The Desire to Connect: Led by Patrick Finn, Product Manager for Minnesota based performing arts product giant Wenger Corporation, the team behind the cleverly named Lutefish is comprised of musicians familiar with the frustrations of connecting in person to write, jam, rehearse and prepare for live gigs. Even outside the pandemic era, everyone juggles busy work and family lives, encounters scheduling issues, worries about commuting time and the time consuming process of loading and unloading gear - and simply carving out enough time to create musical magic together. Physical rehearsal spaces are often either fully booked or cost prohibitive. As the Lutefish site says, “Sometimes it feels like the universe is conspiring against your next jam session.” And of course, the same scheduling issues applies to private teachers and young students living busy lives or residing too far apart.
The Vision Realized: The Lutefish team asks us to imagine—and delivers mightily upon—a better, more efficient world where musicians can jam with bandmates via 48K audio and ultra-low latency, even if they’re hundreds of miles apart. They’ve also devised a technological format that allows users to record, store and share their performances. Acknowledging that finding the perfect musical mates to play or form bands with is also a great challenge, Lutefish complements their revolutionary technology with a community for musicians looking to collaborate, find gigs and grow their network. To become a member, please click the Musician Community tab on the homepage.
The Lutefish Stream: No, it’s not a natural waterway from which to draw Scandinavian whitefish, but the core technology which drives the Lutefish vision of perfect connectivity and timekeeping. The Lutefish Stream is an apparatus that cuts down audio delay for remote music session by directly connecting audio sources, networks and outputs, enabling sound to travel incredibly fast, up to 30 ms or less—so even sessions up to 500 miles apart can sound like its participants are 30 feet apart on a big stage or rehearsing in a garage. Lutefish uses a direct Ethernet connection from the user’s router to the stream, which allows them to bypass home WiFi and additional computer software that often creates lag challenges for those trying to keep everything in perfect time.
Quote from Patrick Finn: “Our internal software and hardware teams developed this product to enable users to keep latency to a minimum. It captures the audio, sends it through the internet and captures the audio back so the sounds can mix together. We’ve built a Zoom-like interface so everyone can see each other, as well as tabs to adjust all levels. We understand people feeling it’s too good to be true because trying it over platforms like Zoom involves a second and a half delay that makes keeping the beat impossible. So we encourage people to check it out and see and hear for themselves!”
Contact Lutefish, 507-704-4507
