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[sugarbeard]

So there was talk today in Alec's Pajama-Jam (which was amazing by the by) of doing something of the sorts with multiple TIGS musicians. I still think this is an excellent idea and something worth looking into. I know there's programs out there that let you link up with other musicians online and jam all together live, I just don't have any experience with these programs. Anyone know of any of these programs that could do the job? Also any ideas on how we can get it all streamed out for other people to enjoy?

I think doing something like this on, lets say, a monthly basis could be a LOT of fun and help us all grow as musicians. For now lets spit out ideas on how we can get this ball rolling, unless I'm the only one at all interested in this.

Discuss.

[Danrul]

Its very hard for people to play in time when they have to account for network lag.  It would rock hard though.

[sugarbeard]

http://www.ninjam.com/
http://www.technologyreview.com/web/18783/
http://www.kolabora.com/news/2004/07/23/collaborative_music_jamming_videoconferencing_makes.htm
http://explodingart.com/jam2jam.html

It seems technically possible as long as the people involved have decent connections. But again... I haven't tried any of this personally

[Kekskiller]

Hm, this is a difficul task. Just thinking of how to synchronize the different methods of making music, you know? Like hard synth vs. harp or wtf else.

But otherwise live collaboration is unpredictable, so who cares? Would be cool to try somehing new. As long as we can find a base for it - a specific speed/rythm/bpm/whatever. Something to sync our music stuff as well the general style/idea.

I think that's a point: on collaboration, what will we do to try? Mixing everyones music with every other is pretty lame, since we have a great variety in tools and style.

Atleast we few noisers here can do whatever we want in whatever speed

[sugarbeard]

Atleast we few noisers here can do whatever we want in whatever speed

Aye, god bless my large mass of blinking buttons.

The software I've been looking into (as of an hour ago) is eJamming. Seems to have the latency issue nipped in the bud according to reviews. But it's limited to only 4 musicians at a time. So that may be what we have to work with, just 4 at a time. If we have someone keeping beat (I have a couple drum machines) then that should keep everyone in check. And ya I figure this would fit better with more experimental / improved style of music. But who cares, anything goes.

[Kekskiller]

Yeah, someone needs give a(n improvised) beat or atleast a straight 4/4 to pump the rythm. I have a DS-10 and several selfmade SynthEdit noise machines to express my inner wizard. I think we should try to avoid sequencers and sheet music in general if we really want to experiment.

The bad about eJamming is that you need a license ($9.95/month or $89.95/year) for productive non-hackery use, which is a bit much for just jamming around. It would be OK if there is a constant number of people we could actually jam with, like, say, a crew or group! Otherwise I would prefer a free alternative like Ninjam or so.

[Alec S.]

I'd be interested in this.

[nihilocrat]

Ready to go with all my fake, fake instruments.

I am going to scrounge up some code I have that will let you play your computer keyboard as a MIDI instrument, with the added bonus that you just set the key to play in and then you can't hit anything out of key. This would probably clash a lot with real musicians though, who know more theory than I do.

I also have no way of telling what key anyone else is playing in because I haven't trained my ear or anything. Fun times.

[Alec]

This is an awesome idea. 

[Kekskiller]

Ok, to get the ball rolling we need a point to start. Ninjam seems free and easy to use - there's a command line only server and the client software. Someone with a GOOD connection will be the host, the rest will, well, just try to connect and play stuff. The cool thing is that we don't need to sync Ninjam with a specific software - choose a card'n channel and everything is fine. We also need a some kind of chat (what about the TIG IRC channel?) to setup our stuff and discuss about the bpm, what do etc. The easiest way for testing everything (without serious jamming, just looking how it works) is to just give a specific day and time for experimentation... Just for seeing how everything works - maybe it's simple enough to add a jam later.

How about this or next weekend? Saturday? Sunday? I want atleast a little noise jam with some people here.

[sugarbeard]

Okay this sounds good, I'll grab a copy of Ninjam when I get home from work. Personally I can't do it this weekend as my band is getting ready for a show and writing new tracks. But if some of you could still get together and give it a test run then that would be awesome. Next weekend I'm definitely in though.

Do we know how many simultaneous connections we can have with Ninjam?