How can my ukulele group set up a virtual play-along?

Lillymo

Lillymo

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After attending a virtual cocktail party using Zoom (highly recommended!) I wondered if it would be possible to do a jam online with my ukulele group. There's a delay with Zoom that makes playing together impossible and the sound quality is okay for speech, but not so good for music. A friend looked into JamKazam but it requires equipment that most of us don't have access to.

There could be as few as 4 or as many as 30 people interested in participating. Yup, I'm a dreamer, but does anybody know of an easy way to play together in real-time from wherever we're hunkered down?

Thanks!
 
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Check out these threads:


In general it's one-to-many. Latency problems will prevent playing with everybody sharing audio with current technology. You may get a couple of people in sync with low latency audio input and excellent network conditions, but not dependable under real word conditions. Jamkazaam may be slightly better than conferencing software (zoom/teams/slack/etc) but reviews suggest limited success.
 
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kookoolele said:
I have used both of these platforms, which offer free plans and paid ones:

https://zoom.us/pricing (There's a free plan for up to 100, for max 40 min sessions)

https://www.uberconference.com/pricing (Up to 50 ppl)
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Thank you kookoolele. I haven't tried uberconference. I didn't have much success with zoom because of the lag. Does uberconference have a similar delay? I've read on other threads that some groups work around this by having the leader mute the followers during songs. I was hoping to find a way for everybody to play together.
 
Arcy said:
Check out these threads:


In general it's one-to-many. Latency problems will prevent playing with everybody sharing audio with current technology. You may get a couple of people in sync with low latency audio input and excellent network conditions, but not dependable under real word conditions. Jamkazaam may be slightly better than conferencing software (zoom/teams/slack/etc) but reviews suggest limited success.
Click to expand...

Thank you! I should've guessed this was already a forum topic!
 
Lillymo said:
Thank you kookoolele. I haven't tried uberconference. I didn't have much success with zoom because of the lag. Does uberconference have a similar delay? I've read on other threads that some groups work around this by having the leader mute the followers during songs. I was hoping to find a way for everybody to play together.
Click to expand...

Yes, all services have the delay, unless you pay really big bucks for an extremely fast wide bandwidth service. After testing a few services, the only way it can work is the leader has audio on and everyone else be muted and play, only hearing the leader and yourself.

This is Michael Kohan in Los Angeles, Beverly Grove near the Beverly Center
9 tenor cutaway ukes, 6 acoustic bass ukes, 12 solid body bass ukes, 14 mini electric bass guitars (Total: 41)

• Donate to The Ukulele Kids Club, they provide ukuleles to children in hospital music therapy programs. www.theukc.org
• Member The CC Strummers: YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/CCStrummers/video, Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheCCStrummers
 
If you have a Windows PC just use Microsoft Teams. I believe they just rolled it for consumers recently. Fairly simple to use and sound quality is on par with competition. Although, their servers might be under quite a bit of stress for the next few weeks/months since so many people are working from home and using Teams as well. :D
 
kohanmike said:
Yes, all services have the delay, unless you pay really big bucks for an extremely fast wide bandwidth service. After testing a few services, the only way it can work is the leader has audio on and everyone else be muted and play, only hearing the leader and yourself.
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Our group tried zoom last week, had to mute everybody but the leader, but got to connect with the group.
 
My third grade class is now virtual for an hour a day. We use Zoom. It works fine, but it's not set up for music, just speech. The leader can use a background (like space or whatever picture you upload.)
But, everyone is muted, except for the leader. The leader can then choose a person and unmute them so the rest of the class can hear the teacher/student conversation. When I'm done with the class, I unmute everyone and they all yell each others names, etc. (Hey Suzie! Hey Billy, etc.)
 
Use social media and set it up as a group. Treat it as an online open mic rather than a synchronous Jam. Participate in Seasons of the Ukulele in this forum.

In the Seasons of the Ukulele, Sometimes members co-operate to produce a joint video. This involves sharing audio files via online tools such as dropbox in order to overdub the various contributions. To do it synchronously involves seriously expensive kit which most of us don't have the resources for.
 
To just make the point again, no matter what service you use, you cannot all play and be heard at the same time.
 
Lillymo said:
Thank you kookoolele. I haven't tried uberconference. I didn't have much success with zoom because of the lag. Does uberconference have a similar delay? I've read on other threads that some groups work around this by having the leader mute the followers during songs. I was hoping to find a way for everybody to play together.
Click to expand...

There are actually multiple variables that can create the lag, not only the service platforms themselves. I have used both on meetings with many users, but these were all people with relatively new computers, on highspeed broadband.
Given that's probably not going to be everyone's setup in your group, one (leader- unmuted) to many (muted) is going to be more stable than you all trying to play unmuted at the same time. You might use these tools to chat a bit before playing, then mute once keeping tempo starts to matter.
 
kookoolele said:
There are actually multiple variables that can create the lag, not only the service platforms themselves. I have used both on meetings with many users, but these were all people with relatively new computers, on highspeed broadband.
Given that's probably not going to be everyone's setup in your group, one (leader- unmuted) to many (muted) is going to be more stable than you all trying to play unmuted at the same time. You might use these tools to chat a bit before playing, then mute once keeping tempo starts to matter.
Click to expand...

That's exactly how we use it, but we still have to be conscious of not talking at the same time when we're unmuted.
 
We did one session with Facebook Live. Two of us took turns leading a group through a total of around 26 songs over approximately 2 hour period. Only the leader could be seen, but everyone else was having a good time commenting. It was surprisingly easy.

Tonight, about a dozen of us, plan to experiment with Zoom. Someone who has an upgraded package has agreed to host. A few of us played around with it yesterday and everyone could be seen, and each of us took turns talking. The idea tonight is to have 45 minutes of play along with various people taking turns leading a song, and then we're going to have a virtual open mic. Will follow up and let you know how it goes ~
 
mjh42 said:
Be careful with kids and Zoom we were told not to use it at work, educational setting, as there are not adequate protections in place for mining of personal data....
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And, oddly enough, Zoom is nearly a de facto standard for video conferencing in an educational setting...
 
Just to second what a few people have said here, I am not aware of any system that lets many play with many. The simple fact of the speed of light means that there will always be a delay. Add in other delays on the way, and it can only get worse - player A hits a chord, and player B hears it a fraction of a second later. He hits his chord at what he hears as the same time, and off that goes back to player A, who says "hey, you're one and a half beats behind me..."

Our local group did a Zoom session last night, with the person who set the meeting up as the administrator. We had eight people taking part, but the admin had to mute everybody apart from the person leading the song. So one person led a song, and the other seven played along, hearing only the leader. At the end of the song, the admin un-muted everybody else, so we could all talk and choose the next song. Even then we had a few delays and hiccups in the sound, but it was better than sitting in our homes on our own.
 
I subscribed to the pay version of Zoom for a weekly sing around. I definitely need a better camera and microphone for hooking to my Pc. Any suggestions?
 
Cornfield said:
I subscribed to the pay version of Zoom for a weekly sing around. I definitely need a better camera and microphone for hooking to my Pc. Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

If you think that will fix the lag/delay, don't bother, it will not help. As well, looking online earlier today, nothing is available until late April.
 
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