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Long distance rehearsal via video?
- Thread starter mwbassace
- Start date
This is basically what the worship band I play in has done. We play a lot of conferences/fly dates. Most of them live in the same town and get together to work through new material (tempos, song form, repeats, segues, etc). They connect me and another vocalist in with facetime or google hangout (very low tech, I know) and keep the two of us muted on their end. It's not great, but it helps us learn the flow of the new songs. Then we practice alone to nail our parts before the conference gigs.
I have had very good success with JamKazam. It's free. No proprietary hardware to buy. Just need computer, Ethernet, decent internet speed, and digital audio interface. We have had successful rehearsal with singer who lives 250 miles away. Check it out.
JamKazam.com
JamKazam.com
dont know bout rehearsals because of the lag issue with the internet, but there are international collaborators all over YT these days
Exactly - we haven't done anything to change the speed of light, and every device that processes the signal adds some latency as well. SciFi shows/movies are always showing instantaneous communications across huge astronomical distances, but the reality is there is going to be some lag on just about any connection.
Fun experiment - Get on a cell phone call, using different providers, with someone and stand next to them and talk. The latency on the call will be enough to hear their voice in the room before you do on the phone.
One of the places I play has a network for the audio from stage to FOH. By the time it gets back to our in ears, the latency (a couple hops over the network, a few Ad/s and D/a's) is noticeable. I have routed my signal to my ears around that whole system, which helps me be OK with things.
The speed of light in fiber (about 2/3rds the speed of light in a vacuum) gives you a latency (with no other delays in the system) of about .8 milliseconds per 100 miles. Given that, if the network itself were absolutely perfect (it isn't) you could probably practice about 1000 miles away, and still be kinda OK. Practically speaking, adding in network latency,and the A/D's and D/A's (the all have latency) I doubt that any public network is going to be fast enough.
Nowadays, the big stock trading firms do everything electronically, and even given that, proximity matters - if your stock trading program is just as good as your competitor's and reading the exact same data, but your order gets there behind theirs by a millisecond or two, that can mean the difference between a profit or a loss on a trade in some circumstances. So, some stock traders choose to locate physically near the exchange for that very reason - sometimes, the speed of light isn't fast enough. They also don't trade over public networks for the same reason - the big guys have dedicated lines, so their data never has to wait.
The speed of light in fiber (about 2/3rds the speed of light in a vacuum) gives you a latency (with no other delays in the system) of about .8 milliseconds per 100 miles. Given that, if the network itself were absolutely perfect (it isn't) you could probably practice about 1000 miles away, and still be kinda OK. Practically speaking, adding in network latency,and the A/D's and D/A's (the all have latency) I doubt that any public network is going to be fast enough.
Nowadays, the big stock trading firms do everything electronically, and even given that, proximity matters - if your stock trading program is just as good as your competitor's and reading the exact same data, but your order gets there behind theirs by a millisecond or two, that can mean the difference between a profit or a loss on a trade in some circumstances. So, some stock traders choose to locate physically near the exchange for that very reason - sometimes, the speed of light isn't fast enough. They also don't trade over public networks for the same reason - the big guys have dedicated lines, so their data never has to wait.
I tried using this with my inexpensive Behringer UMC202HD and after fiddling with it for a bit it worked fine. Unfortunately our guitarist couldn't get his to work (about 45-miles away from me). He was running through a USB out from a sound board and after a while he just gave up on it. You really have to be able to go into your settings and fine tune your latency and sample rates. Once you do that, it works well. And, of course, JamKazam sells their own computer interface (jamblaster) that is specifically made to work well with their software. It's about $300 - looks like $299.99 is the price to pre-order one from their next manufacturing run.
Latency is the issue. Sometimes at work - we have high speed networks and own the infrastructure, you can hear the person speak and then their voice appears on the WebEx. It's not a lot of delay in terms of someone talking and then someone answering, but if we were all trying to hit a downbeat at the same time, it wouldn't work. To get it to work, you would need a reverse digital delay that could play what you're going to play in 500 ms. What could work is if you're each playing to a backing track of some sort and all you hear is the backing track and yourself. Then, upstream those tracks are combined and returned to someone else as a performance. But you still wouldn't have a live performance or the interaction between musicians.
I was just looking into this, but it seems moribund. The on line help seems to have disappeared, and they haven't posted on their facebook page since 2016. The windows client software is only Win 7 and 8 too, which supports the idea that its toes up - except perhaps for collecting user details. We'll see if I get spam of the dedicated email address I gave them.
Hi y'all. Not sure where to post this so I flipped a coin, lol. Several years ago my guitar player of 15 years moved several states away. What started as a joke talking on facebook about him coming here or us going there to play gigs has actually turned into a possibility. This has me wondering if it's possible to do rehearsals thru video calling or some other real time video/audio means. Any one already do/done this? Any advice or help would be appreciated. Thanks
Hi. Tempted to try Jamkazam but getting errors during initial setup ("No network test servers are available"). Anyone else had this? Or suggest any other platforms for remote jamming/rehearsing? Thanks.
It's definitely not easy to install. I got stopped halfway through, and had to start all over again--and it worked. Sorry, but I have no suggestions..... But it still looked better to me that other platforms I saw.......
Without even testing, I'd guess that message means that their test servers have been overwhelmed by people trying to use them, like any other remote-collaboration system.
I signed up but haven't been able to give it a test run yet. You can't do music rehearsing over wi-fi - it doesn't work from what I've read - you have to wire yourself into your network with an ethernet cable. Latency is still a big issue, but different platforms have different ways of compensating for it.
Good Luck!
Good Luck!
I'm not trying to be obnoxious, but there's a longer thread (maybe more people on it?) at Jamkazam - Play with multiple musicians in real time in different locations. Worth checking out to get folks in "on the same page...."
Someone there pointed out that everyone agrees that latency is a very, very difficult problem in the best of times, and this is the worst of times--Internet-wise--with a zillion people working from home, streaming movies, zooming with their friends...................... Have you check out hose guys, who seem to have managed it with an iPhone? STAY HOMAS (@stay.homas) • Instagram photos and videos I'll betcha that European Internet--or at least in Barcelona/Catalonia--is better than ours in the US....
Someone there pointed out that everyone agrees that latency is a very, very difficult problem in the best of times, and this is the worst of times--Internet-wise--with a zillion people working from home, streaming movies, zooming with their friends...................... Have you check out hose guys, who seem to have managed it with an iPhone? STAY HOMAS (@stay.homas) • Instagram photos and videos I'll betcha that European Internet--or at least in Barcelona/Catalonia--is better than ours in the US....
So I finally got on to JamKazam yesterday - I echo what everyone here has said.
The set up I did on Wednesday, got me a 50' ethernet cable, hooked it into my computer, logged in and set about to getting things activated. There is a place where you can test my speed - except it won't let me. No servers available, it has told me for the past two days. I did get it to recognize my audio interface and get my channels set up and saved. That worked well.
Yesterday is when I first plugged in. I was able to download a track to play along to, which was pretty cool - a recording from of the JamKazam sessions. It allows you to mute tracks, so I could mute the bass and play along. Pretty cool, actually.
I then went and joined a session. From a technical perspective, I was pleasantly surprised. I could play along with other people with no noticeable latency (at one point in my set up, I received a notice that my latency was 6ms, so it does fall under the limit that others have said you needs to be able to play along with others). About 20 minutes in, I was disconnected, and could not resync with the session. I logged out, and logged back in and tried to rejoin the session. Even though it said I was not synced, other could hear and play along with me. I did one song, and left after that.
The app allows you to be able to control your own mix, and the person in charge can do a master mix. The video part works well, I was able to set up my camera, and people could see me. I haven't tried running my own session yet.
JamKazam, from a purely technical view, works. It's buggy and not perfect by any stretch, but I may have my band give it a shot.
The set up I did on Wednesday, got me a 50' ethernet cable, hooked it into my computer, logged in and set about to getting things activated. There is a place where you can test my speed - except it won't let me. No servers available, it has told me for the past two days. I did get it to recognize my audio interface and get my channels set up and saved. That worked well.
Yesterday is when I first plugged in. I was able to download a track to play along to, which was pretty cool - a recording from of the JamKazam sessions. It allows you to mute tracks, so I could mute the bass and play along. Pretty cool, actually.
I then went and joined a session. From a technical perspective, I was pleasantly surprised. I could play along with other people with no noticeable latency (at one point in my set up, I received a notice that my latency was 6ms, so it does fall under the limit that others have said you needs to be able to play along with others). About 20 minutes in, I was disconnected, and could not resync with the session. I logged out, and logged back in and tried to rejoin the session. Even though it said I was not synced, other could hear and play along with me. I did one song, and left after that.
The app allows you to be able to control your own mix, and the person in charge can do a master mix. The video part works well, I was able to set up my camera, and people could see me. I haven't tried running my own session yet.
JamKazam, from a purely technical view, works. It's buggy and not perfect by any stretch, but I may have my band give it a shot.
"You canna change the laws of physics, Captain!"
So, I tried to get my band together for a JamKazam test today. It was a failure. The drummer is on a DSL internet service and had noticeable lag on his end - he was hearing what we were playing a full second or so after we played things so that didn't work. So, anecdotal evidence points to high speed DSL not working well for this purpose. Surprisingly, he lives down the road from me, up on the side of a mountain.
The guitar player was connected via wireless, and while there were no latency issues, there was noticeable chops and drop outs when playing, because the wireless was not able to stream the audio. So wireless does not work with this. That, however, was already a known.
The drummer has access to fiber optic city internet at his SO's place, and he will set up the Roland V-Drums there (he was using a real kit today) and see what happens. The guitar player is waiting for an ethernet adaptor before we try again.
Bummer but, honestly, not surprising from what I have read about how this all works.
Rock on!
kevorargh
So, I tried to get my band together for a JamKazam test today. It was a failure. The drummer is on a DSL internet service and had noticeable lag on his end - he was hearing what we were playing a full second or so after we played things so that didn't work. So, anecdotal evidence points to high speed DSL not working well for this purpose. Surprisingly, he lives down the road from me, up on the side of a mountain.
The guitar player was connected via wireless, and while there were no latency issues, there was noticeable chops and drop outs when playing, because the wireless was not able to stream the audio. So wireless does not work with this. That, however, was already a known.
The drummer has access to fiber optic city internet at his SO's place, and he will set up the Roland V-Drums there (he was using a real kit today) and see what happens. The guitar player is waiting for an ethernet adaptor before we try again.
Bummer but, honestly, not surprising from what I have read about how this all works.
Rock on!
kevorargh
