Live online jams: JamKazam, Jamulus, Koord, interfaces, etc.

[lordzedd]

Hi folks,

There was a thread last June where members discussed experiences with various software and hardware solutions for playing online together. I'm not in a state to jam with people, but I have a choral group I've been meeting with online for fun lately.

I'm interested in what people's experiences have been trying live jams, maybe best practices you've found or software, hardware, or drivers you think work well.

For instance, I have a Zoom Q2HD I can use as a USB mic, but I've heard that the latency on the little Zooms is high. I just heard about ASIO4all, which is a driver you can use to probably reduce latency. Any experience there?

Thanks

 

[jozz]

I messed around with Jamulus for a while, and was rather impressed.

Really needs your brain to settle in first on the delay, but workable. And it's free. If everybody stays below 20-30ms delays it's okay. Certainly okay for a melody instrument, not so much as a drummer.

I don't know what the Q2HD would add to the latency as a whole, I suppose a more modern unit would do better. I get around 6ms on the Zoom H6. Maybe you can shut off certain features of the Q2 to make it better?

 

[NickC]

I used Jamulus once. I'm not great at tech stuff, but I was able to figure it out pretty quickly. I used a Steinberg USB interface and a standard dynamic mic. I was playing with a clarinet player. It seemed to work well, but it was only two of us and we didn't spend a lot of time nailing down arrangements. It's free, so it's worth a try.

 

[Tom]

Haven't tried Jamulus yet, but am intrigued and plan to. I listened to some jams, it seems to work.

I've been experimenting with configuring two "software arrangers," Soft Arranger and Giglad, and will report on them at some point, looking pretty positive. Why do I say this? Because I have used ASIO4ALL with these arrangers. It reduces latency and improves sound, but is a bit "quirky" to set up, your results may vary.

 

[TomBR]

There are some useful discussions on JamKazam over at thesession, eg
https://thesession.org/discussions/44856

My own experience, keeping the music group I run going through the covid lockdowns with 12+ people of varying technical capability and dedication was that "many to many" just wasn't an option. We used Zoom with "original sound" and "one to many" often with the one playing along with an earlier recording of the group or a specially created backing track.

 

[Harry]

I've been using Jamulus now for a couple of years, especially in winter and have a server running in Montreal. We have a bi-weekly Klezmer session. If you are interested, look for NE Klezmer in the classical/folk section. More details are in the chat box.

Never as good as face to face, and zoom is fine for lessons but it ain't bad if you have a decent connection.