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Show HN: Low-latency jamming over the internet

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Re: Show HN: Low-latency jamming over the internet

#51

Post by digitallyfree »

tomxor wrote: post #41

It's good that latency is considered to be so critical, but for the same reason I'm sceptical that this would work well for the majority beyond quite local ranges with very good internet connections i.e some kind of fiber... which most people don't have, although I realise a lot of the tech crowd is unaware of this (most of the worlds user end points are some kind of DSL or cell network with a 20-40ms minimum). If an…

Yeah, the hop to the internet exchange point is the main issue with DSL or cable. I live in a major city and it takes around 10ms to hit the internet exchange point (using Ethernet the LAN latency is neglegible) and thus I get a minimum of 20ms or so just connecting to a server hosted by someone in the same neighborhood. I've actually tried this experiment with some of my nearby friends - pinging each other's public IPs on DSL or cable takes around 20ms.

With fiber, you can hit the exchange point in 1-2ms. So I suppose this tool would work well fine over fiber assuming everyone is in the same city. I've even heard of people successfully using protocols like Dante (professional audio over IP intended for LAN) over gig fiber lines as well.

From my experience, a couple milliseconds of latency is fine for keyboard or guitar processing, but anything more than that starts to mess me up. There are artists who insist on using a full analog chain for monitoring for that reason, and refuse to use digital mixers or digital wireless systems that can add several ms of latency.

Re: Show HN: Low-latency jamming over the internet

#52

Post by jp57 »

I'm very interested in this! Can you say how this compares to something like https://jamkazam.com? One of my issues with JK is that it seems to require all participants to be members, and to pay for relatively pricy memberships to partcipate. I'm sympathetic that nothing is free and I'm willing to pay for a good service, but I'd love to have a model where one person could pay for a session that others could join (with video) for free.

That said, I'm not sure if you plan to start charging.

Re: Show HN: Low-latency jamming over the internet

#53

Post by fragmede »

k__ wrote: post #43
NikolaNovak wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, ethernet/wired IS, also, a convenient standard tech used all over the world. There's any number of convenient tech out there, and not all of it is for every purpose. My Minivan is supremely convenient ubiquitous tech for my kids & family but I wouldn't use it on a racetrack. My WRX is fun for rallies but I wouldn't use it to haul cargo. My phone is a great convenient ubiquitous camera but I wouldn't use it to…

The sarcastic tone was because it felt like someone tried to help by saying "just replace your convenient infrastructure with something much less convenient and everything will be okay"

I get that wired is less convenient (I'm not going to argue the semantics of "most"), but until we can transmit power wirelessly from a distance for consumers, everyone is still dealing with wires to charge their devices. (Even if you have wireless charging, it's still not at a distance and you have to get it just right on the charging pad.)

Trying to convince everyone else that something as simple as plugging a wire in, is horribly onerous, when they do it every day or so, is probably going to be an uphill battle, especially if it's for something people want. Where jamming with friends over the Internet ranks in your list of desires, vs never ever having to do this horrible act of plugging in a wire, is on you.

Re: Show HN: Low-latency jamming over the internet

#54

Post by k__ »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #49
k__ wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sarcastic tone was because it felt like someone tried to help by saying "just replace your convenient infrastructure with something much less convenient and everything will be okay"

But that's exactly true. It's a matter of what you are optimizing for - convenience or performance. There's any number of things WiFi isn't the perfect answer for. Ultimately, in today's world, if you want to jam with musicians not in your room, some non zero effort will be required. Presumably you have setup you audio interface, music interface, microphones, software, mixer, midi and asio, etc etc etc... Honestly, f…

Yes, you're probably right.

For me, cables are a huge issue, because my PC is in a room that's not directly connected to my appartement, where my internet connection is located.

Re: Show HN: Low-latency jamming over the internet

#55

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

I'm guessing that most people reading this are not familiar with some of the other options available for this kind of thing. In particular, they likely don't know about Sonobus:

https://sonobus.net/

(and that's likely because it's libre software and the developer doesn't really do marketing)

Re: Show HN: Low-latency jamming over the internet

#57

Post by rdtennent »

My experience with Jamulus might be instructive. Members of our group live in the same city (Kingston, Ontario) but use two ISPs. Packets between users on the same ISP were fine but packets from one ISP to the other were being routed via Toronto and then Chicago and ultimately back to Kingston. It's not the distance travelled that's the problem (speed of light), it's the latency introduced by each intermediate node.

Solved the problem by setting up a Jamulus server on AWS in Montreal. Both ISPs provide low-latency connections to Montreal, much better than one mile across town!

Of course each participant has to use ethernet rather than WiFi and has to use a low-latency audio device, not a laptop sound card.

Re: Show HN: Low-latency jamming over the internet

#59

Post by arctan5x »

Checkout https://jacktrip.org/studio.html. We enable low latency audio connection through open source technology developed at Stanford. We can scale to hundreds of users signing at the same time. Check out hundreds of choir members signing together https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJgB5QmyDfU.
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