Getting Started With Rehearsal Live Share

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Basics

To start an RLS session, simply select menu Tools → Live Share in the underlying app (e.g. RMS Coach).

This will bring up a list of people associated with your booking, your Cast. To guard against unwanted access, only established cast members can participate in a session. There is a circle next to each cast members name. If the circle is green, the person is available online. Click on a name and click the Start Rehearsal button. The person on the other side will receive an invite notification, which he or she must accept to join the session.

It's important to understand the roles associated with an RLS session. The person who initiates is considered the Director. Everyone else is a Participant. The director controls the backing music for all participants. S/he will hear a synchronized signal of all participant audio, together with the accompaniment. The director can comment to participants in real-time - but is not meant to perform along in any way. Participants hear the accompaniment along with any director comments, but not other participants in real-time. Participants may adjust their relative mix in the RLS Mixer view, but otherwise will not interact with the RMS Coach playhead.

There are three views selectable from the upper right corner of the RLS window:

Gallery - This is similar to other video conferencing apps, with everyone's video feed arranged in a grid pattern.
Director - In this view, all participants will always see the director in the foremost position. The director meanwhile will see the person with the main audio signal. In the case of simultaneous participant voices, arrow buttons allow the director to navigate to other participants.
Mixer - This displays everybody on a separate a mixer channel, which may be adjusted independently. There is also a channel for the backing accompaniment. Altogether, this gives all involved a way to set a customized mix for the session.

Participants have a Leave Rehearsal button. When they click it, they leave the session, which then still continues. The Director has an End Rehearsal button. When they click it, the session ends for everyone.

Best Practices

Internet service will affect RLS performance. We did the majority of our testing with broadband speeds of about 100 Mbps. We consider this to be the average wifi speed for good performance. Remember too that if multiple people/devices are using the same broadband connection at once, it will diminish the available service for RLS.

Quit out of other music programs (e.g. Pro Tools, Mainstage, Logic) before starting an RLS session.

Everybody should use headphones when working with RLS. This will ensure the cleanest signal is blended together. It's especially important that the director does so. Otherwise, there will be a feedback loop between the director's playback and the participants' audio signals.

When using bluetooth headphones, it may be necessary to switch the input source manually to an alternate source, such as your computer's internal mic. Bluetooth headphones are often not suitable for music making.

If you're using the internal microphone of a Windows laptop, you may run into a choppy vocal performance while using RLS. Here's how to handle that.

Known Issues

With our May 31, 2020 beta launch, RLS is only available for one-on-one sessions. Multi participant functionality is coming later in June.
We are tracking down a bug that sometimes interferes with the network's ability to recognize available participants. If this happens to you, simply quit and relaunch the program. We found the problem is fixed on the second try.
Lower end graphics processors on certain Windows machines can crash RLS. Let us know if this happens to you. We can generally build in exceptions that handle the given graphics processor on a case by case basis.