Long distance Music

["Rainer Thelonius Balthasar Straschill" <rs@moinlabs.de>]

> I am trying to record with someone a couple thousand miles 
> away.  What does this fair group suggest?
> 1. Doing my part of the recording and sending the CD or 
> emailing the files?
> 2. Using software and synching up live?

As always, it depends on what you're trying to do ;-)

First of all, when you're recording, I assume that sound quality is an
issue. All of the internet collaboration things I know about use lossy 
audio
compression - sometimes, massive audio compression. What's more, with the
systems I know you don't have a direct influence on that, so you're always
at the mercy of that specific software.
So when you do that "synching up live" thing, you'll most probably want to
exchange audio files as well.

Second, an important point would be in how far interaction of the musicians
is important. If your stuff is completely composed, I see no point at all 
in
playing together over the internet. If on the other hand you're doing 
really
interactive stuff, sending files to and fro will get some kind of
one-way-interaction only.

About technology:

I suggest using FLAC for audio coding if sound quality is a top issue.

Then, about the internet jam thing:

There are two technologies with which I worked which are usable, and a 
third
one I've only read about.

The first one is the well-known Ninjam - www.ninjam.com. It works by
delaying your respective streams deliberately so the delay fits in a given
tempo/beat format - e.g. four measures. This makes it necessary to play 
with
a beat, and the metronome speed of Ninjam is a bit...strange sometimes,
which might make it necessary to MIDI-sync to Ninjam, which can also be a
problem (search the archives or ask again for details...). This allows the
participants to play with the same beat, and the respective delays can be
corrected (or not) when assembling the recordings later.

Then there's openplug by t-u-b-e - www.t-u-b-e.de/openplug.html . This is
without the tricky beat-oriented thing, but it has the charm that it works
as a VST plugin. An example of a session can also be found here:
http://video.google.de/videoplay?docid=266953071112854790&q=moinlabs

Both products are free stuff, Ninjam is also open source (I think, at least
the source code is available).

Finally, there's a new player out there: http://www.ejamming.com/. I 
haven't
checked out what's special about it or how it works, but it seems they're
going to make it payware after the beta phase. If you dare to give it a
spin, I would be glad for your report!


Summarizing: 
Playing over the internet only makes sense if two-directional interaction
between the respective musicians is important. Depending whether your music
is beat-driven or pulse-free, Ninjam or openplug can be candidates (or
perhaps even ejamming). 
Even when doing this, I strongly recommend that each musican makes a
recording of his own playing locally to give you access to high-quality
sound files.


        Rainer