Festival season has officially kicked off in Austria, and one of my first deployments this year was Gmunden Rockt, an open-air festival welcoming around 8,000 visitors and featuring Sportfreunde Stiller, Josh & RIAN, folkshilfe, and Melissa Naschenweng.
For this production, we deployed a fully Milan-based L-Acoustics PA system. While Milan brings significant advantages in terms of interoperability and networked audio distribution, it also introduces some practical challenges when integrating sources and workflows that don't natively support the protocol.
One of those challenges is playback. As system engineers, we regularly need to get measurement signals, tuning material, and soundcheck music onto the network. That's exactly where the JOYNED MU16 proved its value during this event.
The System
The PA deployment consisted of:
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2 × L-Acoustics P1
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4 × L-Acoustics L2
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2 × L-Acoustics L2D
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8 × L-Acoustics LS10 switches
At front-of-house, a Yamaha DM7 console was integrated into the system via a PreSonus AVB-D16, allowing Dante-based console signals to be transported into the Milan network.
The Benefits and Challenges of Native Milan
One of the key strengths of the latest L-Acoustics ecosystem is its native support for Milan. Once signals are inside the network, routing and distribution become highly streamlined, enabling a clean and deterministic audio infrastructure across the entire system.
In practice, however, not every device in a production environment supports Milan natively.
Many mixing consoles still operate in Dante, while other sources may arrive via analog or AES3 connections. Integrating these formats into a Milan-based PA requires reliable conversion solutions.
For analog and AES3 sources, the L-Acoustics P1 provides a convenient bridge. However, one practical limitation is that the P1 can only subscribe to a single network input stream. During festival productions with guest engineers and varying input requirements, additional flexibility can be highly valuable.
This is where the PreSonus AVB-D16 proved particularly useful. Besides providing Dante-to-Milan conversion, it also expanded the available input options for the system. Thanks to its built-in asynchronous sample rate conversion (ASRC) between Dante and Milan, integrating the Yamaha DM7 became a straightforward process without introducing clocking concerns or synchronization headaches.
The combination of the P1, AVB-D16, and Milan-native loudspeaker infrastructure created a flexible foundation for the entire festival workflow.
Bringing Playback into the Milan Network
While source integration is largely solved today, playback has remained a more challenging area.
Whether it's system optimization, verification, or virtual soundcheck preparation, engineers frequently need to play audio directly from a computer into the network. Compared to other audio networking ecosystems, native playback options for Milan have been limited.
The JOYNED MU16 addresses exactly this challenge.
By providing direct conversion between USB Audio and Milan, the MU16 allowed me to connect my laptop directly to the network and immediately access the entire Milan infrastructure for measurement and playback tasks.
Measurement and Soundcheck Workflows
Throughout the festival, the MU16 was used to transport both measurement signals and soundcheck music into the Milan network.
A particular advantage was the ability to transfer these signals without introducing sample rate conversion. Maintaining a transparent signal path is especially important when working with measurement software, where consistency and accuracy are critical.
The setup was straightforward: connect via USB, route the required channels, and immediately make playback available anywhere within the Milan environment.
For day-to-day system engineering work, that level of simplicity makes a noticeable difference.
Integrating SPL Logging
Beyond playback, the MU16 was also incorporated into the event's SPL monitoring workflow.
The PA signal was integrated into the SPL logging system alongside the microphone preamps of the P1 and four measurement microphones. This provided a comprehensive overview of both system output and environmental measurements throughout the event.
Having all relevant signals available within the same networked infrastructure simplified monitoring and documentation while keeping the workflow organized and efficient.
Recording Through Milan
In addition to measurement and monitoring tasks, the MU16 was used to record signals from the PreSonus AVB-D16.
Because the MU16 functions as a direct bridge between USB Audio and Milan, recording network audio into a standard computer-based environment became a straightforward process. No additional interfaces or complex routing solutions were required, making it easy to capture the required signals directly from the network.
Conclusion
As Milan adoption continues to grow across professional live sound systems, practical tools that connect external workflows to the network become increasingly important.
At Gmunden Rockt, the combination of a native Milan-based L-Acoustics system, the PreSonus AVB-D16 for Dante integration, and the JOYNED MU16 for USB audio connectivity created a flexible and efficient workflow for playback, measurement, SPL logging, and recording.
For me, the MU16 solved one of the most common challenges in today's Milan environments: getting audio in and out of the network quickly, transparently, and without unnecessary complexity.
— Sebastian Wandinger, Systems Engineer
