The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    I wasn't sure where to put this, but decided that no doubt it is a piece of software of whatever language(s) so will try it here. Years back I tried the beta of whatever the other one of these online "play-together" services was called, and it was pretty poor. Kind of like playing over Skype where any instrument "stepped on" any other.

    I was curious to see if anyone in this forum had tried this and had anything to say about it? I'm dubious just because of the big latencies (audio I/F to PC, Software layer, PC-> world , or internet speed). On top of all that you'd of course have to have some people you'd actually want to play with this way. I'm guessing that you'd only do this with people you liked from having heard them on some online venue and this was the only way to get with them.

    I gave the forum a search and the internet for reviews, but really couldn't come up with much.

    Any thoughts?

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2

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    I've got an account, but I don't have an interface (got stolen with all my other gear last year) so I haven't used it yet.

  4. #3

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    Hi Mickey,

    I'm David Wilson, the Founder and CEO of JamKazam. I'm glad you are asking questions about the software and hope you decide to give it a shot! We'd love to welcome you to the community.

    We are fairly new and consider ourselves still in open beta, that said we have over 5,000 musicians singed up and many are having a great time jamming with others.

    The latency question is a good one and we concede that your best session will be with folks that are within about a 500 mile radius of you. We have a built in scoring system that will test your lacency against other musicians, so that helps a lot.

    I've created some vidoes to explain the latency issue, so if you are interested, here is a video that explains it a little more:


    Another good resource to check out is our facebook page at www.facebook.com/jamkazam. We will be hosting some jam sessions starting this Monday, if you wanted check it out, we've posted the info in the events section.

    I hope you sign up and if you do, feel free to ping me with any questions. I can be reached at David at jamkazam.com.

  5. #4

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    Thanks for replying David,

    Congratulations on such a project and I hope it flies. I'll be checking it out when I get a Behringer audio IF device to handle the first transformation. I think the "scoring system for latency" is a great idea.

    Probably be a few weeks before I get to check this out but it's an interesting niche to fill and could be a great thing for some people. Even if I could play with one of my band members that is ~hundreds of miles from me I'd be pretty happy with that.

  6. #5

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    I am looking at it now to see if it is possible on my computer (Latency problem?) If I get past the latency test, I will probably give it a try.

    wiz

  7. #6

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    Quote Originally Posted by wizard3739
    I am looking at it now to see if it is possible on my computer (Latency problem?) If I get past the latency test, I will probably give it a try.

    wiz
    Good, and good luck. I'll be ready to try this (getting an IF for my PC) in about 1-2 weeks. Keep us posted.

  8. #7

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    I think the latency is more an IP bandwidth issue, whether you have cable or dsl.

  9. #8

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    I have been trying to get JamKazam going for about 6 weeks. I have fairly good internet (about 15Mb/s down and 5Mb/s up). I bought a new PC for it, a separate monitor, new headphones, new audio interface, upgraded to Win 7 64 bit. I have installed and uninstalled the Jam Kazam software and reconfigured the Behringer USB drivers and asio drivers at least 15 times. The amount of time I have spent on trying to get this going is silly. I can get online and play but there is a distinct clicking and a wah wah effect. The software has constant crashes and complaints about jitter and latency.

    I have asked users on the JamKazam forum who claim that it works perfectly exactly what hardware they have and I went out to buy the same hardware. Still I get static and wah wah. The most frustrating part is that they have a built in "recording feature" and when I record and then play it back (after it has been processed by Jam Kazam servers) it sounds perfectly clear.

    Now they are raising funds for a new piece of hardware called a JamBlaster that is supposed to not go through the PC and work perfectly. They want $200 in advance to put in an order for one. That is not a great deal of money. Jeez I already spent 5 times that trying to get JamKazam working. Many (most) people on Jam Kazam that I have heard are playing guitars with heavy distortion boxes. How can they tell if Jam Kazam is clear??? Maybe that is OK for Metal but for Jazz?
    Last edited by richb2; 02-21-2015 at 08:42 AM.

  10. #9

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    Rich, did you send your information directly to the owner, David at jamkazam.com ?

  11. #10

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    No, I am sure that the co is small enough that he is aware of the issues. The real question is "is this technology ready for prime time?". The only way I can really tell is to go over and see (and listen) to someone's setup, so I know what is possible. Perhaps by having marketing videos where the music has been processed manually (ie in Audacity) offline there is some "bait and switch" going on? I'll send him a direct notification right now.

  12. #11

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    Rich,

    I spent the weekend trying to get a similar service working. Ejamming. The software doesn't seem to be very modern. I feel your pain, for 4 hours me and my network certified friend anguished over getting the software to work. Jam Kazam seems to be a lot more user friendly. However, NOTE that all our problems ended when we connected by wire to our router. This is because wi-fi basically doesn't handle consecutive packets well. Once we plugged into cabled internet, we only got occasional pops and about 5-10 min uninterrupted sessions, good enough to experience what a joy it is to jam. I would recommend using a physical ethernet cat 5 cable from your modem to your computer. Good luck.
    -Just a fellow musician wanting to jam latency free...

  13. #12

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    Quote Originally Posted by mickey.stein
    Good, and good luck. I'll be ready to try this (getting an IF for my PC) in about 1-2 weeks. Keep us posted.
    So .. looks like a year ago I said 1-2 weeks I'd be trying this. What's the difference? 1-2 weeks, 1-2 years, I just got an interface last week, tried this for the first time yesterday, immediately hooked up with a guy in Manchester, UK (and I'm in San Diego more or less), so ~7K miles and I couldn't really hear much if any latency.

    I think it was about 4am PDT (I don't sleep well or much), so maybe that helped, but my new British "pal" and I talked a lot about his experiences which were plentiful (I had one experience so far), and he told me that he'd played with a number of overseas players but that this was the best session (well, to be fair, we only played a tune or two) he'd heard from so far away.

    My initial take on JamKazam is good. It might turn out to be different later on after I've done more sessions, and I can see there is a shortage of jazz guys on there. (or I think I can see that. You can't see everyone maybe, not sure).

    So anyone that wants to try to play with me, "friend"/"Message" (I don't recall the names of what you do there) me as my name "Mickey Stein" and I'll reply and we can give it a try. As long as you have decent latency from your IO box (I got a cheapo behringer) to your PC (mine was < 10ms), it could be possible.

    Cheers.

  14. #13

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    My apologies to the OP, and for bringing back an old topic but this interests me very much. However, I'm entirely confused by the references to interfaces and additional hardware.

    Can I use my laptop and a USB mic or do I need more?

    How about video? Can you set it up so you can see the other jammer(s) using a webcam (with built-in mics)?

    I went to their website but it appears to be a forum - I couldn't find a description of their product/service or how to set myself up to use it.

    Lastly, anyone having success with it?

    Any and all suggestions are helpful. Thanks.

    Jan

  15. #14

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    Any recent experience with JamKazam? My band is considering using it and wondering how it's working out for others in it's latest version?

    Thanks.

  16. #15

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    Greetings!

    My name is Ricardo, Brazilian, I am 70 years old and I study music (bass) and I am new here. I looked for a program to make jam sessions and found Jamkazam.

    My son and I were able to install, register and configure JamKazam, however, we cannot add ourselves as friends to configure the session. Yesterday, we sent the request to add ourselves as friends at around 10 pm and so far none of us received the invitation and we were also unable to meet in the search for registered musicians. It seems that the program does not recognize us as users, although we are logged in and even allow us to create a jam session. I tried to access support, but the link is returning an error and almost all links on the main page are reporting the same error.

    Does anyone here use this program and know what to do to solve the problem and can you tell me how to proceed?

    Thank you very much in advance.

  17. #16

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    I'd like to try Jamkazam with anyone who would like. I have an audio interface and a direct internet connection. If anyone would like to try it out with me or help me proceed (do I need some proprietery gizmo to make it really work well?) give a shout at craig@craighallmusic.com

  18. #17

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    Yeah, Corona has increased the need for a service like Jamkazam. I could sign on okay, even the latency check was okay using WiFi, but the thing won't recognize my interface properly (Line6 Sonic Port VX). It seems to need a sampling rate of 48.000 Hz, and the interface has only 32.000. Plus, the interface is so tiny that on a 13" laptop, you can barely read the menus, let alone click them...

    Any advice, or alternative, is most welcome.

  19. #18

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    I've had a few successful jams in JK so far. All with local friends that I make music with IRL normally.

    Seems like the later in the evening the better for us; we're in Los Angeles, and I'm wondering if it isn't simply less traffic on their servers as the east coasters tire and hit the sack...

    Last night was the best one yet, just two users, but multiple mics/instruments (multiple musicians in each of our households!) mostly good experiences, but I did have one session that was almost unworkable a week ago.

    We're all on wired connections, but I think I may need to bump up my internet service; my upload speeds are pretty dismal. (like in the neighborhood of 1.5Mbps)

    An aside, does anyone know of anything like JK but that will allow one to livestream the event (with video potentially??) seems like a tall order tho, I think we get more errors in JK when we turn on the video on.

  20. #19

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    I have been using jamkazam for the last couple of weeks.

    Was a bit fiddly to set up initially
    good advise here JamKazam internet jamming - Google Docs

    Have had great jams with players from Asia, Norway, South and North America and Europe, I am based in Ballarat Australia.
    Occasionally a user jumps in and causes audio issues but generally I find it usable and Fun.
    Video works well.
    You can now do live broadcasts (its in beta)

    Basically having a great time meeting and playing with Jazz players all over the world.

    I set up an open session and simply invite jazz players to join. Usually within 10 minutes we have a group of four or five having a go.
    Its simple to share a chart to the group.

    Not perfect but they are working on it and slowly improving things.
    Fundraiser by David Wilson : Keep JamKazam Alive & Improving

    hope to catch some of you in there sometime
    my users name is Mike Cardinal

    There are plenty of Jazzers and its great fun.

  21. #20

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    Inspired by a recent post from Alessandro77, I decided to give JamKazam a try.

    I added a focusrite scarlett solo 3rd gen and an ethernet-to-usb-c adaptor to my laptop so I could get my latency and jitter into the green dot range. After that it's been smooth sailing so far. Distance and the number of participants does sometimes create internet latency issues, but as a fellow said in an open jam yesterday..."some days JK is magic and some days it's not."

    JK support documentation within the app and youtube videos referenced by the app are pretty good - better than anything else I've tried.

    BTW: If that's a '64 JS MikeJ is playing in his avatar, I may have been in a jam with him one evening last week.

  22. #21

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    Quote Originally Posted by gionnio
    If that's a '64 JS MikeJ is playing in his avatar, I may have been in a jam with him one evening last week.
    I'm in there most days and have played with more jazz players than I can remember so anything possible.

    However mines a 65 JS and same avatar i use here is in Jam Kazam

    and its all great fun so join in if you can....

  23. #22

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    Quote Originally Posted by gionnio
    BTW: If that's a '64 JS MikeJ is playing in his avatar, I may have been in a jam with him one evening last week.
    Was good to catch you for a short time today on Jamkazam hope to do it again in the near future..

    cheers

    Mike

  24. #23

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    I enjoyed playing a few tunes with you and will look forward to next time as well.

    It worked pretty well given the distance between CA and Oz. I'm amazed that it works at all...

    Cheerios,

    Geo