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#196899 - 04/25/05 03:26 PM
Re: Impressive (PC-PC) FREE "unlimited talk time" Internet Telephone: Check it Out !
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Senior Member
Registered: 12/01/99
Posts: 10427
Loc: San Francisco Bay Area, CA, US...
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Had a terrific voice & music making (jam session) with Andrea Rotolo (Dreamer) today via live internet telephone: from San Francisco Bay Area, CA to Rome, Italy. The audio quality was simply AMAZING. We both have DSL/Cable computer connections, so there was absoulutely no audio latency, dropouts, or echo. We could even talk concurrently (at the same time) without the other person's voice dropping out. The audio quality is actually far better than my regular telephone sounds, talking to someone living down the street. Andrea had visited me (and played music together with me) here in Berkeley a couple of years back so the Skype 'PC to PC' internet voice connection felt like the next best thing to jamming LIVE together. With headphones & mics, we spent a wonderful hour jamming (with our keyboards) and me singing too (with my voice finally back in decent form), on tunes (from Jobim to classic jazz standards). It was fun to call up tunes to each other on the fly, and play together: Tyros to Tyros, muting the auto accomp parts except for drums & bass, and playing in all other parts live. Thanks to Skpe internet for making this 'across the globe' LIVE interactive music making possible. Because of the impressive sound quality and no more of the audio latency & dropouts of the past, it's now finally a reality to be able to make musc LIVE with ANYONE anywhere across the globe, and it's TOTALLY FREE to boot. I'm in heaven. I again encourage others to check Skype out. This revolutionizing music making possibilities. Anyone else want to play? Scott
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#196900 - 04/26/05 07:26 AM
Re: Impressive (PC-PC) FREE "unlimited talk time" Internet Telephone: Check it Out !
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Member
Registered: 06/30/00
Posts: 803
Loc: Braganca, Portugal
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Originally posted by Scottyee:
Dave, Good question. For instant text messaging, MSN remains my #1 software choice, but Unfortunately (at least with my computer), MSN Messenger's voicephone feature won't work unless I disable/lower my PC Firewall settings, which is a risky proposition at best. Skype, on the otherhand, allows you to keep your PC's Firewall turned on (mine is: Norton Personal Firewall) & set at full security.
This happens because Skype does not use the same networks as MSN/other communication software. It uses p2p (peer-to-peer) networks [the ones used in Kazaa, for example] and they seem to allow amazing quality standards (particularly good because of rare or in many cases inexistant interruptions). I have been using it to keep in contact with friends in the USA and Canada (fixed phone, not PC-to-PC) at much lower rates than the ones practiced by the companies operating in my country (unfortunately the fixed phones market is in practice a monopoly, in POrtugal, preventing the prices of communications to be lower). New forms of collaboration over broadband internet are one of hottest and most promising fields in this moment. Stay tuned in the progresses we will see in a near future! Those interested in voice over internet might like to read this article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4254399.stm -- José.
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#196902 - 04/26/05 12:48 PM
Re: Impressive (PC-PC) FREE "unlimited talk time" Internet Telephone: Check it Out !
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Senior Member
Registered: 12/01/99
Posts: 10427
Loc: San Francisco Bay Area, CA, US...
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It was a lot of fun chatting with Wazza (Netherlands), Shakeel Ahmed (Pakistan), and RichUK (Portsmouth GB, UK) on Skype today. What amazed me was even though Ahmed was on a slow dialup line (32k), the quality of our conversation was still half way decent, and with no (or very little) audio delay. With DSL/Cable, speaking to the others, the audio quality was fanstastic & with no voice delay or echo whatsoever. Ok, here's (I think) the best way to configure Skype with your keyboard & mic for keyboard jamming & singing LIVE via Skype. If your keyboard includes a mic input (as most arrangers which include a built in vocalizer do), simply plug your mic into your keyboard, and send your keyboard L/R output into your PCs LINE IN jacks on your PC's sound card. You'll probably need a Y cable to convert the two 1/4" (L/R) audio outputs of your keyboard to the 1/8" stereo mini jack input (LINE IN) on your computer's soundcard. Once this is hooked up, all you need to do is don a pair of headphones & plug into the audio out (headphone jack) of your soundcard. You will then be able to voice chat thru the vocal mic plugged into your keyboard, and play your keyboard, with both parties concurrently playing (and singing) & heard concurrently. It's would even be possible (I think) to record the LIVE jam performances via audio recording software (Sonar, Total Recorder, etc) though I'm not exactly sure exactly how to set this up. Any recommendations? Ok folks, my Skype username is: scottyee Look forward to meeting, chatting, and possibly even jamming together LIVE on Skype with fellow Synthzone members soon. Email me to set up a Skype chat session. Scott
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