Conference Call Jam Session !!

[Charles E.]

Hi Charles, I was impressed with the video and the concept. Are you going to download? Dan

It looks like I would need to plug in some how. I currently do not have that capability.

[dhergert]

To help put latency into realistic thought, generally if you say BBBB as fast as you can (which may take a little practice), one of those B's is roughly 1/4 second or 250ms, keeping in mind that 1ms is 1/1000 of a second.

At 120bpm, by definition the length of a 16th note is 125ms, an 1/8th note 250ms, a 1/4 note 500ms, a 1/2 note 1 second, a whole note 2 seconds.

A clean ping on a super efficient network line in today's technology from Los Angeles to Miami takes about 63ms. To London takes about 136ms. From NYC to Perth Australia (a close global antipode) is roughly 247ms.

With the home-computer and sound/video and ISP related network technologies we're using, it isn't at all unusual to double or possibly even triple the time of a clean ping, from an instrument on one side, to an ear on the other side.

Again, it's interesting to note that cellphone technology isn't much different, the main difference is that our minds are used to compensating for latency with person-to-person conversations, but we still do have conversational collisions. Generally if latency gets to or above 20ms, interactive music is too discretely detailed to synchronize.

More on this... How Much Latency Can Live Musicians Tolerate?

[Steve Lavelle]

I've been working on fiber optic data transmission for over 30 years. When I started the transmission rate was 1.544 Mb/s, our current product does 800Gb/s per wavelength. the speed of light is the source of lag regardless of the data rate. Financial companie spend huge amounts of money to minimize the lag, but they can't beat physics and neither can us poor musicians!

[dhergert]

It's worth mentioning that latency does occur on stage. The speed of sound is the limit there, even if a person is using remote IEMs (which incorporate radio waves). Especially if they aren't watching each other carefully, large bands on large stages can experience latency problems.

[Bertram Henze]

One of our local session players invented a rather simple procedure for creating a virtual session. All you need is two phones and WhatsApp.
I've made an instructional video, and I must say the idea is not so bad (for a banjo player ).

[Drew Egerton]

I've joined in on a couple of Matt Flinner's Zoom jams and they are a fun escape from cabin fever. Everyone is muted but Matt and he sings and alternates playing breaks and rhythm for you. A great idea and fun in the current situation, but definitely not a complete replacement for playing with others.