news.com — eJamming makes software that enables people to practice music together 1000 miles apart. The idea is to let musicians practice together even when they can't get together physically, or to let students and teachers work together remotely.
Feb 11, 2008 View in Crawl 4
mattm85Feb 11, 2008
Hey, if you are into music then check out this site. Its new and dedicated to spreading new music.<a class="user" href="http://www.stounce.com">http://www.stounce.com</a>
schroderr224Feb 11, 2008
Look it's not jamming in a live room with people. Just like this isn't having a conversation in a room with live people. But we all learn how to use it for ourselves. It's a pretty amazing tool. Jamming is just a small part of what you can get out of it. Imagine you want to record a song and you need a drummer. Get on there and find one you can go into "Overdub" mode with and you have a real recording studio. Drummer lays down a beat. You save it. Load it in and overdub on top of that. There are no delay issues. Zero. Now you can record with anyone, anywhere in the world no matter how bad their internet is. The possibilities are huge. Sure you can send tracks back and forth through email and overdub. But here you're in the same session. You can talk to each other. Hear each other in real time. Discuss. Fix. Rerecord. Pretty slick.
bruzer8888Feb 12, 2008
Yeah, that's old news. Here's a new story on CNET from a couple of weeks ago: <a class="user" href="http://www.cnet.com.au/software/music/0,239025669,339285017,00.htm?feed=rss">http://www.cnet.com.au/software/music/0,239025669, ...</a>
bruzer8888Feb 12, 2008
The average eJamming connection in the same region is 25-30mS, across the US it's 50-60mS and from the US to Europe 60-90mS depending on where each musician is located. Most musicians adapt to the delay fairly quickly because they synchronize the audio so the notes are locked together where each player intends them to be, Only thing I can say is just try it and see if you can use it.
schroderr224Feb 12, 2008
I've jammed with people all over the world. Sometimes it's not easy. Sometimes everything just locks in. Either way I'm actually having a musical experience with someone. I've made some great acquaintances in real time and shared musical ideas, sounds, had collaborations, and jammed with many. There's no need to have an argument on latency. We all know it exists. These guys seem to have worked hard (12 versions of Beta) to get this working. It's a powerful tool that you need to utilize for yourself.
jbravadaFeb 12, 2008
@ DulcetTone-- I politely disagree. As I mentioned earlier, I've been using the software for the better half of a year and I've had no issues whatsoever. If you're experiencing troubles, you should email them from their website as they have a few tech support members that are logged in throughout the day. What setup are you using? By the way, Ninjam doubles the latency as it has to go through a server.
Closed AccountFeb 15, 2008
Shout at me all you want. It makes me feel popular...lol!
shroatmeisterSep 21, 2008
I'm not a musician, but I personally know the guys who are writing the network software behind the system and I know about latency. I was always skeptical about the latency, as were my other developer friends not in their team, but then when they demoed it to us in the office somehow it seemed to work which I found hard to grapple with. Then I remembered something today that seems to put it into perspective. There have been brain studies which involved people doing a task where they simply had to press a button whenever they felt like it. What the ECG showed was that there were initial spikes of brain activity occurred about 100 ms before the person performed the action. So basically the brain deals with 100 ms delays all the time, and we all get by just fine. We can also learn to play computer games with similar latencies between our actions and the game's reaction. Sure it is not as comfortable, but it is doable. Now, with ejamming, the system is inserting delays so that the musicians hear the same thing. Their brain is going to adjust sending of signals by this delay so that their fingers play notes at the right time. The thing is the feedback is managed by the software. It's much easier than playing a computer game since there is a rythm. It is much easier for the brain to predict and send signals ahead of time. It's interesting that the 120 ms maximum delay is similar to the 100 ms delay the studies reported.However I still don't see how this can work for vocals, unless the vocals are not transmitted back to the instrumental musicians.The feedback to the singer cannot be managed as it is inside their own head.