Question: Software for live remote collaboration

cuffdc

cuffdc

chicken n waffles
Back in the COVID days I remember seeing plenty of musicians collaborating live (or recording simultaneously and then posting) and I am now wondering what did they use as the video conferencing platform? Would plain old Zoom or Microsoft Teams work for that? Like would I just set up a Teams meeting and my collaborators could join and we each hook our stuff up through Volts or Scarletts and go to town?

I've got plenty of experience using the interface of instrument to computer (mine is an old Tascam circa 2011), but not trying to stream with other musicians.

Anyone with any experience doing this?
 
Ask @Modern Saint ... I believe he was involved in a remote jamming thing.


For the type of music I play, it seems like even a few ms of lag would throw off the funk or make the reggae sloppier than a drunken jam session typically is. :grin:
 
@cuffdc - I was on Jamkazam and Jamulus. I favored Jamkazam because it has less latency and the clarity was better. Eventually Jamkazam became paid for platform and I bailed. They are still strong today but I don't visit anymore.

The other one I participated during Covid was Jamulus. Still free today but more ideal if you could have your own server and only invite your friends, There are public servers but I did not use them. What kept me on them was a group called World Jam Jamulus. During Covid, they used broadcast live on You Tube for 3 hours live. By memory, there was the European group, East Coast, MidWest and Pacific Northwest which I joined and was part. This group still meets on Sunday nights and is based out of Seattle with musicians from even the other parts of the world still connect occasionallly.

FWIW, since live gigging is happening again, the European group closed down the performances as well as the main group. All that is left are get togethers for former participants. I have gone to Seattle and Minneapolis for these. Earlier last year I believe that Sweden had one,

Audio was done through an I/O setup and video was through Zoom for the live shows. When performing, you don't look at the other due to the latency.

My friend uses Bandhug and they record and play with each not live but similar to how MWGL does collabs but it includes videos.

Hope that helps some!!!
 
Modern Saint,
Thanks, that's helpful. I am mostly interested in running a small group for rehearsing since we're spread out between Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey and haven't been able to meet in person as often as we like. Sonobus lets you set up a private server and I tested it last week with one of the band members. It seems to work well enough, although we didn't do much of a test because he didn't have an audio-interface: he was using his iPad and sound quality was not the best, but we did test the principle of two people playing together over the interwebz.
 
cuffdc said:
Modern Saint,
Thanks, that's helpful. I am mostly interested in running a small group for rehearsing since we're spread out between Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey and haven't been able to meet in person as often as we like. Sonobus lets you set up a private server and I tested it last week with one of the band members. It seems to work well enough, although we didn't do much of a test because he didn't have an audio-interface: he was using his iPad and sound quality was not the best, but we did test the principle of two people playing together over the interwebz.
Click to expand...

Having he I/O is important to have 1) Best quality siganl 2) reduce latency if based off of video.. The biggest expense will be for the drummer as it will be like setting up for a studio recording unless they are using electronic drums. Cheapest will be bassist with a simple rig or vocalist running through a mixer.

For me, I created a DI setup with my pedals going through a Quilter Phantom Block into a Allen Heath Mixer. I had my vocals going through there to and mixed to stereo outs in my I/O interface.

The one nice thing about Jamkazam and Jamulus, is that you can mix the participants for your ears. This way you can blend what you want to hear and need so it is not a big mess.

LOL - on the jam nights on both platforms, I would zero out (or near zero) unwanted performers. They don't know and that way their rough performance in ears are negated.
 
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