah, so works on lightweight devices. You don't need to pre-install anything.

[00:48:02] Donny Kuser: Exactly. Uh, this is also a thing, a problem at broadcast studios where they'll have one instance of a piece of software running and then they'll K vm. KVM into one computer. Um, or they'll have multiple instances open again in each like, you know, audio room. Now you can just have a custom view per studio.

Say they're only using Mike's one through eight, and then the next studio is using Mike's nine through 16. And you can create all these cool custom views

and cut down your network

[00:48:32] Sean Walker: That's, killer.

[00:48:32] Andy Leviss: that's awesome.

I feel like I had another question and it totally lost. Went away from my brain, so, 'cause I got so excited about that one.

[00:48:43] Matt Dale: there are two more features,

Andy, that

[00:48:45] Andy Leviss: go. Let's go.

[00:48:48] Matt Dale: uh, so one thing that was asked for a few times at NAB last year was bid focus, companion integration, because right now wireless, uh, configuration on the stream deck. While possible is a bit of a pain in the ass to set up. Uh, and, and it's not like you can do that for every one-off, um, if you don't have the time. So we're making a solution that's one module that can communicate with all this hardware over kind of one streamlined interface. Um, and you can then store that configuration to your sound-based project and recall it. So if you are doing the same gig every time, you, you don't have to set up a, your, your stream deck differently for each, uh, time you use it.

[00:49:26] Andy Leviss: So like what kind of like showing you like status displays, like con controlling, like what sort of functions?

[00:49:33] Matt Dale: Yeah, right now we've got three different views, card views essentially for monitoring, for status, um, uh, background color can be alerted for battery and interference, um, that sort of thing. Uh, there's been lots of asks for things like, uh, mute groups, um, and maybe like switch even, um, for. T devices, switching, switching, uh, frequencies. That sort of stuff is not planned for this initial release. We have to kind of figure out how we're gonna do that in a brand agnostic way and in a streamlined setup that is reliable.

So first it's just for monitoring and status sorts of things.

[00:50:14] Donny Kuser: So, so the cool part about it is, um, SoundBase is just acts as like the middleman because, you know, some of these devices like w com, they don't exist in companion. Uh, it focus as a module. But if a SoundBase is the middleman, you don't, you can, any device that SoundBase can connect to you can add onto your stream deck. Uh, which is pretty cool. Uh, also to set up each individual module. Each individual channel always took a lot of, you know, setup time. Now it'll be super quick because you just, you have, you're only connecting to SoundBase. Get up and running really quick.

[00:50:50] Andy Leviss: Got it. So just like drop the, drop the, uh, SoundBase action on the button and choose which, like receiver, which transmitter you wanna, you wanna look at and go from there.

[00:51:00] Donny Kuser: Yep, and, and then you can recall everything too. Every time you load a project, your stream deck configuration will show.

[00:51:07] Andy Leviss: Oh, that's awesome. Uh, and you said, do am, am I losing count or did you say there was one more new feature after that?

[00:51:16] Matt Dale: There is one new, more new feature. Uh, so another thing that we'd like to add into SoundBase, and we have a solution for right now, um, very much proof of concept state is for audio monitoring of your wireless channels. The Dante network, uh,

and again, this is,

[00:51:33] Andy Leviss: here is my eyebrow raising.

[00:51:37] Matt Dale: this is again, gonna be a brand agnostic solution. Um, so we're being very careful with how we implement it and, uh, try to make the workflow as as nice as possible.

[00:51:49] Donny Kuser: S So it's not just Dante, it'll be, uh, Maddie or um, uh, Maddie or Analog. If you have an interface or a USB to Maddie, it'll also, uh, work. Uh, SoundBase is Mac and Windows. So it will work on Windows too. Um, or, I know some other solutions require the core audio package and built in Mac Os. So whether you're on Windows or Mac, you'll be able to, uh, monitor your audio.

So when you, if you're familiar with SoundBased, now when you click on a monitoring card, it shows you all the timeline data below. Uh, there's already conveniently a scrubber tool there. Um, you'll be able to, uh. Uh, have it auto queue and you'll be able to hear the audio from that device that you're, uh, currently, uh, looking at. Um, we also won't have a lot of the limitations of some of the other solutions, so like, you know, more than, uh, a few minutes of backtracking, uh, unlimited channels and it'll all be included in the SoundBased Pro license. So it'll be probably a lot, uh, cheaper option too.

Um.

[00:52:56] Sean Walker: Oh heck yeah.

[00:52:59] Andy Leviss: And so like look back, we're talking about folks like for when, when you hear standing and you go, oh shit, what was that? And go back to both. Figure out which channel it was on and then take a listen to hear what it was. And was that an RF hit? Was it somebody plugging in a guitar to a transmitter?

[00:53:16] Donny Kuser: Exactly.

[00:53:17] Andy Leviss: yeah.

That's super cool.

[00:53:19] Donny Kuser: And, uh, we're also, uh, setting it up where you can add in additional devices. It doesn't have to be just wireless devices. So if you want to add in, uh, audience microphones, you wanna monitor that. If you want to have tracks, we're gonna basically add in a dummy card or a blank card. Um, and then you can monitor the track audio within SoundBase.

So think of it

kind of like your playback.

[00:53:44] Andy Leviss: That's really handy. That's, yeah. I mean, that's always, the battle is like a good solution for Yeah, for like a two monitoring or stuff like that. And there's software, there's hardware, there's. You know, going through and, you know, some, some of the, like some of the show receivers can, you know, you can kind of patch 'em all together so you can use one of them to listen to all of them, but it's, you know, that takes a bit of config 'cause it's, you know, every, every rack is different.

So Yeah. Like one clean solution and that's tied in with the RF monitor and coordination workflow. That's, that's awesome. So I'm, I am excited to see that coming.

[00:54:17] Sean Walker: That's super dope. When is that Still End of year. You're thinking that's coming.

[00:54:21] Donny Kuser: Uh, we think it's gonna actually come sooner. We've already had, uh, some users testing it on shows. Um, so we want to debut it at NAB, um, and then we will probably slowly trickle it out from there.

[00:54:36] Andy Leviss: Right on. And so, and folks will be listening to this like the, the week or so before NAB. So, uh, you can, you can go there, uh, after you listen to this, if you're gonna be in it's, uh, NA B's in Vegas this year, right.

[00:54:47] Donny Kuser: Correct.

[00:54:48] Andy Leviss: Yeah. So you can go, go to Vegas and say, Hey, to the guys and, and, uh, see, uh, see if, uh, there are predictions for the future from when we recorded this a few weeks ago came true or not,

[00:54:57] Sean Walker: I love Vegas.

[00:55:00] Andy Leviss: we're not talking about it, Sean.

[00:55:01] Sean Walker: Only

[00:55:02] Andy Leviss: We weren't gonna talk

[00:55:02] Sean Walker: though. Your check liver light comes on. After a couple days though. You can't be hanging out too long.

[00:55:09] Andy Leviss: Um. I is there, I Is there anything El I mean, we're coming up nearly on an hour. Is there anything else, uh, you guys wanna want to hit on that we haven't yet, or?

[00:55:20] Donny Kuser: Um, I don't believe so, but I just wanna reiterate, uh, if you haven't tried SoundBase yet, uh, please sign up. Uh, create an account. It's free.

Try it out. Let us know what you don't like about it. If, if you have any hesitation, you know, we're a small team. It's just Matt, myself, and we've hired one developer.

So we're a small team of three that does everything. So, uh, if you reach out, it's gonna be, you're gonna be talking directly to us and, uh,

We're here

to listen to what you have to say about it and, you know, help us make sound, Bess better.

[00:55:53] Sean Walker: Dude, awesome.

[00:55:53] Andy Leviss: And if, if folks wanna learn more about how to use it, what's the, because I know over time kind of documentation and like videos and stuff have sort of evolved. What's the best. Place these days, uh, for folks to like learn about it.

[00:56:07] Donny Kuser: So, uh, right now we do have a Docs page that's currently being revised and we're adding a ton more content to. We're also creating a SoundBase academy. And we're gonna be putting training videos up there. And not all of it will even just be, uh, specifically for SoundBase. It may even include, uh, some training, uh, information on different manufacturers, wireless equipment. Um, and we've been working with different manufacturers on that. That's kind of been like the coolest part about. SoundBase is like we're working with all of these different manufacturers closely and, you know, trying to harmonize all the diff It is, it is something that I learned, uh, after starting SoundBase is how little the manufacturers actually communicate with one another and how like kind of broken or disjointed, like the tools are between one

another.

[00:56:52] Sean Walker: competitors. Why would they communicate? You know what I mean?

[00:56:54] Donny Kuser: Yeah. But I mean, I think that they all have a common goal of offering a better experience for their, uh, customers and, and it. From what we found, they're actually working with us, um,

and helping us

[00:57:05] Sean Walker: be optimistic, Donnie. That might be optimistic.

[00:57:08] Matt Dale: It's all rainbows over here. Rainbows and unicorn.

[00:57:10] Sean Walker: I love it. I love the Rainbows buddies. I love it.

[00:57:13] Donny Kuser: oh yeah, we wake up smiling, go to bed, smiling. It's

[00:57:16] Sean Walker: Yeah. Yeah, totally.

[00:57:17] Andy Leviss: I'm just picturing the old, uh, was it the Mario card? Uh, happy together, commercial from back in the day.

[00:57:22] Sean Walker: Yeah, right. Totally.

[00:57:24] Donny Kuser: But there are some, uh, like positives, like if you think about like a W com, they only, their software only works with Windows when they, you know, they work with SoundBase. their users have an option to. Use, uh, their devices with Mac,

uh, with Mac Os. And every manufacturer has gotten a little bit of a benefit from working with us.

But, uh, you know, we try to provide, they work with us, we try to provide stuff back to them,

and it's been really great, uh, uh, relationships with all of them.

[00:57:52] Sean Walker: I mean, once you take over the world, everybody will benefit from you working with you. 'cause then it will just be, this is how you do wireless on events.

[00:58:00] Andy Leviss: I mean, it's,

[00:58:01] Sean Walker: Full stop.

[00:58:01] Andy Leviss: wild the last few years. That's kind of what's happened with coordination. It went from like, I remember the first gig I was on like, I don't know, three or four years ago where I was like, oh, you know what? This is, you know, an easy enough gate. Let me, lemme try and do it in there and see if I have to then, you know, go back to IAS and I don't think I've opened IAS up since other than to like export something I.

[00:58:22] Donny Kuser: It is also a really good time too with SoundBase because this is like, if you're a RF tech right now, this is what a time to be alive. There is so much cool stuff that has come out in the past year or two. Um, so, you know, it's been really fun too for us on the software side, try to support these new. Uh, pieces of hardware from all these different manufacturers and everybody has their own way of doing it, you know, and their own flavors, but it's been really fun.

[00:58:49] Sean Walker: Dude, what a cool thing you guys have made. Thank you for fricking all the heartaches and ups and downs and outs to make something awesome and make our jobs easier. Dude, that's awesome you guys. Way to kick ass. I'm excited to dive deep into it.

[00:59:05] Matt Dale: Thank you guys, and thanks to our users. You know, we use them, not use them. We are helping

them create this tool, you know.

[00:59:12] Sean Walker: I feel so used right now. awesome. Well, fellas, thank you for coming and hanging out for the hour and talking about SoundBase and how to make freaking our production lives a little bit easier. We appreciate you. Thanks to Allen and Heath and RCF for letting us yap about audio for another hour.

That's the pod y'all. See you next week.

Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green