Is There a Zoom-type App That Works With Music?

[lbpesq]

So last night I participated in a Zoom Open Mic.  We had about 10 performers with about double that watching.   The most socializing I’ve done in a month - big fun!   But it seemed that while the singing was fine, all of the guitar playing sounded distorted, some more than others.   It appeared that Zoom works far better transmitting voice than music.  Does anyone know of an app that works better for this purpose, or a way to make Zoom work better for musical performances?   All suggestions and advice appreciated.


Bill, tgo

[Glynn]

Experimenting a bit myself but time-lag seems to be the biggest problem.  Use Zoom a lot for work and family meetings - better than Skype and Google Hangouts, I think.  You are right, though, it is a fun way of keeping in touch.
Glynn

[lbpesq]

Time lag wasn’t an issue as we were taking turns, each doing a couple of songs, solo.   But all the guitars sounded weird, like when rap artists use a heavy dose of autotune.

Bill, tgo

[xlrogue6]

This might be worth a watch--haven't tried it yet myself though.
Not a valid vimeo URL

[edwin]

I've been using JamKazam. If you have a low latency interface, fast internet, and a direct ethernet to your router, it works pretty well.

[pauldo]

FYI:
Lake Street Dive recently did a thing on YouTube, the trumpet and electric guitar distorted.  The vocals and conversation from both of the afore mentioned ‘channels’ sounded fine, without distortion.  The acoustic guitar and piano sounded good and the bass was too quiet in the mix to tell. 

No idea what interface they used for getting 4 musicians playing from their sofa’s to sync up.  But there was definitely audio issues. 

I just finished a 5 person FaceTime call and one user when speaking would get an intermittent reverberation type distortion.
Another user that was about 6 times further away (at ~ 2,000 miles) sounded as clear as a bell...

Wonder if it is the software or the infrastructure that is creating problems.

[hankster]

The latency is usually in the wifi or at least most of it. As Edwin suggests it gets better if you use all wired - ie Ethernet- connections to the various devices. I tried to sing “Happy Birthday” with several friends on Zoom the other night, all with wifi connections, and utter collapse ensued. It was funny though.

Pretty much anything you see that looks like a spontaneous internet collaboration is a video-edited product involving several distinct video/audio files edited together.

[mario_farufyno]

I've been using JamKazam. If you have a low latency interface, fast internet, and a direct ethernet to your router, it works pretty well.

That's it, latency is less related to the software than to your conection. Never trust wifi, do it through a phisical conection to the router. If you can, or if this doesn't ruins the joy of jamming at distance, avoid sending videos since they consume lots of data transfer and processing to your computer.

[LMiwa]

Latency will be a HUGE issue if you have multiple people at different locations trying to play together. But if just one person (or multiple people at the same place sharing the same computer) then not so much of a problem.The distortion is often caused by "automatic level control" that adjusts the mic level too high for music. I have been using a condenser mic into my Focusrite interface and then using that as the source for Zoom. I control the levels and don't let Zoom do it. Works fine.

[JimmyJ]

Yes, latency is the problem.  It can kinda be done if you're singing a part or maybe playing a non percussive instrument. 

When I work with ProTools at home I switch to "low-latency mode" which allows me to monitor my input directly instead of hearing the sound after it has made the roundtrip through analog to digital conversion and back to analog.  That only takes a few milliseconds but does make a difference when trying to play exactly with a drummer. 

Now consider zoom converting analog to digital, then sending through your modem and across the internet (Speedtest for me shows a 30ms "ping" delay), back through your friend's modem (with their ping delay) and zoom's D-A conversion on their end.  Now try to clap your hands exactly in time together.   

As Richard said above, any "split-screen" style musical collaborations that you see must have been assembled after the fact.  Somebody had to go first.  The others record themselves playing along and then it's assembled in post production.

There's still some very creative music to be made this way but sadly it's not a real-time jam...

Jimmy J

[edwin]

Yes, latency is the problem.  It can kinda be done if you're singing a part or maybe playing a non percussive instrument. 

When I work with ProTools at home I switch to "low-latency mode" which allows me to monitor my input directly instead of hearing the sound after it has made the roundtrip through analog to digital conversion and back to analog.  That only takes a few milliseconds but does make a difference when trying to play exactly with a drummer. 

Now consider zoom converting analog to digital, then sending through your modem and across the internet (Speedtest for me shows a 30ms "ping" delay), back through your friend's modem (with their ping delay) and zoom's D-A conversion on their end.  Now try to clap your hands exactly in time together.   

As Richard said above, any "split-screen" style musical collaborations that you see must have been assembled after the fact.  Somebody had to go first.  The others record themselves playing along and then it's assembled in post production.

There's still some very creative music to be made this way but sadly it's not a real-time jam...

Jimmy J

I wouldn't write off the real time jam yet. It may not have the production qualities of the overdubbed and assembled jams we've seen, but I think it can be reasonably satisfying to rehearse etc. I'm hoping to know in the next week or so.

[lbpesq]

The suggestion to use a direct ethernet connection instead of relying on wifi makes sense.  I understand how this can help minimize lag, but will it also help the acoustic guitar sound better and not distorted or super compressed?

Bill, tgo

[edwardofhuncote]

I will have to ask for specifics of how they are doing it, but a couple buddies of mine in the space-grass band Blue Mule are using something to practice virtually every Wednesday night. I just talked to Tim their banjo player the other day, (who also happens to be an IT specialist at Virginia Tech; so insert whatever joke you can fit here...) and he said they were making it work somehow. Those guys are all kinda' techies... well, all but one I know of. Fun bunch too. I wouldn't be surprised if they did find a shortcut. There may be issues of legality.   

[lbpesq]

I participated in my second Zoom Open Mic last night.  This time I used a laptop instead of the iPad and ran a 20’ Ethernet cord instead of using wifi (anyone know if there is a way to plug an Ethernet cord into an iPad?). Then I found a setting in Zoom to “use original sound”.  My guitar came through MUCH better than previously.  Unfortunately, the camera in my laptop wasn’t very good.   The next Zoom Open Mic is in two weeks, so I have some time to research a camera upgrade.

Bill, tgo

[jazzyvee]

There are some ipad to ethernet adaptors on ebay, though i have not  tried any yet but i guess i would look for one that still allows the ipad to be charged whilst the adaptor is in use.