jamming program?

frankenjazz · #1 09-23-2010, 01:06 PM

hey all to make a long story short me and a couple of guys i used to be in a band with have all recently reconnected and wanna play together again, problem is we all live in diffrent states, is there any program we can use to jam together in real time and possibly record at the same time??

warnergt · #2 09-23-2010, 01:19 PM

Yes, there is.
http://www.ejamming.com/

LB75 · #3 09-23-2010, 07:12 PM

I've been wondering if something like this exists, cool that it does, I'll have to give it a try.

frankenjazz:

when you play a Dream Theater song as an encore and expect to get laid after the gig.

What?

Stumbo · #4 09-23-2010, 07:32 PM

Dream Teather?

NateS · #5 09-23-2010, 07:39 PM

it's from the "you know your band is lame when...' thread, i recognize it.

LB75 · #6 09-23-2010, 08:04 PM

ahh... that makes more sense. There is also something called ninjam that's free and works with Reaper.

frankenjazz · #7 09-24-2010, 01:16 PM

yea i found it hilarious but i coudnt fit the whole thing in the quote box oh well

frankenjazz · #8 09-24-2010, 01:22 PM

i just went on the website and from the layout and presentaion is looks almost too good to be true, any feedback on it?

Lexicon · #9 09-24-2010, 01:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by frankenjazz

i just went on the website and from the layout and presentaion is looks almost too good to be true, any feedback on it?

I don't know about how it is now but previously I had read that the issue with ejamming is latency. Even that can depend on how far away you are from someone. Jamming with someone one state over will be less of an issue than trying to jam with some on the other side of the country.

Lexicon · #10 09-24-2010, 01:50 PM

Here is an article from 2007. I think this is waht I had read. Still sounds promising.

http://www.technologyreview.com/web/18783/?a=f

This is a newer article:

http://www.musicradar.com/news/guita...-audiio-233808

LB75 · #11 09-25-2010, 02:06 PM

From the small amount I have read so far ninjam is supposed to be better in the latency department than ejamming.

jkramer5 · #12 09-25-2010, 02:15 PM

Ninjam and ejamming work completely different. In Ninjam you play with a buffer, set by how many beats the are before the metronome begins again at bar 1 beat one, there for, you never hear any other players "live" If your set up correctly and have no local audio latency you won't hear any because everyone is behind the person that started by the same amount of bpi. You're basically playing to a loop and everything you hear was created the last time around, except what you are playing. It can be great or it can be boring depending on what the other people are playing. It's free, has the advantage of loading as a plugin in reaper, which brings the use of VST's and VSTI's to bear. It records the whole jam, every player, to a separate track, which can be opened later in reaper for editing etc. You can also run your own server if so inclined.

Ejamming doesn't use the same tech and you play "live to what you hear" nothing is synched to a metronome and there are no "repeats". They don't work the same at all. Ejamming has it's own issues, poor support, it requires port forwarding, and is somewhat buggy, especially for something that's a paid service. There aren't many users altho the company tries some small marketing events to get more, they don't seem to get people to stay. User retention is pretty poor. That said, I've been a subscriber for a long time, and find it very useful for what I use it for. YMMV

In ninjam your locked to the set beat, you can't speed up, slow down, or change keys freely, in ejamming you can do all that and more, but your hindered by the internet latency between you and anyone else in the session. Sometimes it's great, sometimes it's not, but internet lag is beyond the softwares control, so u get what u get so to speak.

Ejamming has a free 30 day trial, give it a shot and see if you find it useful. Ninjam is totally free and can also be quite rewarding. I use em both, a lot, and find them both to be useful for what they are designed to do.

LB75 · #13 09-25-2010, 02:38 PM

Thanks for the perspective. I didn't realize that ninjam wasn't "live". I'm going to try them both out.

jkramer5 · #14 09-25-2010, 05:14 PM

Good for you, either community can use more people. Hope ya have fun, my username is the same on either one. Feel free to hit me up if I can help you with anything

Andy_D · #15 09-26-2010, 04:49 PM

I use Ninjam all the time It's blast and yes we could always use more people so tell your friends. Some links for you.

http://forum.cockos.com/forumdisplay.php?f=10

http://www.ninjam.com/

http://www.reaper.fm/

http://ninjamers.spruz.com/

http://ninbot.com/

Check out some of the jams going on. there are some real talented and experienced people to jam with as well as noobs. A pretty full spectrum of experience and styles. I have a lot of fun there.

Good luck.

DUC1098 · #16 09-26-2010, 04:57 PM

You can try pinging each others internet address, that will give you an idea of what kind of latency to expect. Don't recall offhand how to ping, but you should be able to find it on a Google search.

jkramer5 · #17 09-26-2010, 07:37 PM

Ejamming displays the latency, for ninjam it doesn't really matter.

frankenjazz · #18 09-27-2010, 10:20 AM

i live in florida the guitarist lives in hawaii and the drummer is in michgan....i take it the lag will be considerable

LB75 · #19 09-27-2010, 12:23 PM

I tried ninjam and it was pretty cool. Setup in Reaper was extremely easy. There weren't many people online at the time but I'm definitely going to try again.

jkramer5 · #20 09-27-2010, 12:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by frankenjazz

i live in florida the guitarist lives in hawaii and the drummer is in michgan....i take it the lag will be considerable

It is what it is. Give it a try. In a 2 person session the lag will only be one way. Say the drummer starts (this is the best method with a live drummer, have him set and hold the tempo) Then you play to him. You won't hear any lag at all, or at least you shouldn't. For all practicality, what you're doing in this example is no different than playing to a mp3 or audio from the web, you hear a beat and play to it, you should hear yourself in tempo. If you do hear latency in this example, it's local on your computer. An adjustment to you audio interfaces buffer should fix it.

The guy on the other end however, the drummer in this example, will hear a lag in what you play. The latency will effect what you are sending to him. His natural inclination will be to slow down to match you, and then you will sow down to match him and so on. If he can, have him resist matching what he hears from you. Drummers have it the hardest on Ejamming and it can be very frustrating for them, understandably so. since it uses a p2p technology for the audio and not a centralized server to buffer all the streams and synch them, I honestly don't see how it can ever be lag free. The internet has lag, it takes time for data to go from one point to another.

The Ninjam method all but removes this problem, but in doing so , makes for a much more rigid jam format. Changing keys and tempos is all but impossible on the fly. Hopefully one day, some smart person wil figure out a solution and we'll all get to do realtime playing with anyone on the globe. The fun I've had woth both softwares with people I'd have never gotten to play with, even with the current issues, has made me want more and better.