Howto realtime jamming online

March 29, 2020 8:37 AM

I want to play music in real time with a friend 128 Km away. How?

Me guitar. Him: sax. We want to improvise together, not send a track over and play over it asynchronously, not produce a song, not play something we've rehearsed previously. Complication: his internet connection is a little sucky.
The video aspect is not as important as the sound.

posted by signal to Computers & Internet (11 answers total)

Best answer: Previously 1

Previously 2
posted by soundguy99 at 8:41 AM on March 29, 2020 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks. Mods feel free to close this, if you like.
posted by signal at 8:49 AM on March 29, 2020

Even Phish can't figure this out, and they've had years and millions of dollars to throw at it. It's kind of heartbreaking in these times, but I just don't think it's possible.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 8:50 AM on March 29, 2020 [1 favorite]

If it’s just the two of you, a landline phone connection might work.

With a separate, muted, video chat if you also want visuals.
posted by mekily at 9:12 AM on March 29, 2020 [1 favorite]

One thing I didn’t see in those previous threads is doing call and response? You don’t have to play at the same time. You could use anything from Facetime to Zoom to GotoMeeting. You play a phrase, they riff on that phrase, and so on. It’s just a conversation with music. HTH
posted by kyliej at 12:37 PM on March 29, 2020 [1 favorite]

Seems like there would be a way to get a synchronized click track going, where everyone's beat clicked at exactly the same time.

If you had that, you could essentially play to the synchronized beat, while keeping the other person's playing volume really low, barely audible. That way you could get thematic ideas, feel, etc. in sort-of real time while not trying to play in sync with their sound.

It would sound terrible to the ear at the time, but maybe you could record on both sides and then put the two recordings together in sync afterwards and it might sound good?
posted by ctmf at 12:38 PM on March 29, 2020

Hi, I work in IT at Eastman School of Music. Here's what we use: https://lola.conts.it/ We connect from Rochester NY, USA to Iceland with it.
posted by Wild_Eep at 1:09 PM on March 29, 2020

Response by poster: That looks cool, Wild_Eep, but way beyond my available hardware and connection.
posted by signal at 1:17 PM on March 29, 2020

I've only just started giving remote music lessons, but yeah, call and response looks like the way to go. Especially without the time and resources to plan for, acquire and learn how to use a whole bunch of new tech. (Or record yourselves separately then combine the tracks, which on preview, is not what you are after.)
posted by Coaticass at 2:06 PM on March 29, 2020

We're all going to be like the Swiss Alpen-horn players calling from their separate mountain tops in this strange new world of quarantine.
posted by Coaticass at 2:11 PM on March 29, 2020

I work in the recording industry though not music...voice over. There are some online products that should definitely work for you. There is a new product called Connection Open. I haven't used it much but have tested it several times It's designed for exactly what you're talking about. Recording music live in high fidelity over the internet with almost zero delay. The owner is very cool. I'm sure he would offer you a free trial for a bit. Beyond that you do have to pay a monthly fee but if you plan to use it a lot it'a great product. Of course internet connection quality will come in to play but it's designed to work in various situations with average internet speed. There's another thing called cleanfeed.net. Cleenfeed works using google chrome. There is a free version of it and a paid version. I know for voice over or podcasting it works quite well. There's also something called ipdtl and source connect. Check them all out. For music connection open might be your best bet because it has virtually no delay. Hope this helps!
posted by ljs30 at 3:24 PM on March 29, 2020 [2 favorites]