Remote Recording over broadband

Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2008 7:17 am

Can anyone help me please? What do I need to hook up my PC running Sonar to a remote studio and enable realtime live recording via broadband?

Thanks
Alex

Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2008 8:42 pm

why would you want to degrade your signal in a recording environment?

Posted: Sat Aug 09, 2008 5:31 am

I've been using NinJam here and there. It's fun, but that's as close as I've come to real time tracking via broadband aside from Fruity Loops. Unless you're talking about a network using a hub/router and some RJ45. Oh, or you could RDP and use LogMeIn.com... are you using XP?

Posted: Sat Aug 09, 2008 5:49 pm

Space wrote:

why would you want to degrade your signal in a recording environment?

I don't...... all I am trying to do is hook up musicians from all over the globe. It used to be possible via ISDN in the 90's so I'm guessing it can be done via broadband these days

Posted: Sat Aug 09, 2008 5:51 pm

BrianaW wrote:

I've been using NinJam here and there. It's fun, but that's as close as I've come to real time tracking via broadband aside from Fruity Loops. Unless you're talking about a network using a hub/router and some RJ45. Oh, or you could RDP and use LogMeIn.com... are you using XP?

Yes I'm on XP but I have never worked a way of syncing stuff together via the internet...thanks for your help any advice is greatly appreciated

Posted: Sat Aug 09, 2008 5:55 pm

p-theory wrote:

It used to be possible via ISDN in the 90's

Wonder why they do not do that anymore?

Posted: Sat Aug 09, 2008 8:03 pm

Even ISDN didn't have enough speed to have a remote jam.

anything over the internet, even "broadband" has inherent latency issues, that makes it virtually impossible to simul-track across continents.

What is possible, is to use something like SKYPE to connect up to the remote site, and hear things more-or-less in "real time", and make immediate judgments/evaluations.

you CAN do it if you're working with very legato, open type of ambient music...but anything that requires a tempo and coordinated parts, you're just setting yourself up for pain.

Incidentally, I have been doing internet music collaboration for about the last 6 years. I co-admin an ongoing worldwide collaboration that's conducted over at Mixerman's forum, called CAPE (Collaborative Audio Production Experiment).

What we've typically found, is that instead of going nuts trying to synch everything up, you work individually, and you follow an ITERATIVE process. That means you get a guide track, you place your part, that goes around the group, and at that point you revisit your contribution, in light of what's been done by others. THat in turn goes back around, and while it isn't anything like playing in the same room or at the same time, you end up with potentially striking results.

Last CAPE, I was assigned as a songwriter, and my song "join" (which can be heard in the CAPE radio at mixerman's forum) was a very rubato piece. The players created a very precise tempo map, and through a process of going back and forth, managed to achieve a sound that really made you feel like everyone was in the same room. Stellar work by the production team on that.

So, I guess my point is, basically because of the laws of physics and thermodynamics, you will in the present day be stymied in your quest for millisecond-loop timing in ANY communications medium.

dwoz

Posted: Sat Aug 09, 2008 8:09 pm

Hey, daveDog...can we post mp3 here? Or would you mind if I posted a link to the song I'm referring to?

dwoz

Posted: Sun Aug 10, 2008 12:08 am

Hi,
Okay, well firstly, check out NINJAM. Learn how it works and see if this could help your situation at all. Everything in the "live" jams can be recorded to separate .wav files if you so desire. I've used this and basically, one person is just lagging behind by a measure so the person who starts/leads just has to play an extra measure. Does this make sense?

http://ninjam.com/

Secondly, Windows XP Pro has a feature called Remote Desktop Sharing, which basically lets a person have complete control over a remote computer. If you were just trying to control a remote studio with musicians inside it and record them... this could be done fairly easily using the RDP feature. It will not however, allow you to play in real time with musicians in a remote location because only one user is allowed complete control at a time.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsXp/using/mobility/getstarted/Remoteintro.mspx

AFAIK, there is no way to play in true real time with other musicians via broadband yet. NINJAM and eJam come the closest I think. But Ninjam can also be integrated into Reaper, so things can be tracked and lined up automatically. Hope this gives you some pivot point from which you can start your journey. Smile

Posted: Sun Aug 10, 2008 9:26 am

BrianaW...

Don't take this as an attack, just a kind rebuttal...

You've got to be INSANE to allow remote desktop Sharing over the internet. Unless you're on a VPN or something. But, it doesn't solve the problem anyway. Does RDP give you the audio subsystem as well?

If you're using something like ninjam, where there is a big lag between the nodes, the "master" node cannot respond, in a musical sense, to what's happening in the "client" nodes...so what's the worth of it? The master node should just record a track, and send it along to the client nodes, and they can play along with it. The difference between this, and ninjam, as a matter of musical communication, are moot.

So, why then would you use something like ninjam? perhaps it has file management features that make your session easier, perhaps it packages the communication aspects up into a unified interface...

As collaboration software, it may mean something to some people...as a facilitation of musical communication, it does not advance the art.

There's another aspect of this whole, "worldwide jam" thing that's often missed... In my last internet music collaboration, I had a team member in Frankfurt, one in Hobart, Tasmania, one in Sydney, one in (I kid you not) Kuala Lumpur, one in Ottawa, and one in Denver, one in Philadelphia, and myself in Boston area.

Now, my guys in Ottawa and Philadelphia were no problem...but add in the Euro folks and the PacRim/down under guys, and we have a Schedule Issue. As in....when do you schedule your session? No matter what, it's going to be a bad time of day for SOMEBODY. We had difficulty figuring out when to do SKYPE conferences, never mind actually play at the same time!

dwoz

Posted: Sun Aug 10, 2008 10:02 am

Hey Zeus H Cry est. 2008. This is 2008! Why can't we jamb in real time from all corners of the globe, surely we can engineer a way past physics.

Maybe if you all synchronised watches then played improv pieces at high noon (lets say GMT +8, KL time) then snail mailed each other the result...

I like the idea of "collaborative music" where people share and add to a common piece of work. Awesome stuff. Like playing chess through the mail. It doesn't need to be real-time.
I can pick the delay in a local phone call, the lag in a webcam conversation makes me want to pull my hair out. You want to create music in this environment?

Posted: Sun Aug 10, 2008 10:48 am

The problem today is that there are maybe 30 routers in between "you" and "him", and each one of those has to queue your packets.

If we could get it down to 3 hops with expedited queues in the routers, then we could do it.

dwoz

Posted: Sun Aug 10, 2008 11:07 am

Yeah... Even if you convert the signal to light and zip it around with some hyper-tech that doesn't need slow assed repeaters like fiber optics you are still limited to the speed of light.

Given instantaneous conversion, no signal repeater lag and no other lag whatsoever, for you and me to jamb realtime (NE USA to SE AUS) we would have 55ms of delay straight up.

Posted: Sun Aug 10, 2008 11:16 am

I us this on a daily basis

http://www.sourceelements.com/products/

Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 8:54 am

dwoz wrote:

Even ISDN didn't have enough speed to have a remote jam.

anything over the internet, even "broadband" has inherent latency issues, that makes it virtually impossible to simul-track across continents.
dwoz

Gotta disagree DWOZ we did an album with ON-U Sound in 1996 that was jammed live over ISDN called "Compresion" at FM broadcast quality. We had a guitar player in NY a bass player is Seattle and Keith Leblanc in On-U sound in London and Jesse in Scotland and Bernie Worrell in The House of Music as well as some musicians in South Africa.

http://www.skysaw.org/onu/artists/jesserae.html

All I remember is it had some APT equipment acting as a Codec but it worked hence why I asked my original question.

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