I recently read in a local newspaper that a program of some sort had been created making it possible for musicians in differente locations to play together. Does anybody know about this? Has anybody tried it out?
The last post on this issue I saw in The Session was in 2004. Maybe things have moved on and now it is possible.
If anyone knows about this I'd appreciate the input.
If they are technically possible, I would imagine they'd be kinda strange things to partake in - but if you live in Chile and are keen to get the opportunity to play "live" with other like-minded rrusicians, I'd imagine such things would be very welcome.
Hi, everyone,what a great idea!There appears to be enough techno boffins on this site maybe someone has a few ideas- maybe first to just exchange some tunes rather than a full on sessions.
I'm not sure how saying this idea is hideous is a valuable contribution. Do you shun all forms of technology? Should we be conducting this discussion via tin cans?
Check out http://ninjam.com/ if anyone is interested and leave the luddites in their caves.
The biggest problem will be that you can't really have "eye contact" with the other musicians. Yes, it will be possible to see them(and be seen yourself) with web cam technology etc. However, how do you focus on another player to give a nod, smile or scowl(if it's a bodhran player)? It can be done, I'm sure but you might have to stop to twiddle th emouse or something! I think this visual interaction is as important as listening and playing the music.
Also, I'm sure there is bound to be some "time delay" no matter how sophisticated a program we have.
Of course, such a thing is possible but would it produce satisfactory results? Also, we'd have to pay for our own drink from "the offie".
However, I'm not against technology and I already have lots of fun playing along with recordings of CDs and even sessions' e.g like the one on Mike Harding's site. Maybe, that's enough for us to be going on with for the moment. Keep it simple.
Hey, just remember all those "Star Trek" episodes when Kirk, Spock et al would communicate through that huge viewscreen on the bridge with other ships, planets and assorted alien life forms.
Why _not_ harness this technology for Irish sessions? It might not be the same as being in the same room together, but certainly the next best thing.
But there's no way I'd wear one of those uniforms.
And I don't know if I'd be brave enough to try and have a session with Klingons: "You _dare_ to play a suspended minor chord in that set? You must die!"
It's called "video conferenceing." The program for musicians is called "marketing." Packaging up existing technology and advertising it to a niche market as if it were new and unique.
Woolite is really baby shampoo at 4 times the price. Most clothing care professionals actually use the baby shampoo. You can buy some stuff called "Fray Away", to stop cut fabric edges from unraveling or your shirt buttons from falling off. It sells for about 3 bucks an ounce. It's diluted rubber cement. About 3 bucks a pint.
Ignorance and marketing is all that differenciates these branded products from what they actually are and gets you to buy them.
From the musicians point of view the problem with video conferencing is lag. A ping of .3 seconds is hardly noticable in conversation, it's very annoying in a video game, and death to music.
Mail in your track multitrack recording, however, has existed since the invention of multitrack recording and Jim Dorans has already orginized such a "session" right here on the Yellow Board.
The idea of Ninjam is cool, and has been discussed on the yellowboard before. (Search for ninjam if you so desire).
The problem with Ninjam is that it is for "jamming", meaning people are laying down a beat and rhythm, and other people are "soloing" over the background with a 1 bar (configurable) lag. You could set the lag to be 4 bars, but then it's going to be difficult to keep everyone together. And since melody in ITM is typically all in unison, the basic idea of Ninjam doesn't work.
We've also discussed online sessions before, and to keep from digressing into the nitty gritty geek-tech issues of latency and such again, I'll give you a link to that thread.
What about using the phone instead - at least for two people playing together? I have a phone which I modified so I can use it with a headset. If you recorded both "ends" locally, you could match them up afterwards.
The BBC used to use this technique for interviews: they'd locally record both "ends" in high quality and combine the high-quality local recordings afterwards, to get around the problem of costly audio connections say between the US and UK.
I certainly thought of this idea when working with a singer - in the end, though, it was easier just to meet!
Well, the phone is going to give you similar latency issues as the internet over long distances - not quite as bad, because the route is probably more direct.
But the difference between an interview and trying to play music together is that the interview is back and forth, whereas the music would need to be in unison.
The only way I could see it working well would be to have a "leader", who is ignoring all of the other players. Then all of the other players could try to follow the single leader. But that isn't really "playing together". That could work for combining the individual parts at a later time, however.
KFG was right. The technical problem is latency. I'm not fond of the idea of an internet-based session but that's just an opinion.
I spend my daytime designing DSL chips that give many of you the broadband that you enjoy at this very moment. As much as we are happy to see the increased bandwidth - (and believe me the you are only getting 2-3% of what technology allows) it comes at a cost of latency. You see - the signal on the receiving end has to be re-constructed from many small pieces (called packets) that are sent out whenever possible. All the pieces have to be found, corrected for errors and having echos and other artifacts cleaned out. All this heavy-duty signal processing takes time and that is called "latency". Miliseconds of latency are noticable to musicians and that is evident even when you buy a desk-top audio recording setup. It's so bad even in a stand-alone setup (computer) that audio devices give you the option of bypassing most of the signal processing (basically giving up some features) just to reduce the latency. It's much worse across the Internet.
Today, low-latency is not that high of a priority in broadband technology. People want fast downloading and no one cares much if your real-time streaming of music or video takes 1, 2 or 5 seconds to beging playing on your end. I'm sure you all have experienced this "buffering...." messages when you start playing music or a video on the web.
I think it will be quite some time before we can have a meaningful musical collaboration on the Internet in real time.
Sorry if I bored you with details but this subject comes up once in a while.
Online Sessions, are they possible?
Online Sessions, are they possible?
I recently read in a local newspaper that a program of some sort had been created making it possible for musicians in differente locations to play together. Does anybody know about this? Has anybody tried it out?
The last post on this issue I saw in The Session was in 2004. Maybe things have moved on and now it is possible.
If anyone knows about this I'd appreciate the input.
# Posted on September 25th 2005 by Vivienne
Re: Online Sessions, are they possible?
If they are technically possible, I would imagine they'd be kinda strange things to partake in - but if you live in Chile and are keen to get the opportunity to play "live" with other like-minded rrusicians, I'd imagine such things would be very welcome.
# Posted on September 26th 2005 by On Sabbatical
Re: Online Sessions, are they possible?
Hi, everyone,what a great idea!There appears to be enough techno boffins on this site maybe someone has a few ideas- maybe first to just exchange some tunes rather than a full on sessions.
# Posted on September 26th 2005 by banjoian
Re: Online Sessions, are they possible?
What a hideous idea.
# Posted on September 26th 2005 by showaddydadito
Re: Online Sessions, are they possible?
I'm not sure how saying this idea is hideous is a valuable contribution. Do you shun all forms of technology? Should we be conducting this discussion via tin cans?
Check out http://ninjam.com/ if anyone is interested and leave the luddites in their caves.
# Posted on September 26th 2005 by RonanOD
Re: Online Sessions, are they possible?
The biggest problem will be that you can't really have "eye contact" with the other musicians. Yes, it will be possible to see them(and be seen yourself) with web cam technology etc. However, how do you focus on another player to give a nod, smile or scowl(if it's a bodhran player)? It can be done, I'm sure but you might have to stop to twiddle th emouse or something! I think this visual interaction is as important as listening and playing the music.
Also, I'm sure there is bound to be some "time delay" no matter how sophisticated a program we have.
Of course, such a thing is possible but would it produce satisfactory results? Also, we'd have to pay for our own drink from "the offie".
However, I'm not against technology and I already have lots of fun playing along with recordings of CDs and even sessions' e.g like the one on Mike Harding's site. Maybe, that's enough for us to be going on with for the moment. Keep it simple.
# Posted on September 26th 2005 by Johnny Jay
Re: Online Sessions, are they possible?
Hey, just remember all those "Star Trek" episodes when Kirk, Spock et al would communicate through that huge viewscreen on the bridge with other ships, planets and assorted alien life forms.
Why _not_ harness this technology for Irish sessions? It might not be the same as being in the same room together, but certainly the next best thing.
But there's no way I'd wear one of those uniforms.
And I don't know if I'd be brave enough to try and have a session with Klingons: "You _dare_ to play a suspended minor chord in that set? You must die!"
# Posted on September 26th 2005 by sts
Re: Online Sessions, are they possible?
OH NO!!! - sts, you realize that we're about to get a whole ship-load of Startrek & Klingon jokes coming our way at Warp factor 9. ;-P
# Posted on September 26th 2005 by On Sabbatical
Re: Online Sessions, are they possible?
It's called "video conferenceing." The program for musicians is called "marketing." Packaging up existing technology and advertising it to a niche market as if it were new and unique.
Woolite is really baby shampoo at 4 times the price. Most clothing care professionals actually use the baby shampoo. You can buy some stuff called "Fray Away", to stop cut fabric edges from unraveling or your shirt buttons from falling off. It sells for about 3 bucks an ounce. It's diluted rubber cement. About 3 bucks a pint.
Ignorance and marketing is all that differenciates these branded products from what they actually are and gets you to buy them.
From the musicians point of view the problem with video conferencing is lag. A ping of .3 seconds is hardly noticable in conversation, it's very annoying in a video game, and death to music.
Mail in your track multitrack recording, however, has existed since the invention of multitrack recording and Jim Dorans has already orginized such a "session" right here on the Yellow Board.
KFG
# Posted on September 26th 2005 by KFG
Re: Online Sessions, are they possible?
Dang, that emoticon didn't work - bloody technology.
# Posted on September 26th 2005 by On Sabbatical
Re: Online Sessions, are they possible?
The idea of Ninjam is cool, and has been discussed on the yellowboard before. (Search for ninjam if you so desire).
The problem with Ninjam is that it is for "jamming", meaning people are laying down a beat and rhythm, and other people are "soloing" over the background with a 1 bar (configurable) lag. You could set the lag to be 4 bars, but then it's going to be difficult to keep everyone together. And since melody in ITM is typically all in unison, the basic idea of Ninjam doesn't work.
We've also discussed online sessions before, and to keep from digressing into the nitty gritty geek-tech issues of latency and such again, I'll give you a link to that thread.
http://thesession.org/discussions/display.php/4929
Pete
# Posted on September 26th 2005 by Reverend
Re: Online Sessions, are they possible?
What about using the phone instead - at least for two people playing together? I have a phone which I modified so I can use it with a headset. If you recorded both "ends" locally, you could match them up afterwards.
The BBC used to use this technique for interviews: they'd locally record both "ends" in high quality and combine the high-quality local recordings afterwards, to get around the problem of costly audio connections say between the US and UK.
I certainly thought of this idea when working with a singer - in the end, though, it was easier just to meet!
# Posted on September 27th 2005 by Mark Harmer
Re: Online Sessions, are they possible?
Well, the phone is going to give you similar latency issues as the internet over long distances - not quite as bad, because the route is probably more direct.
But the difference between an interview and trying to play music together is that the interview is back and forth, whereas the music would need to be in unison.
The only way I could see it working well would be to have a "leader", who is ignoring all of the other players. Then all of the other players could try to follow the single leader. But that isn't really "playing together". That could work for combining the individual parts at a later time, however.
Pete
# Posted on September 27th 2005 by Reverend
Re: Online Sessions, are they possible?
KFG was right. The technical problem is latency. I'm not fond of the idea of an internet-based session but that's just an opinion.
I spend my daytime designing DSL chips that give many of you the broadband that you enjoy at this very moment. As much as we are happy to see the increased bandwidth - (and believe me the you are only getting 2-3% of what technology allows) it comes at a cost of latency. You see - the signal on the receiving end has to be re-constructed from many small pieces (called packets) that are sent out whenever possible. All the pieces have to be found, corrected for errors and having echos and other artifacts cleaned out. All this heavy-duty signal processing takes time and that is called "latency". Miliseconds of latency are noticable to musicians and that is evident even when you buy a desk-top audio recording setup. It's so bad even in a stand-alone setup (computer) that audio devices give you the option of bypassing most of the signal processing (basically giving up some features) just to reduce the latency. It's much worse across the Internet.
Today, low-latency is not that high of a priority in broadband technology. People want fast downloading and no one cares much if your real-time streaming of music or video takes 1, 2 or 5 seconds to beging playing on your end. I'm sure you all have experienced this "buffering...." messages when you start playing music or a video on the web.
I think it will be quite some time before we can have a meaningful musical collaboration on the Internet in real time.
Sorry if I bored you with details but this subject comes up once in a while.
Avi
# Posted on October 13th 2005 by improziv