Source Intelligence
Vocal Clarity. Creative Freedom.
What is Source Intelligence?
Source Intelligence is a real‑time vocal enhancement technology that isolates the human voice from background noise, using a unique source separation algorithm. Running on the trusted L‑ISA Processor II Core, it removes crowd noise, instrument bleed, PA spill, and room reflections.
Source Intelligence delivers clearer, more intelligible vocals without the need for aggressive EQ, gates, thresholds, or reactive processing. This results in dramatically increased gain before feedback, and a crystal clear vocal mix that loses none of the emotional impact or intimacy of the performance.
With greater vocal isolation and unrivalled audio quality, engineers gain the freedom to mix more creatively, while performers and presenters have the freedom to move anywhere on stage – even in front of the PA – without sacrificing clarity, presence, or risk of feedback.
Applications
Redefining Vocal Clarity — Live.
Quality
A strong mix starts with clear, controlled vocals. Source intelligence reduces noise, bleed, and unwanted stage sound at the microphone, delivering a clean input signal from the outset. With less corrective processing required, engineers can spend less time fixing and more time mixing.
Reliability
Source Intelligence runs on the L‑ISA Processor II Core – a platform engineered for creatively demanding touring and installation environments. Its performance is stable, dependable, and extensively validated via hundreds of hours of continuous testing and real‑world deployments with leading FOH engineers.
Simplicity
Source Intelligence is intentionally designed for the realities of live sound: fast setup, intuitive controls, and minimal tuning. There are no thresholds, ratios, or complex menus to navigate – just straightforward channel routing and settings. The result is consistent, high-quality output via a simpler, more efficient workflow.
Who Benefits from Source Intelligence?
Eliminates stage noise, crowd noise, and PA spill so that even the most intimate vocal performances can be heard with clarity and emotional impact.
Eliminates PA bleed, allowing performers to express themselves without boundaries. Mic feedback is a thing of the past – even when performing on innovative staging setups that place performers in front of the PA.
Source Intelligence removes all unwanted sounds from the vocal, allowing engineers to get creative with their vocal mix rather than focusing on corrective treatment.
Source Intelligence gives sound and stage designers free reign to innovate. Placing performers anywhere on stage without risk of feedback or stage noise.
Applications
Touring
“Source Intelligence allows me a vocal sound like no other. It’s basically studio quality vocals now, which changes the game completely… Don’t WAIT. Because the engineers using it will always have an advantage over you.”
- Joey Diehl (FOH Benson Boone)
Musicals
“It gave me peace of mind that the actors’ mics weren’t going to run away from me. I knew that I could leave mics open when I would typically be much more careful with an omnidirectional mic on the actor.”
- Cody Spencer (Sound Designer “Dog Day Afternoon”)
House of Worship
“[Source Intelligence] allows us to get the gain we want out of the mic without worrying about either feedback or other stage noise that can impact the mix when you have the vocal sitting where you want it.”
- Luke Roetman (Applications Director, North Point Ministries)
The Magic Behind Source Intelligence
Intuitive Controls
- Four instances.
- Independent controls for refinement of high and low frequency content.
- Input/Output via MADI, AVB, or AES.
Unrivaled Performance
- Up to 40 dB of non-voice signal reduction.
- Consistently rated the highest quality output in blind tests.
- Hundreds of hours of continuous testing with no reduction in audio quality.
Optimized for Live Sound
- Latency of under 8.5 ms.
- Designed for seamless integration in L-Acoustics systems only.
- Extensively validated on major tours and productions, with no perceived impact on performance.
Source Intelligence in the News
Frequently Asked Questions
When answering this question, it’s important to remember that “zero latency” is a marketing term rather than a scientific fact. True “zero latency” does not exist in live audio because it is physically impossible to process audio signals instantly. End-to-end, the latency introduced by Source Intelligence is under 8.5ms over MADI. During its development, we ran extensive real-world tests with some of the most high-profile and demanding live sound engineers in the world. Their feedback was unanimous and clear – that this was within tolerable limits for use at FOH, given the exceptionally high quality of the resulting vocal.
Sound Intelligence greatly reduces the risk of feedback by removing non-voice signals by up to 40dB, including ringing, which can often turn into feedback. Source Intelligence achieves this by continuously processing the incoming signal and applying a proprietary machine learning algorithm to identify and isolate the vocal, removing all extraneous sound from the signal.
Sound Intelligence’s algorithm can also remove other non-vocal signals by up to 40dB, including bleed from the PA, room reverb, crowd noise, or even aggressive on-stage sounds such as live drums or guitar. There are no other products on the market with comparable performance.
Across multiple blind listening tests against leading noise suppression tools, Source Intelligence was consistently rated the best-sounding option, delivering significantly greater noise reduction while maintaining the same voice quality.
License activation is performed identically to L-ISA Controller, via the main menu in the software, select ‘Show License info’ and enter your Activation key. To remove a license from a computer, in this same menu, select ‘Release License.’
This product runs on a reliable hardware platform that has been thoroughly tested. We’ve run an extensive test grid that covers both audio quality and reliability. Source Intelligence has been lab-tested and extensively field-tested, including processing the main artist on multiple A-List arena and amphitheater tours, and tested at major events before launch.
Yes, there is PSU redundancy, Network Audio redundancy, and redundant control of multiple processors, offering full DSP redundancy.
To validate the system, the user must scan the network and identify at least 3 L-Acoustics Amplified Controllers. This can be performed from within the L-ISA Controller. Any current Amplified Controller is accepted: LA4X, LA12X, LA2Xi, LA7.16(i), LA1.16i
Yes, Source Intelligence requires a firmware update, but it will include L-ISA, so it’s the same as any other L-ISA update. This one update will include all updates for Source Intelligence and L-ISA.
No, at this time, an L-ISA Processor II can run either Source Intelligence or L-ISA, but not both simultaneously.
At this time, it is focused on voice; a customer can place this in the path of a single vocal channel, or on a group wherein multiple vocal channels feed it, such as in a corporate workflow: a group for handhelds, a group for lavaliers, and a group for headsets, allowing them to process more than 4 individual voices, but through 4 channels.