While hoping to be killed by an out of control airplane at work the other day, an idea came to me. After I thought about it, I started going crazy thinking about what a great idea it seemed like. I'm going to try to explain my vision, but I'm currently TUI (typing under the influence) so any confusion I create let me know and I'll try to revise it tomorrow. Anyways, on to the thought. This would probably be a chat-like program, in that the users would connect in separate rooms, using their computer microphones or other audio input source for the "chat" part. Each person's name would have the instrument they are to play and types of music they like written next to it (example: Don Bermudo--sitar--Lesbian Folk Rock). In this example, Don has created a Lesbian Folk Rock room and is currently looking for a guitarist, a drummer, a vocalist, and a mountain yeti with a heart of gold. People who fit the criteria then join the room and a jam session goes underway. Any person who Don feels is doing a bad job or isn't really a mountain yeti with a heart of gold gets booted and a new person replaces them (just like a real band!). Anonymous users can be voyeurs and watch (listen?) without having to participate, and everyone can type comments in a box to the side. I really don't know how well I explained this idea and am currently not capable of rereading it to double check, so if you have questions or actually have the skills/know how/ability to make this real, let me know.-- AfroAssault, Sep 10 2001 Rocket Network http://www.rocketnetwork.com [Peller, Sep 10 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004] Tonos http://www.tonos.com [Peller, Sep 10 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004] Useful article about Tonos: http://www.sospubs....ticles/netnotes.htm [Peller, Sep 10 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004] Ninjam http://www.ninjam.com/Guess what its purpose is? [Acme, Jul 15 2005] While the chat-room aspect is new to me, the idea of using the internet for live musical collaboration is not new... I remember hearing it discussed 'way back, in the early 90s or late 80s.
I'm pretty sure that it's been done among members of existing bands who aren't in the same location.
Latency is a problem. I bet even a 100ms delay (not very large by net standards) would be noticeable to a tightly knit group of musicians.-- wiml, Sep 10 2001 mmmmmm, pants for breakfast again. There are chats where you can have say - 5 people hooked up via headset - try that out. Might want to do some distance miking.-- thumbwax, Sep 10 2001 It's not possible to have musicians jamming over the Internet in real time, because there's too much of a delay, but the idea of collaborative online multitrack recording is pretty well developed. The best-known name is Rocket Network, which allows people to work on the same multitrack project from different locations. There's also a newer site called Tonos which is designed to allow musicians to collaborate on multitrack recordings, and has a multitrack recording program you download.-- Peller, Sep 10 2001 I had a feeling something like this had to exist, but last night the ol' noodle was having enough trouble finding the right letters to type, so I'm sure attempts at navigating a search engine would have been in vain (vein?). HOWEVER, my thoughts weren't just to have a few people collaborating who already know each other, but to have a Napster/Morpheus/TalkCity style interface with a lot of people. I'm aware of the lag, but I decided we're getting close to making this possible (I remember how "incredibly fast" a 56k was just a few years ago, now what are we at, T4? T5?). Maybe I'm just too hopeful, I hate playing drums and not having a guitarist around.-- AfroAssault, Sep 10 2001 The problem isn't bandwidth, it's latency. You and I might both have T1s and be able to push 1000 packets per second through them, but if it takes half a second for those packets to reach me after leaving you, it will be hard to have a musical collaboration.
I just performed some (highly scientific) tests and found about a 100ms round-trip-time typical to some other sites on the net. Add another 100ms of codec delay, and you get 200ms --- definitely perceptible.
You could try doing it over the phone system, which usually has lower delays (even though many phone calls are routed over private IP networks these days...) but then you lose the internet coolness factor.-- wiml, Sep 11 2001 Yeah, you might have to do it like Pink Floyd--essentially create a sitar track and then have the online members upload their parts. No! The parts they *play on their instruments!* More like a BB where people post musical tracks than a real-time jelly session. Jam session! TUI myself tonight.-- Dog Ed, Sep 11 2001 Interesting opening line considering the date of the posting.-- bristolz, Jul 07 2004 Dude, that is weird. Afroassault, has some weird timing to his/her statments-- dlapham, Jul 08 2004 I rather doubt that the opening line was actually typed on Sep 10, 2001. Editing an idea won't change the date shown.-- zigness, Jul 08 2004 Not likely given the writer.-- bristolz, Jul 08 2004 Wow, so much material to work with here... I got the memo before the Bush Administration did. Just call me Frostradamus. Unabubba was right-- Afro Assault = Osama Bin Laden... In all actuality, I had no idea I did that. Had it not been for an e-mail from dlapham, I don't think I'd ever have known. Spooky. Gives me an idea though.... while hoping to get slightly injured by a bus full of bikini models and hundred dollar bills, only to wake up on my own personal island inhabited by creatures that dispense whiskey from their ass, I had an idea: I need more shoelaces.-- AfroAssault, Jul 08 2004 This idea has been almost baked and thrown back into the oven so many times it's now a charred, black croissant. See my link for the latest incarnation.-- Acme, Jul 15 2005 random, halfbakery