[linux-audio-user] Re: Net jamming

[JP Mercury]

Shayne, Wolfgang-

It's good to hear that you two are interested in Net jamming. I read your
ideas and I think we have a good starting point. Let's have a look-
 
> >What I want to do with FreeWheeling is to have users able to connect to a
> >common jam room. As different users capture loops from their improvisations,
> >the loops become available to other users in real-time. Since the loops are
> >syncronized to a common downbeat and tempo, Wolfgang in Germany can take
> >Latifah in Brooklyn's loops and add them to his own improvisation.
.
> that sounds idyllic ... i remember a similar concept with arturia storm
> (version 2.0, i think) where you could connect to a sort of chat-like
> room and share loops and samples with other users ... i think a good
> idea would be to have different "song" rooms, created by a particular
> user who would define the tempo, key etc of the song - perhaps you could
> preview a room to see if it took your fancy - and joined by others 
> who would add layers or segments to it ... this would be a pretty complex
> implementation, though ...

I like the idea of having different rooms for sharing loops. And I also like
the idea of previewing. 

Wolfgang seems to be coming at this more from the audio sync point of view,
while Shayne addressed the ways in which loops could be shared. 

My take on this is that we can allow several users to connect together to form
a session, or room. A room is populated by users, and also loops. The users
have both live audio (inputs and outputs) and possibly their own library of
loops. When we enter a room, we are able to preview the live audio of
different users to hear what they are doing.

I don't see having a single audio stream from a room that everyone jams in.
Wolfgang was mentioning syncronization, and I agree that it would be difficult
to syncronize all those clients. So I would suggest turning the problem on its
head-- why not let each user develop his own improvisation using the loops of
the other users. So the session can go in several directions at once. As
Shayne grabs a new loop from his guitar, it appears on Wolfgang's screen.
Playing the loop, Wolfgang is inspired and grabs something else to add another
layer. Meanwhile, Mercury is listening to Wolfgang's mix and decides to
improvise a break. He cuts out several of Wolfgang's loops, adds some thinner
break loops of his own. He does this in his own mix, so it doesn't affect the
others. Shayne and Wolfgang finish their loopy dialog and see that Mercury has
gone off on a tangent-- so they grab what Mercury is doing and it becomes a
break in their own improvisations.

In this way, I see a session as being a kind of quantum field of musical
possibilities. Different users contribute new loops as they are inspired. We
can peer into another user's sound, but we can also work on our own.

Besides loops, we can share live audio, but we will always be hearing it with
some latency. Perhaps we can choose whether we want the lowest possible
latency, or to quantize to the next beat. 

Wolfgang mentioned bandwidth. I agree that's an issue. I think good results
could be achieved with different codecs, OGG springs to mind. Good quality
OGGs of loops could be shared quite quickly. 

And if this works, we could allow rooms to persist, so that a server stores
the loops and 'scenes' (collections of playing loops and settings), allowing
others to connect later and add to the palette.

It sounds like both of you would be into testing such a system. If you have
more design ideas, please let me know. And while this won't save the world, I
do think that there is a lot of potential for a unique type of collaborative
music making here. And I do think there are social implications whenever we
change the way music is made.

Peace,
Mercury

ps Nothing will ever replace two hands touching, two faces looking at each
other, two birds singing in the wilderness

> no worries - i'm just glad a few people find this idea worth 
> pursuing, cos i really think the potential is huge - the internet 
> and digital audio has changed the way we think about music, but it 
> hasn't much changed the way we *make* music yet .... imagine ....
> 
> shayne