What's the best way of rehearsing remotely / online?

[Bobthedog]

1 hour ago, 41Hz said:

I’ve tried jamkazam and jamulus.

Jamkazam has more features like being able to play a backing track etc., however I’d probably go with jamulus in the first instance as it’s simpler, easier to setup and is open source/free. Jamkazam have just started charging for all but a limited service.

 

I have never used either, but a singer friend of mine and her band rehearse  remotely and she swears by Jamulus

 

 

[ordep]

about a month or two ago we used jamulus and zoom to  stream our spontaneous jam on facebook live, just to annoy our online friends. 😁😁😁

Edited December 4, 2020 by ordep

[Mottlefeeder]

I'm having mixed results, probably due to low internet connection speeds - there is no fibre I can get to, and since the exchange is at the end of our street, we are not likely to be upgraded until everyone else has.been.

I started with a Behringer UCA222 with an analogue mixer, and then moved on to a Behringer 302USB. Both are fine if all you want is to record onto Audacity, and play back backing tracks, but both had latency that was too great for JamKazam, even with the generic ASIO driver ASIO4ALL.

I'm currently running a Steinberg UR22C which gives you the option of an HPF on each track going in, and EQ or other built-in FX on either the inward track or the outward track. It works well with Jamulus, but I'm still not flying on JamKazam. One-to-one seems to work, but when I join someone else's session I get no audio.

David

[hiram.k.hackenbacker]

Have any of you been using JamKazam today. I've just had to abandon our session due to drop-outs. Same people/gear as last Sunday when it was crystal clear. Someone mentioned they had been told JK had changes servers recently? Don't know if it's anything to so with that? Seems strange that it should happen after all these weeks without issue and coincide with the e-mail a couple of days ago regarding the paid for subscription tiering. We're off to investigate Jamulus.

[DaytonaRik]

I used it Thursday - about to have an online rehearsal today.  Have you hit the 'resync' button?  That usually fixes the odd connection problem I've had in the past

 

[hiram.k.hackenbacker]

1 minute ago, DaytonaRik said:

I used it Thursday - about to have an online rehearsal today.  Have you hit the 'resync' button?  That usually fixes the odd connection problem I've had in the past

Yes, we tried all the usual fixes, including getting one of us to leave one by one to see if it was an individual causing the issue, but all to no avail. Please let us know how you get on today.

[hiram.k.hackenbacker]

17 hours ago, DaytonaRik said:

I used it Thursday - about to have an online rehearsal today.  Have you hit the 'resync' button?  That usually fixes the odd connection problem I've had in the past

How did you get on with JK yesterday?

[DaytonaRik]

12 minutes ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

How did you get on with JK yesterday?

One the guy who has started the session closed it down and relaunched then it was absolutely fine.  To start with he described it as 'listening to someone with a faulty guitar cable' but it settled quickly.

[hiram.k.hackenbacker]

3 minutes ago, DaytonaRik said:

One the guy who has started the session closed it down and relaunched then it was absolutely fine.  To start with he described it as 'listening to someone with a faulty guitar cable' but it settled quickly.

Thanks. Will try again this evening. Hopefully a temporary glitch.

[hiram.k.hackenbacker]

I had a reply from JamKazam regarding subscriptions and it’s pretty much what we thought it would be....

”Each musician on JamKazam must have a JamKazam account, and each musician’s account will be set to one of the plan levels: free, silver, gold, or platinum. Musicians on any plan level can play with each other in sessions. Musicians with lower plan levels will be subject to the constraints of those levels. So, for example, if a free plan user runs out of their 4-hour play credit for the month during a session, they will have to drop from the session. As another example, a platinum player will be streaming 512kbps audio streams to everyone in the session, while a free player will be streaming 128kbps audio streams to others. As another example, a free player can’t make a recording while in a session, but a gold player can – and the gold player’s recording will cover everyone in the session – including the free player’s part. If the members can't afford $10/month, you could probably get by OK with one Gold plan for yourself (to get higher level features like recording and broadcasting), and Silver plans for the others (or even Free plans if others will play 4 hours or less per month).”

This appears to be a gamble for them. Whilst I don’t expect anything for free, I think the tiering structure has been brought in at the wrong time. Whilst I can easily afford it, I’m not sure I would be inclined to at this moment due to the lack of gigs in my diary. I would imagine that a decision has been made, possibly a necessary one, that they need to start recouping their outlay now. I just wonder how many people are going to start paying them in three weeks time.

I’m happy to say that the glitches I suffered from last week seem to have been ironed out. Ironically, I stepped in at the last minute for a rehearsal last night for @Paul S who couldn’t make JamKazam work. Have you got it sorted yet mate?

[DaytonaRik]

32 minutes ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

I had a reply from JamKazam regarding subscriptions and it’s pretty much what we thought it would be....

”Each musician on JamKazam must have a JamKazam account, and each musician’s account will be set to one of the plan levels: free, silver, gold, or platinum. Musicians on any plan level can play with each other in sessions. Musicians with lower plan levels will be subject to the constraints of those levels. So, for example, if a free plan user runs out of their 4-hour play credit for the month during a session, they will have to drop from the session. As another example, a platinum player will be streaming 512kbps audio streams to everyone in the session, while a free player will be streaming 128kbps audio streams to others. As another example, a free player can’t make a recording while in a session, but a gold player can – and the gold player’s recording will cover everyone in the session – including the free player’s part. If the members can't afford $10/month, you could probably get by OK with one Gold plan for yourself (to get higher level features like recording and broadcasting), and Silver plans for the others (or even Free plans if others will play 4 hours or less per month).”

This appears to be a gamble for them. Whilst I don’t expect anything for free, I think the tiering structure has been brought in at the wrong time. Whilst I can easily afford it, I’m not sure I would be inclined to at this moment due to the lack of gigs in my diary. I would imagine that a decision has been made, possibly a necessary one, that they need to start recouping their outlay now. I just wonder how many people are going to start paying them in three weeks time.

I’m happy to say that the glitches I suffered from last week seem to have been ironed out. Ironically, I stepped in at the last minute for a rehearsal last night for @Paul S who couldn’t make JamKazam work. Have you got it sorted yet mate?

For the three of us who use this to rehearse, it's as much a social thing as it is a rehearsal - there's always lots of chat between us (we also work together, albeit remotely at the moment) and it's a chilled, relaxed way of being able to continue to make some music during these strange times.

I think that the guitarist and myself going for the $10 option as we frequently get together mid-week to work on things, with the vocalist just going for the $5 option which should give her enough time for the weekly get togethers.

As you've said, they have to recoup their costs somehow and although the GoFundMe effort was well received there needs to be a steady predictable revenue stream if they are to expand and grow the service.

[Paul S]

1 hour ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

I’m happy to say that the glitches I suffered from last week seem to have been ironed out. Ironically, I stepped in at the last minute for a rehearsal last night for @Paul S who couldn’t make JamKazam work. Have you got it sorted yet mate?

Glad you were there to bail me out!  Did you manage to achieve anything in the end? 

I spent about an hour deleting/adding, rebooting, uninstalling/reinstalling to no avail.  Talk about frustrating.  At one point early on I joined the session ok and my mic was working but not the bass!  Then after about a minute it all crashed again. 

Just going to try again from scratch today - uninstall the app, uninstall the Behringer driver then build it again.

But, as you say Warren, is it actually worth paying out?  Especially if it is unreliable.  I can get plenty of IT frustration for nothing when other stuff goes wrong   The rest of the guys are all in multiple bands that all use it and so for them it would be very cost effective, whereas for me it is just for this band.  By the time we get gigs in the diary we will most likely be able to rehearse properly.  Then again I don't want to feel left out which is a pretty big reason for getting it.  I don't know, really.

[gjones]

Interesting video, on how a band called Mamas Gun from Brighton, managed to gig online while under lockdown.

 

[hiram.k.hackenbacker]

49 minutes ago, gjones said:

Interesting video, on how a band called Mamas Gun from Brighton, managed to gig online while under lockdown.

 

I had tickets to see them next month. Gig postponed ☹️.

[DaytonaRik]

55 minutes ago, gjones said:

Interesting video, on how a band called Mamas Gun from Brighton, managed to gig online while under lockdown

I've seen various videos online of bands playing live together using JamKazam - the issue is usually the internet latency rather than any local interface latency and that's something that you just can't magic away with a piece of software, no matter how much you wish that you could.

The description of the software seems very similar to JamKazam's layout - a fader for each other channel coming into your session acting as local monitor levels along with one or more faders for your own gain for the instrument(s) that you have going into the session.  Additionally, the 'owner' of the session has access to anther set of faders to control the output levels to downstream systems e.g. YouTube, recording software etc.

[gjones]

28 minutes ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

I had tickets to see them next month. Gig postponed ☹️.

I thought about buying a ticket but doubted that it would go ahead, so didn't. 

I'd love to see them live, they're all amazing at what they do and Cameron is a phenomenal bass player.

I'm feeling confident that live gigs will be back next year..............sometime?

Edited December 9, 2020 by gjones

[julietgreen]

7 hours ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

I had a reply from JamKazam regarding subscriptions and it’s pretty much what we thought it would be....

”Each musician on JamKazam must have a JamKazam account, and each musician’s account will be set to one of the plan levels: free, silver, gold, or platinum. Musicians on any plan level can play with each other in sessions. Musicians with lower plan levels will be subject to the constraints of those levels. So, for example, if a free plan user runs out of their 4-hour play credit for the month during a session, they will have to drop from the session. As another example, a platinum player will be streaming 512kbps audio streams to everyone in the session, while a free player will be streaming 128kbps audio streams to others. As another example, a free player can’t make a recording while in a session, but a gold player can – and the gold player’s recording will cover everyone in the session – including the free player’s part. If the members can't afford $10/month, you could probably get by OK with one Gold plan for yourself (to get higher level features like recording and broadcasting), and Silver plans for the others (or even Free plans if others will play 4 hours or less per month).”

This appears to be a gamble for them. Whilst I don’t expect anything for free, I think the tiering structure has been brought in at the wrong time. Whilst I can easily afford it, I’m not sure I would be inclined to at this moment due to the lack of gigs in my diary. I would imagine that a decision has been made, possibly a necessary one, that they need to start recouping their outlay now. I just wonder how many people are going to start paying them in three weeks time.

I’m happy to say that the glitches I suffered from last week seem to have been ironed out. Ironically, I stepped in at the last minute for a rehearsal last night for @Paul S who couldn’t make JamKazam work. Have you got it sorted yet mate?

Jamulus is better in many ways and it's free and open source. You can pay to run your own 'server' but that's very cheap and not necessary. Recording is very easy using Reaper, which is also free as a full demo but inexpensive too. I wouldn't go back to JamKazam now.

[ricksterphil]

On 09/12/2020 at 17:05, julietgreen said:

Jamulus is better in many ways and it's free and open source. You can pay to run your own 'server' but that's very cheap and not necessary. Recording is very easy using Reaper, which is also free as a full demo but inexpensive too. I wouldn't go back to JamKazam now.

Not used JamKazam, but Jamulus works well as long as you're hard wired to your router. My mate is big into it and has his own cloud server and also helped me set up (it's not complicated tbh). This is the interface I use, but I would image the Behringer one works just as well and is cheaper https://www.pmtonline.co.uk/native-instruments-komplete-audio-1

[hiram.k.hackenbacker]

Just been online with SonoBus for the first time. As a former user of JamKazam, I have to say this is much better and user friendly.

Full rehearsal this next Tuesday, providing the drummer can get on line by then.