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Has anyone solved the remote jamming conundrum?


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We (colleagues and I) quickly took the view that remote jamming was impossible at our internet speeds and didn't attempt it.

 

Fortunately, two of my bands are back rehearsing together now. Just started last week.

 

Where I live groups of up to 10 are allowed to gather indoors provided all parties maintain a distance of 1.5m from each other. We are very lucky too in that we have had minimal COVID-19 impact in South Australia. I'm guessing partially due to some pretty heavy restrictions that are still in force - for example we're not allowed to travel interstate and have only recently been allowed to travel to regional areas intra-state.

 

As for gigging live - I reckon that's a long way away, maybe the first half of next year if we're lucky.

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A lot of people have been talking about it in their streams and appears no one has found an answer.

 

 

you said speed of light I had to deal with that back in my SysAdmin days and weirded me out something I never thought in my life would be an issue. I was working on a project to take our main customer database and design/build a replicated server on the opposite coast. Typical the Pointed Headed Boss (PHB) as Dilbert would put it was demanding the servers had to update in real time, we said there is no such thing as real time there's always a delay but it's in milliseconds. PHB still couldn't get it and we had to explain like talking to child latency in networks and the distance speed of light actually become a factor. I never thought I'd ever work on something where speed of light would be involved. Yes, we build the system, there was latency, but no customer or even employee was it ever an issue for.

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Theoretically if everybody was local and only lived maybe miles apart, the speed of sound would be less of an issue, except for the fact that the servers you're all going through could be halfway around the world. If you all lived in close proximity and had your own dedicated local server and could be sure that your internet traffic wasn't routed outside of your town, then maybe it would be feasible. That's a lot of "IF's".

Dan

 

Acoustic/Electric stringed instruments ranging from 4 to 230 strings, hammered, picked, fingered, slapped, and plucked. Analog and Digital Electronic instruments, reeds, and throat/mouth.

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Not just your up/down speed from ISP either.

If you use WiFi rather than plugging into Ethernet you"ve got to get to/from the router as well.

 

Yeah, I would think ideally you would need to be plugged into fiber. I know it's easy to get 100Mbps down, but I don't know what the upload speeds are - that's usually the rub.

Dan

 

Acoustic/Electric stringed instruments ranging from 4 to 230 strings, hammered, picked, fingered, slapped, and plucked. Analog and Digital Electronic instruments, reeds, and throat/mouth.

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I have an idea in my head where a service might host a metronome and let the group set the tempo. Then ping everyone"s delay, decide how much buffer is needed and send everyone a count off from the host at different times so they all line up. The playing might be in sync. But it would be dreadful for speaking with one another, unless a different channel is used for that.

Yamaha CP88, Casio PX-560

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Thank you Elmer. I was overtaken by a case of shelter in lethargy (exacerbated by my weak KC searching chops). Unfortunately it appears that no - they have not solved the conundrum. However, these threads are 1-2 months old, which is a LONG time in pandemic world.

Some music I've recorded and played over the years with a few different bands

Tommy Rude Soundcloud

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OHHH, remote JAMMING.

 

I was picturing bored hacker people interfering with my TV remote and preventing me from watching all those shows I'm sick of...

 

Rock on...

I think one of those bored hackers got me the other day - something happened where my audio during a Zoom made my voice sound like Satan. I rebooted, which appeared to successfully exorcise the demon from my laptop.

Some music I've recorded and played over the years with a few different bands

Tommy Rude Soundcloud

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I have an idea in my head where a service might host a metronome and let the group set the tempo. Then ping everyone"s delay, decide how much buffer is needed and send everyone a count off from the host at different times so they all line up. The playing might be in sync. But it would be dreadful for speaking with one another, unless a different channel is used for that.
yeah...something like this. Because we can't solve the speed of light problem, we need to 'fool' the humans, trick our minds with some weird time shifting.

Some music I've recorded and played over the years with a few different bands

Tommy Rude Soundcloud

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All us unemployed folks can solve this problem along with the 76 key semi weighted poly AT midi 2.0 controller and make a fortune. Who's in?

Dan

 

Acoustic/Electric stringed instruments ranging from 4 to 230 strings, hammered, picked, fingered, slapped, and plucked. Analog and Digital Electronic instruments, reeds, and throat/mouth.

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The problem is routing latency. All our band members live in town. I pinged the guitarist - 56 ms, so assuming the bi-directional delays are the same, ~28 ms delay. So he and I would be like we were setup 28 feet apart. Social distancing?
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I'm gonna quote myself from that first link! Posted a month ago. Still valid. We have six people connected (one that is 150 miles away).

 

After trying a couple of different options, I've had the best luck with Jamulus. Here are some key points:

 

1. Everyone should have an audio interface with a low-latency driver. Stay away from built-in soundcards and ASIO4ALL.

2. Everyone should be wired. WiFi, regardless of speed, has too much packet jitter.

3. Run your own server. The Jamulus install allows this. You need to understand how to forward ports in your router.

4. Depending on distance, better results may be achieved by having the person most centrally located run the server.

5. Monitor yourself locally (mute yourself in the app mixer).

6. Understand that the timekeeper has the worst situation. If a beat is played, I hear it and react to it. The drummer hears my latency. As others play with the drummer I obviously hear their latency.

7. Understand that things won't be perfect. Audio will garble from time to time. Don't expect "CD quality" sound.

8. Ensure minimal network traffic at your location. No Netflix. No YouTube. No Zoom. Etc.

 

Given all of this, I've had successful rehearsals with drums-bass-guitar-keys-vocals, even with faster tempo songs (>160bpm). Ideal? Far from it. Workable? Yes.

Roland Fantom 06; Yamaha P-125; QSC K10; Cubase 13 Pro; Windows 10

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