On Line Jam Session

sws626
Posts: 0
Joined: Sun Jan 03, 2010 1:00 am
Status: Offline

Mon Mar 21, 2011 9:38 am

Hi All,

Andy's recent announcement of an open jam session in Oahu and Hydroman's hosting of a TG jam session in Wisconsin reminded me that I'd long been meaning to figure out how to jam with my TG friends without getting out of bed.

I'd had high hopes for the new release of Skype, which had promised group video conferencing; but it turns out this only works for paid subscribers. It's not terribly expensive (€6.89/month), but still probably an obstacle.

I did a bit of hunting around on the internet to see what other options there might be. Trouble is, there are a lot. And I'm basically an introvert, so I don't really want to jump into a new community, which most of these sites are built around. I just want to find a way to jam with you guys. So there's not much point in joining one of those if none of you are going to be there.

With that in mind, I'd like to get a sense of whether:

a) Matt & Co. may be planning to add a virtual jamming feature to TG (unlikely, given the programming effort required and the large list of new features already in the pipeline);

b) we have enough existing Skype users willing to fork out another €6.89 per month (or €4.01 per session); or

c) we have a critical mass of TG members already using one of the other options -- and, if so, which one (so I don't have to join a bunch of sites I'll never visit again).

Or, to put it another way, if someone were to organize a jam session on Skype or another of these sites, would anyone show up for it?

-Stuart


User avatar
neverfoundthetime
Posts: 48
Joined: Sat Aug 01, 2009 2:14 pm
Status: Offline

Mon Mar 21, 2011 10:08 am

Interesting thought Stuart .I can think of worse way to spend a Saturday evening.
I have one hold-back. On any skype or video conference or call online so far, there has always been a delay issue or sound quality problem.... so I'm thinking it could be a very frustrating exercise. I wonder what the technology-freaks among us think?
Chris


dennisg
Posts: 0
Joined: Mon Oct 12, 2009 10:34 am
Status: Offline

Mon Mar 21, 2011 10:33 am

I think it's a terrific idea and I hope someone can figure out a way to pull it off. There are two issues that likely need to be overcome: 1) the delay, as Chris mentioned, is a real problem if two or more people intend to play together; 2) a worse problem, I think, is the fact that the connection isn't fully duplexed -- by that I mean only one person at a time can talk. A landline telephone IS fully duplexed -- you can talk and hear sound at the same time. But I don't think skype or iChat or any other internet chat systems work that way. When one person talks, no one else can talk until the first person is finished. If that's true, that would seem to torpedo any group play-alongs.

Still, though, it might be fun to get a few people together on skype and just treat it like an open mic night. One person at a time performs for all the others. Then the next person does it. I skype with a couple of TGers, and that's how we do it. It's fun to get a preview of a song before it gets posted.


sws626
Posts: 0
Joined: Sun Jan 03, 2010 1:00 am
Status: Offline

Mon Mar 21, 2011 11:39 am

Hi Chris & Dennis,

I've looked into this a little bit further. My own experience with Skype video conferencing has been pretty hit-and-miss, so I'm also not sure it would be up to the task. Skype itself is supposed to support full duplex, though it may be that different sound card, drivers, Windows settings, etc. undermine that. I use Skype audio on my mobile phone quite a lot and that definitely supports full duplex.

Since group audio conferencing is still free and suffers less from latency issues, it might be worthwhile trying an audio-only jam.

-Stuart


sws626
Posts: 0
Joined: Sun Jan 03, 2010 1:00 am
Status: Offline

Mon Mar 21, 2011 11:56 am

Apparently, it can be done:

[video][/video]


dennisg
Posts: 0
Joined: Mon Oct 12, 2009 10:34 am
Status: Offline

Mon Mar 21, 2011 12:25 pm

I would love to know how it's being done. I've been unsuccessful in my attempts at getting full duplex.


Hydroman52
Posts: 0
Joined: Sat Apr 11, 2009 7:52 am
Status: Offline

Mon Mar 21, 2011 1:42 pm

I looked into this a year or two ago, and the best that I found at the time was eJamming. Is this one of the many that you have checked out? There is a fee, of course, but they have a 30-day free trial period. I thought of trying it out but no one seemed interested. For the price at the time, it would have been more economical for me to sign up than to lug my equipment and drive to others jam sessions. I think there was always a question of latency in my mind, and that is why I wanted to see if anyone wanted to do the 30-day free trial thing. They claimed to have had that worked out, but I would have to see (hear) to believe. As I recall, it was only audio, and not video. They seemed to have quite a network of musicians subscribed when it was more open and they were first starting out. There's tons of information on it . . . . . . . just Google "ejamming" and "ejamming learn-more" and you'll come up with their WEB site and some you-tube videos on it. I think it costs under a Franklin ($100 US) per year. I'd gladly pay that if it works.

Heck, 30-days free, that's how I started out here on TG and never regretted it . . . . . . . and the CEO, Gail Kantor, seems to be very passionate about music and getting musicians together. I believe she is a singer, too. Sound familiar?

Skype is free for now, and you can phone conference (without video), but it doesn't have the robust features that it appeared that eJamming had. It is more contoured to the musicians. I really don't need to see the other person to play music with them so the video thing is not really an issue with me. Besides, I don't need to have others see me jamming in my jammies.

Just a thought.

Hydroman52


RicksPick
Posts: 0
Joined: Sun Mar 22, 2009 2:18 pm
Status: Offline

Mon Mar 21, 2011 4:09 pm

I to have mulled this over a few times
If anyone wants to test any of these out you have a guiniepig waiting

RicksPick


sws626
Posts: 0
Joined: Sun Jan 03, 2010 1:00 am
Status: Offline

Mon Mar 21, 2011 5:02 pm

Hi All,

I've dug a little bit deeper into some of these. There appear to be basically three options, other than Skype. One is eJamming, which Hydroman mentioned; one is Online Jam Sessions; and a third is called Ninjam, which is essentially a free variant on the same method used by Jamming Online. eJamming uses proprietary software for compression and de-compression and to open direct peer-to-peer connections among participants (rather than going through a central server). It's a bit more work to set up the software, but claims to offer lower latency. Jamming Online and Ninjam are basically built upon an open source chatting server.

From reading some reviews, the one thing all of these suffer most from is a lack of active participants -- which I actually see as an advantage, since we already know who we'd want to play with and could set up our own times to meet. They also suffer from latency issues, to varying degress.

I found this review to be quite informative, though it is now a couple of years old and the state of the art has certainly advanced since then.

One thing to bear in mind is that, whatever method used, it should best be done with a direct wired connection to the internet router. WiFi from the laptop introduces another, avoidable level of latency.

So I'd suggest that anyone who'd like to try this out install or sign up for each of these and we can set up a time to check out how it works and report back on what we find. PM me if you are interested in the experiment.

-Stuart

Disclaimer: In case anyone is worried about a thread discussing non-TG sites, I should say, first of all, that I'm quite skeptical about whether any of these options will actually work. And secondly, that they're just a technology we might exploit for our own purposes and have no real overlap, either in content or community, with this site.


tovo
Posts: 0
Joined: Wed Sep 09, 2009 4:35 pm
Status: Offline

Mon Mar 21, 2011 5:24 pm

I'm absolutely up for this ejamming. I'm travelling all week (even going to be in Sydney...gee who can I visit there?! ;) )

Anyway, back at the end of the week and will sign up for the trial. Sounds exciting. Great initiative Stuart.


Post Reply Previous topicNext topic