SEKAI NO OWARI embraces immersive in-ear monitoring with KLANG

Originally translated and released by Hibino Intersound

Live concerts today rely on advanced production techniques, and the task of delivering in-ear monitoring has become increasingly complex with ever growing channel counts. We spoke with monitor engineer Mr. Ryo Kazama of DELTA LIVE SOUND INC. about SEKAI NO OWARI’s adoption of KLANG’s immersive in-ear mixing and how it helped in delivering a less complex, more natural and stress-free IEM experience. 

One of the key challenges for SEKAI NO OWARI’s tour crew was optimizing the in-ear monitor environment during live performances and helping the players to fully focus on their performance and not their in-ear mix.

It’s the monitor engineer’s goal to create a stress-free monitoring environment while maintaining a clear and balanced mix, but as the number of instruments changed with each song and arrangements grew more complex, traditional console processing began to show its limits. Volume levels were inconsistent, clarity suffered, and a new and improved approach became necessary.

To solve this, the SEKAI NO OWARI’s audio team introduced DMI-KLANG, delivering low-latency, high-resolution immersive IEM mixes, redefining monitor mixes for the musicians on stage.

Ryo Kazama commented on the benefits: 

„KLANG goes way beyond the traditional stereo mixing concept and can create a flexible immersive mix for each player. By spatially placing signals to the artists preference, you can entirely customize how things are heard, and that capability is excellent. In short: KLANG transforms the mix into one that is easier to process by the artist’s brain.

Each artist has personal preferences for how they want things to sound, and there are aspects of existing IEM setups they want to improve or keep unchanged. This flexibility makes KLANG the problem solver we needed for our challenges.” 

Custom immersive mixes help in delivering a mix easier to process by the artist’s brain and sound at comfortable levels, reducing hearing fatigue. As a result, longstanding issues – such as poor intelligibility and the tendency to raise overall volume – were fundamentally improved, allowing players to concentrate more on their performance.

Even when venue conditions change, the system only requires minor mix adjustments to get up and running smoothly, so overall on‑site efficiency and quality have greatly improved with KLANG.

According to Kazama, KLANG not only solved long-standing clarity issues but also enhanced the entire workflow, enhancing the experience for both crew and performers.

To support stadium-scale productions, the team upgraded from DMI-KLANG to KLANG:konductor, which offers up to 128 input channels. Integrated into the Optocore loop, this allows great flexibility for future expansion. With its flexible routing, engineers can route instruments directly or via group processing before creating immersive mixes. Its 128-channel capacity also allows for direct mixing without pre-grouping.

Kazama shared his experience on the upgrade: 

Reflecting on the experience, Kazama was impressed by the impact KLANG made on the tour’s monitoring workflow:“Honestly, I was surprised at how dramatically the monitoring environment improved. The importance of monitoring on site goes without saying, but how you solve those issues with technology greatly affects the quality of the live show. The adoption of KLANG was not merely an equipment upgrade but a project that evolved the very ‘freedom of monitoring,’” 

“The migration from DMI-KLANG to :konductor went seamless. You simply load the show file from KLANG as is, and that’s it. No conversion work was required, so we were able to finish the task with almost no workload on us monitor engineers. I think a major benefit is that we could move our existing workflow directly to a more powerful system seamlessly.”

In live environments that are becoming increasingly complex and large‑scale, flexible and immersive monitoring tools like KLANG are essential.