Double Bass Interface? Mics? Zoom? What gear do I need to record upright w/ jazz quartet

[Richard Simon]

Brethren/Sistren,

Just got a call, sans details, to take part in a COVID-era remote jazz recording.

Of course I accepted - not knowing a thing about what gear I will need, and having no image of the logistics.

They say that "latency" is the enemy of real-time remote ensemble recording. Is there a workaround for latency - other than psychotherapy?

Is Zoom the go-to platform for recording music? Would, say, the pianist and I try to play through a tune in sync as a unit, and the others record to our track later?

Will a Shure vocal mic plugged into an interface capture decent upright sound, or will I be able to plug in my Lifeline pickup into the interface?

Your guidance is appreciated.

 

[equill]

There's one solution to latency that I know of, and one workaround when it gets too high.
The solution is to change the speed of light, and the workaround is to record your parts separately.
I'm not being facetious, either: I'm a network engineer by profession. Distance multiplied by speed-of-light is one of the ever-present factors in my working life.

A Zoom recorder will get the job done for a demo, but for anything beyond that I'll defer to people with more experience with serious recording.

 

[Wasnex]

Brethren/Sistren,

Just got a call, sans details, to take part in a COVID-era remote jazz recording.

Of course I accepted - not knowing a thing about what gear I will need, and having no image of the logistics.

They say that "latency" is the enemy of real-time remote ensemble recording. Is there a workaround for latency - other than psychotherapy?

Is Zoom the go-to platform for recording music? Would, say, the pianist and I try to play through a tune in sync as a unit, and the others record to our track later?

Will a Shure vocal mic plugged into an interface capture decent upright sound, or will I be able to plug in my Lifeline pickup into the interface?

Your guidance is appreciated.

I can't imagine there will be solution for latency any time soon. It would not be too bad if we only had to deal with the time it takes for signals to go the distance at the speed of light. I found a page online that says, "Light travels at a constant, finite speed of 186,000 mi/sec. A traveler, moving at the speed of light, would circumnavigate the equator approximately 7.5 times in one second." I believe latency does not become a problem until it gets a bit over 10ms, so I don't think the speed of light is really the problem over fairly large distances. But the internet has lot's of bottlenecks that slow down the transfer of data. Keep in mind to record simultaneously with two people in real time, data must be traveling in two directions, which further compounds the problem. The signal goes from A to B and also B to A. If either has a delay it will create a domino effect that causes problems on both ends because the players are listening to each other and trying to play together. If the signal you are playing to is delayed, you will play late, so the signal you send back will be delayed even if there is no delay on your line.

I believe the solution will be for each instrument to be recorded one at a time. Of course if two people or more people are in the same place they can all be recorded simultaneously, so it's really each location is recorded one at at time.

Also one location could record and stream to another location. Then the second location could play along, but the latency would prevent the first location from being able to monitor the second location in real time. Recording with a live stream is probably not the best way to go about it as there is probably a good chance the audio will glitch and cause timing errors.

Depending upon the music it will most likely be helpful for the first tracks to be recorded with a click track. The click is just used as a time reference.

In order to do this sort of project, I believe you will need a computer audio interface, a decent mic, and software that allows you to simultaneously play, monitor, and record. You will need the ability to listen to another recording and possibly a click track while you lay down your track.

Ideally you would use a nice studio mic. Since this is not available, if you get a recording interface that can handle recording two tracks simultaneously, then you can record both your Lifeline and the vocal mic. Both of the signals can be processed separately and the Lifeline will need to be time delayed a bit. Without the time alignment there will be phase errors between the two signals that will cause comb filtering. I believe most DAWs can do this.

Another thing you will probably need to work out is the file format to make the recording in. This may inform the decision on the type of interface and software you need, but I am far from an expert on these matters.
I would suggest doing some experiments with the vocal mic to see where it sounds best.

I would not be surprised if something like a Focusrite Scarlett Solo has everything you need, but this is by no means a recommendation. Probably the best thing you can do it ask the people you are working with for advice on the type of gear you need to capture the recording.

 

[Ric Vice]

Well, here’s what I have currently, but I’m not even attempting to record music. Zoom is not designed for recording over the internet, you wold not be able to use it. I have a Razer Kayio video camera. You could record separately and edit the parts together. There are Internet Service Providers that offer higher upload speeds which will help but even then, because of the way data is sent in packets over the internet it’s a crapshoot. I know studios in Hollywood are currently recording soundtracks remotely and assembling them. You'd also need a room
that would have some isolation and likely a different microphone than the Shure. Realists sound pretty awful into DAW's, microphones are the to record.

 

[Don Hergert]

There are two online music oriented services that I know people are using. One is Jamulus and the other is JamKazam.

I don't have any personal experience with Jamulus but my understanding is that it requires that you create a server on your own hardware that your jamming group can use, and that it's very good for small groups (3-5) where everyone is within short distance of each other.

I use JamKazam for a little over an hour every day jamming with a group that is mostly confined to North America (all-over). JamKazam provides their own servers and is very feature rich, but not well documented so a person sort of has to learn by the seat of their pants. Being feature-rich, JamKazam tends to be very techy, requiring a fair amount of time and experimenting to get setup optimally, and depending on when updates have been distributed and on how many people are using the service at the same time, may suffer from instability.

(JamKazam does have a user group forum and there are a lot of very experienced users with their experiential knowledge base, but there is little if any actual representation from JamKazam staff so much of the information that is passed around there is assumed to be accurate but is not necessarily backed up by actual developer's knowledge.)

The big enemies of both of these services are complicated setup and latency. My understanding is that Jamulus is easier to setup, but it has more limitations to distance and the number of users than JamKazam. Both services strongly encourage wired Ethernet connections to a router and ISP (no wireless). Both services can work with or without specific sound interfaces for those systems (ie: laptops) that have their own internal sound setups. JamKazam works with either Windows or MacOS, Jamulus works with Windows, MacOS and Linux.

Regarding latency, milliseconds (ms) count, and the two main sources of latency are hardware and distance. As mentioned earlier, we are talking about the speed of light over distance here. You can come close to reducing hardware latency, but distance latency is fixed based on the speed of light and the length of wire between you and the servers involved, and the next person playing music with you. You can usually assume a minimum of 3ms of latency for every 100 miles, so for example from L.A. to New York, at about 2800 miles, a ping runs an average minimum latency of 68ms. A 16th note at 120bps is 125ms, so considering that you have bidirectional sound going back and forth between people and everyone has their own hardware latency too, true latency can easily be longer than a 16th note. So in reality having a 16th or even longer notes difference between you and the next person playing is pretty common, especially if you're working with continental distances.

I love using JamKazam (when it's stable) for jamming, but this is also a social occasion and for the most part people are non-critical and just happy to be jamming. And btw, while JamKazam can deal with both audio and video, almost no one uses video because it adds so much latency. While JamKazam has a recording feature, it does not compensate for distance latency, so any serious efforts need to be heavily tweaked by someone with sound/video -tech software and ability. Long and the short of it -- I wouldn't recommend either JamKazam or Jamulus for producing a serious musical audio or audio/video product of any kind. And this is primarily due to latency.

If you and your group are serious about a pro-level musical product, I'd suggest not trying to play as a concurrently synchronized group, but instead record separately using either a rhythm track or a startup recording, and then hire/assign a sound or sound/video technician to take each of your individual recordings and formally splice them together. To minimize complication, have the tech specify what kinds of files you need to submit and have the tech recommend video, microphone and interface related hardware that you need to use.

During this time in particular, this kind of need is very common. Unfortunately professional quality solutions are not easy to find. Good luck with this!

 

[Ed Fuqua]

Check out a post by @Chris Fitzgerald, it has pretty good approach for collaging seperate individual performances together while maintaining a pretty interactive level of improvisation. Somebody in the group (or group adjacent) needs to have good video editing chops. The times I've done this (though not to the level of Chris' efforts) I just used my iPhone to capture the vid and sound...

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

@Ed Fuqua Here's the post you are referring to: YOU - on youtube (DB forum thread)

I'll also try to attach a recording guide I recently put together for this sort of thing. Good luck!

 

[DoubleMIDI]

There is one more tool, SoundJack (www.soundjack.eu).
The problem with any of these tools is that to keep the latency small, UDP is used for transport which means that packets can get lost. If too many packets get lost or at a large amplitude you will get dropouts and more or less loud impulses.

Some weeks ago there was a video at the starting page of SoundJack (no longer there, maybe in a different subpage) with two musicians (I think both living in Vienna), a saxophone player and a accordion player who did an amazing video.
But they used tricks to make it. They used SoundJack to play synchronized (using a Focusrite Scarlett Interface), but at the same time recorded the microphone sound on each end with a second computer (it is not a good idea to do both on one machine as you get more dropouts). Then they transferred one of the recordings to the other person to combine both.
There is still the problem of different sample clocks during the both recordings, so the length (and pitch) needs to be adjusted to be synced during the whole piece. They also recorded video, so they are both visible during their original playing.

Latency is a big problem. The computer has latency due to other processes interrupting, routers and repeaters have latency, packets might get delayed or rerouted due to high packet traffic.
The internal machine latency could be dropped to 5 to 6 ms, the route to the mirror in Nürnberg (which is about 400 km from me) takes about 24 to 26 ms (reducing the number of packet buffers to two in both cases).
The guys from Vienna were in the same town and used the same internet provider and got a latency from a bit more than 10 ms.
Macintosh computers have a bit less latency (with a CoreAudio driver) than Windows machines with an ASIO driver.

Also the buffer size is important. A small buffer size helps reducing latency, but puts a lot more load on the machine. That can lead to dropped packets too and it depends on the interface and driver how low you can go.
number of participants is limited to about 6 other players or a mix down server (adding more latency) is needed. Also a more or less fast internet connection for all participants (in and out!).

A synchronized metronome is planned for SoundJack, but not realized yet.

To use the standard connection with SoundJack, a router needs to forward UDP port 50050 to the IP address of the SoundJack machine. There are hints on the website how to do that.
This is not needed for the mix down server, but that adds delay. (BTW, each participant can make his SoundJack to a mix down server, no need to use a distant public one.)

Video is possible but better not used (experimental, high traffic or bad image quality).

The Focusrite (Solo is enough, maybe add an impedance buffer if using a piezo pickup) are the best small interface with a good quality, the Behringer UR-series is a cheap alternative with low latency, but with a less good mic audio quality (but instrument and line input might be OK).

My MOTU FireWire interfaces work as well as the Focusrite. But on a Windows machine you need a good FireWire interface (TI or Ricoh, not VIA or NEC) and even then it doesn’t work as well as on a Macintosh. For Windows the Focusrite works a bit better.

My Zoom B2.1 works as an interface too, but has the original sound on the headphones too. On the Mac I can use different input and output (not possible with the ASIO Windows driver), so I can route the output to the internal Mac headphones, but to talk I have to switch between Zoom and internal mic which is no fun with the bass.
I have heard (but not tested myself) that the latency of a Zoom field recorder is too large to use it as an interface for live music.

So things are possible, but technically demanding.

You can try SoundJack with internal audio first. Works well on the Mac and not too bad on a Windows machine with ASIO4ALL. No need to buy anything. Sing or clap (or play) to find out if sync works. If you use a mic you need headphones to avoid feedback.

The author of SoundJack is currently on vacation. But there is a chat window in SoundJack and users try to help.

Due to Alexander Carot, the author, who wrote his doctoral dissertation about real-time network audio collaboration, the maximum distance is 700 km. But time delay by routing in the network transfer can reduce that a lot.

 

[AGCurry]

Regarding latency, milliseconds (ms) count, and the two main sources of latency are hardware and distance.

I would say that, actually, software is a greater source of latency than hardware. If I could run a straight wire from Chicago to Dallas, you and I could pretty much play together over telephones at each end. But how many routers and switches are involved in an internet connection, not to mention personal computers at each end and a website that provides the collaboration? Each of those devices runs software, none of which is truly real time.

 

[Don Hergert]

Yea, I was sort of clumping all the stuff from ISP to ISP in the hardware group, although you're exactly right, there's a lot of software involved with all of the routers and switches that exist in between our personal routers.

Regarding personal workstation hardware and software and personal routers, some of the configuration is within "normal" user control, but of course not all of it. And even if it was easily available, most of the people I jam regularly with on JamKazam don't know much about optimizing their workstations for audio and would prefer not to worry about it -- they just want to jam. And given the lack of real documentation, it's hard to know what should really help and what shouldn't.

 

[Sean Riddle]

Notes on telematic music production (Dessen)
For dealing with latency, this is probably the best solution we'll have at our immediate disposal for now, a software called JackTrip. Michael Dessen has worked a lot with Mark Dresser on better understanding how to play "live" with people through the internet. Using JackTrip on your personal computer with an ethernet cable will probably work best around a distance of 500 miles if I remember right.

I did a session over Zoom before and we all recorded the audio separately on a DAW (digital audio workspace, i.e. Garage Band, Pro Tools, etc) to try and beat the compression inherent in Zoom's audio. The session turned out ok though, but we we were all pretty far apart. You may be fine latency wise if you're recording with someone in the LA/SoCal area and all have a stable internet connection, hopefully through an ethernet cable.

As for the mic, I'm not an engineer but I'm sure that Shure mic will be more than fine into an interface! I got an AKG C214 for recording when the pandemic began. I spent sometime trying out different locations in my room to try and find the best spot for me and my bass and the best mic placement. I use a Scarlett Solo interface and I can record both a mic and DI from a pickup at the same time since it has one input for a 1/4 inch cable.

Chris's post that Ed mentioned is a great guide as well on another way to approach quarantined "live" recording right now. The music turned out really well!

 

[bassmanbrent]

Has anyone here used the app called acapella? It's only useful for collaboration, not simultaneously making music, but it sure is simple. I've had fun doing a few different things with friends of mine. If you're like me, and you don't have a DAW setup or any video editing chops it's super easy. I used my iPad with it's internal mic and that's it. The app has some basic effects and eq which aren't hard to use. Also, you pretty much have to use complete takes as there's no way to cut, paste, comp or edit that I'm aware of, which I quite like.

 

[lurk]

If you want a chuckle check out the latency solution offered by jammer. I "attended" a JEN produced webinar last week where a bassist and guitarist who were expert Jamkazam users demonstrated the app. It was a disaster. "Well, we just lost ....." Usually this works.... Can't hear the guitar.... Just gotta fight through the latency..." I'm sure smart folks are working like crazy on this but IMHO it's not there yet.

 

[Don Kasper]

"Blatant Latency" will be my online Band's name.
Later...

 

[Don Hergert]

I'm sure smart folks are working like crazy on this but IMHO it's not there yet.

Yea, JamKazam usually releases at least two updates in subsequent days lately, the first one to apply a change, and the second one to fix the first one. Since their last update group (last week), the trend has been that if you have more than 7 or 8 people in a session, at least 1 or 2 of those people cannot hear everyone in the session, which of course necessitates that the people who cannot hear everyone leave the session and come back in again. And when they come back in, they'll very likely make someone else not able to hear everyone in the jam.

Previous to this update group this facet of JamKazam was more stable. Now it becomes humorous to say the least, it's a free service so everyone tries to be kind hearted about it, but no one likes having to leave a session and come back in just in order to hear everyone. This is the new instability as of last week, and this is how it usually goes with updates so far.

That said, JamKazam has become very popular over the last few months and there are probably hundreds of not thousands of people using it, easily with hundreds (or more) of concurrent users at prime time. The actual JamKazam staff (a very small group of people, <5 if I understand correctly) have been very busy maintaining the servers and at the same time working on updates. So really to be fair to them, JamKazam works remarkably well most of the time, especially with small groups, and especially if they are geographically close. It's just frustrating when it doesn't.

 

[Ric Vice]

One of the problems is that most of the big ISP's feature great download speeds and terrible upload speeds. The mass market want's their movies in and tv in real time.

 

[DirtDog]

Brethren/Sistren,

Just got a call, sans details, to take part in a COVID-era remote jazz recording.

Of course I accepted - not knowing a thing about what gear I will need, and having no image of the logistics.

They say that "latency" is the enemy of real-time remote ensemble recording. Is there a workaround for latency - other than psychotherapy?

Is Zoom the go-to platform for recording music? Would, say, the pianist and I try to play through a tune in sync as a unit, and the others record to our track later?

Will a Shure vocal mic plugged into an interface capture decent upright sound, or will I be able to plug in my Lifeline pickup into the interface?

Your guidance is appreciated.

The only solution for latency in "remote" recording is to be on the same network. Different rooms maybe. Zoom is just not going to work when any kind of distance is involved. Nor will most other audio-specific platforms, eg. JamKazam.

If you're thinking you can do synchronous remote recording all from the comfort of your own living rooms, all the best mics and interfaces in the world won't overcome latency in the comms network. You can have a platinum-gilded internet package and that won't help (but won't hurt, either).

My original band and I have been trying to do this since May. The BL is a tech nerd of serious proportions - he built an audio-specific Linux box as a server and recompiled the Jamulus kernel on that server. All decent AD/DA going in and out. And we still had network latency that made this unusable. He lives about 30km from me. I'm urban FTTH and he's rural cable internet - we both have high bandwidth packages (gigabit download AND upload) but that makes no tangible difference.

Our solution is to set me up in his shed just outside the jam space and run CAT 6 out to me. I'll connect my MBP and my interface as per usual. That *should* work AND keep me safe (I have health issues). I have doubts that even that would work flawlessly just because there's still two AD/DA devices between us. I suggested we run a 100' snake out to the shed and have me directly connect to our 16 channel interface and we could all monitor that directly....

I ran a traceroute between my home connection and his server - I killed the traceroute after 30 hops...some of which went to another country!

The worst that could happen is you try it and it doesn't work. But expect poor results and/or frustration...

 

[Don Hergert]

Worth mentioning, Zoom is a great product, but it is tuned for meetings. Zoom focuses on one speaker at a time, which means it won't work for multiple synchronized musicians trying to play together from separate locations. I have seen Zoom work for musical lessons, but only when one person is playing (or singing) at a time.

Edit: I'll add to that, I've jammed in JamKazam sessions with one other person across the continent from me, and it worked remarkably well because we both had fast hardware and we both were using fast ISP services and were close to major internet hubs -- our latency was surprisingly low. I've also had similar low-latency jams with small groups of people who are very close geographically to me, and they also worked remarkably well. Small groups and short distances can work very nicely.

 

[BarfanyShart]

Most (all) of these quarantine jam videos you are seeing are the result of each person recording themselves play their part to a click, mixing the sound and aggragating the footage. I use Camtasia (cuz i already have it for work), a good Webcam, and i have a Fender Studio 40 that models amps/cabs/rooms that also serves as its own interface with a USB line out. There are better ways of doing, but for an amateur in the bedroom with limited time and resources, it's an easy way to get a decent product.

 

[Ed Fuqua]

"Blatant Latency" will be my online Band's name.
Later...

Blatantcy?