Today we had an incredible experience.
For one hour two SZ friends , Scott from San Francisco, USA and me from Belo Horizonte, Brazil played together via Msn cameras and sound, nice songs and shared your musical experiences.Scott is a nice player and singer and I could add my humble chords to the Scotts music.
I am sure that we made the first of a lot of musical meetings via Msn.
Scott's Tyros and my 3000 sounded nice and very clear.
I am glad with the innovation.
Cheers
Chico

Sounds like Scott is becoming a worldwide travler from the comfort of his home.

Cheers,

Gary

Chico and Gary....it appears that tomorrow is here...tomorrow is now.....way to go guys.
Tony Rome

Chico,

If you're interested in jamming, I'm involved with a new company that will allow musicians to jam with each other any place in the world...over the internet...no kidding. You're right Tony, tomorrow is here now!
Check it out. Go to www.ejamming.com.

Peter

[This message has been edited by peter dino (edited 05-06-2005).]

[This message has been edited by peter dino (edited 05-06-2005).]

Oi Chico.

This is amazing. Today the World is really very small.

I like to know more details about this your incredible experience.

Cheers.
Um grande abraço.
Armando

[This message has been edited by SD_FAN (edited 05-07-2005).]

MIDI is such a small format that you can easily get it in sync these days. It's very cool! With this kind of approach you can also set up an audio facility by having the other persons virtual instruments located at the same place where you are, so in that way you only need a good audio interface and a fast computer to get this technology sounding amazing. Soon there will be ways of transfering the other persons whole setup first before the jam starts.

Since audio is a much bigger format there are currently no fast enough communication methods to handle audio signals fast enough to not cause too much latency when playing live together with somebody on the other side of the world. Until then we will live in an age where MIDI and virtual instruments will lead the way. There are many interesting things that fast communication methods can do together with music in digital format. In the future you will be able to do for instance this:

1.Search for musicians that want to play a certain setup of songs together with.
2.Together choose instruments, mixer, effects, amplifiers and cabs for the gig.
3.Perform in front of an audience.
4.Store the music on DVD.
5.Sell the DVD.
6.Buy another one's produced DVD.
7.Modify the mix however you like.
8.Sample the instruments you heard on the DVD.

Peter, great to hear about your new company, but this is ALREADY available to all of us "TOTALLY FREE" via MSN Messenger 7 and/or Skype. Please read below. Curious what your company offers that's not already available for FREE. - Scott



Yes, I too (in California) shared the pleasure of meeting Chico Brasil (via live internet phone & simultaneous webcam) of which included us playing keyboards (+singing in my case) for each other, as well as together: LIVE!

The evolution of free internet telephone & webcam audio continues:

My new internet phone/video discovery actually began a few weeks back when Andrea Rotolo (Dreamer) suggested we chat (Rome/San Francisco) via Skype telephone, a new free internet telephone software. I was initially skeptical because my previous experiences with internet telephone (Net2Phone, Dialpad, etc) were less than stellar because of poor sound quality, audio delay, echo, and calls getting dropped after a specified limited connection time). Because Andrea & I recently upgraded to a lightening fast hi-speed internet connection, we decided to give internet telephony another try and were amazed how clear & clean the signal was, experiencing excellent sound quality (far superior than a standard telephone), no echo, and inperceivable audio delay. In addition, unlimited talk time. Because Andrea had visited me here in California a couple years ago, we knew how we sounded together in person, playing music with each other in the same room, and incredibly enough, the voice quality (over internet phone) nearly equaled that, albeit a slight barely perceivable audio delay, if playing/jamming concurrently. We both used a head/set mic for our conversation & live music making.

A few days later, talking with SZ member Rich Child (UK) it was discovered that instead of simply utilizing a simple headset/mic unit plugged into the computer's microphone input jack, it's far better instead, to plug the keyboard's audio outputs directly into the computer's audio "line-in" jack. By plugging a vocal mic into the keyboard, it allows both your speaking (and singing vocals) to go thru the keyboard's audio outputs directly into the computer's audio "line in", providing impressive clarity & audio fidelity. My experience playing and singing (live: California/UK) with Rich was incredible, and by our second live telephone jam session, believe it or not, no perceptible audio delay at all, allowing us to play and hear each other as if we were both sitting next to each other in the same sound studio, interacting musically on our kbs & and sparing (jokes) with one another in the process. It felt like we were on the same stage performing together ala Bing Crosby & Louis Armstrong did on their classic song: "Gone Fishin", of which Rich and I are both working on together. Rich & I ran thru a gamut of tunes (on the fly) from the old standards, blues, latin bossas, R&B funk, to even contemporary tunes, picking up and adding licks and vocal chorus' as the other person came up with a fresh new tune idea off the wall. Our music get together sessions have been the most memorable I've had in recent memory, and definitely beating having to pack gear up and transport and meet for a studio rehearsal thousands of miles away, less down the block.

In addition to these live online music making experiences, I've subsequentlyl had the opportunity to chat with quite a few other SZ members on Skype as well. Interestingly enough, some internet telephone signal connections have fared better than others with calls fading, or which include signal delay. It seems that most of these people have a slower internet connection (56K or slower) and/or older (slower) computer, which greatly compromises the audio quality. I did though enjoy finally getting a chance for a simple voice chat with members whom I may never would have had the opportunity to speak with though.

Here are just a few of the other SZ members I've enjoyed communicating with on Skype/MSN: Tony Rome (Cozumel, Mexico), Wazza (Marcel) in the Netherlands, Dirk Baert (Notlos), Shakeel Ahmed (Pakistan), Bernie Ackerman (Florida), Bob Riffle (FL), Johnny Barr (UK), and Mark (Ondo), Spokane, WA, Elizabeth Evelyn (New Mexico).

To top this all off, yesterday, I had the opportunity to take the internet phone experience to yet another level, chatting with Synthzone member Chico in Brazil. Instead of chatting on Skype (which supports audio voice only), we connected via MSN Messenger (new version 7) which supports BOTH free internet telephone as well as simultaneous live webcam. With the previous version of MSN Messenger, I could only audio chat if I lowered my PC's firewall (something I'm unwilling to do), but with MSN Messenger version 7, as with Skype, allows you to keep your PC firewall fully enabled and protecting your PC, yet allows the audio & webcam video to pass thru. I must say that on this first test, both the live audio chat (and simultaneous video webcame) were stellar, sounding like we were in the same room (and with no noticeable delay or echo), amazing considering we're located so far apart (San Francisco-Brazil). It really felt like a personal visit into Chico's house as he panned his webcam around the room and his studio, showing off his impressive music equipment, as well as introducing me to his pet dogs, a Schnauzer named "Sebastian" and Golden Retriever named " Zeus". Adding the webcam experience brought everything even closer to life.

I encourage everyone here (especially if you have a hi-speed broadband internet connection (cable/dsl) to further friendships made here on Synthzone thru live internet audio/video chat via (MSN Messenger/Skype). It's one thing to discuss arranger keyboards by posting here, but actually talking and 'playing music' for each other live, as well as play (jam) together live is the essence of what music making is all about, at least for me. This new FREE Internet telephone/video technology has finally broken the old barriers to cross cultural (global) music making to anyone located anywhere around the world. Take advantage of it.

I encourage all SZ members here interested in merely chatting (live audio and/or webcam), playing music: either for, or together (jamming) to email me, or to meet on MSN Messenger or Skype. My MSN Messenger name is: scottyee88, and my Skype user contact name is: scottyee.

This is truly where LIVE music-making is headed in our 21st Century. Don't miss out.

Scott

[This message has been edited by Scottyee (edited 05-07-2005).]

Scott

I don't understand all the technical parts to the company that I'm mentioned to you. I emailed this page to the president of the company and he emailed me a reply which I would like to post here for you to read.
This reply is from Alan Glueckman the president of ejamming.

Peter –
I’ve put together this response for you if you’d like to post a reply on that SynthZone message board:

While using MSN Messenger or Skype or other video conferencing might seem like a great musical experience, it only works with two people and you’re really not able to maintain true sync, because the internet is constantly experiencing delays and congestion, with ping rates between two people changing as much as 20-40milliseconds over the course of a connection.



Add more people to the jam (like with the new Apple Tiger iSight 4 person conferencing), and the delays are even more variable, and sync becomes impossible. What makes eJamming really cool is that it can connect up to 8 musicians together in a live jam and it measures the latencies between all of the musicians every millisecond and syncs up the MIDI data so everybody stays in perfect sync. In addition, since eJamming can drive Gigastudio or Logic or any software synth, you get incredible sound at each location without compromising any of the audio quality by compression codecs. The best thing about eJamming is that you can record your jam and it’s a perfect recording of the performance, because every note is timestamped and all delays or dropped notes that come with internet congestion are eliminated.



I’ve eJammed from Florida to London to Los Angeles with 4 musicians and the experience was incredible. You can sign up to be one of their Beta Testers now (Beta Testing begins in about 4 weeks). Hope to see you online at eJamming.

Alan Jay Glueckman

Chairman/President

eJamming, Inc





www.ejamming.com

[This message has been edited by peter dino (edited 05-08-2005).]

[This message has been edited by peter dino (edited 05-08-2005).]

[This message has been edited by peter dino (edited 05-10-2005).]

Thanks for keeping us informed Peter. I have put up a featured link to eJamming on the front page of http://www.synthzone.com letting people know you need some beta testers.

Nigel, that was very thoughtful of you.
Thank you.

Peter