The world has really become a lot smaller in the past 20 plus years.
20 plus years ago, If you wanted to start a band, it had to be local. And local being very relative term depending on the temperament of the members. Trying to put together a group even with members who live in a 50 mile radius of each other puts a strain on the band right from the start, as one or members now potentially have to travel 100 miles round trip just for rehearsal. More than likely, the only real way to get a band together is with folks who live half that far from each other. And unless you live in a larger city, that mean your pool of musicians to choose from drops significantly. A band could fail before even getting it’s second member simply because of distance and locale.
Ah, but is the 21st century! Technology has come an unimaginable distance even in the past 20 years.
Where 20 years ago having a computer was a bit of a luxury, now it is taken for granted. 20 years ago the idea of sending a message/file/music sample/etc to someone almost instantaneous or talking face to face via a network connection was something from Star Trek, now, we can do it on a hand held device (which almost every human has) without even batting an eye.
There have been attempts over the years to try and come up with solutions for holding long distance band rehearsals, most have come up short, and some just didn’t last. When I talk about long distant band rehearsals, I am talking about real-time. Not collaboration. Those are two separate things. In a collaboration you upload your tracks and edit individually. In real-time you play together just like if you were in the same room. You can think of online band rehearsals like a Zoom meeting with everyone unmuted (which has been tried, but in all honesty, is not designed for this and just cannot keep up).
So, what do I need to do this?
Ultimately, the biggest factor for holding an online rehearsal is each members individual network connection speed and reliability. You don’t even want to attempt this on an internet connection with less than 1Mbps uplink speeds, in fact, that is really the bare, bare minimum you would want to attempt connecting with. And even though WiFi has come a long way, you’ll want to use a wired connection. WiFi will be nothing but a headache for you.
Beyond the obvious network connection you will need some audio hardware. This is WAY beyond the scope of this blog post, but in essence you will need some sort of audio interface that connects your instrument (and/or microphone) to your computer. I can tell you from experience this works WAY better on a macOS system than on a Windows system. Windows is just inherently latent. You can get it to work, but you better have a beefy computer, with lot’s of RAM and a really good network connection.
So, with a audio interface, a good network connection and a application (platform – more on that next) you would just need to configure (again, way outside the scope of this post) the devices and platform so they all see and talk to each other.
What are the platforms?
I won’t pretend to know them all, or which ones are the best, so I will go with the two I have actually had experience with. Those would be Jamkazam and Jamulus. Both can be downloaded (free) and installed on a macOS or Windows computer. I have used this with a guy in a couple of my projects. I live in Topeka, KS he lives in Lenexa, KS which is about 60 miles away.
Jamkazam is probably the most known and well developed, but that is not to say it is the best. It was, from the beginning of its development, designed specifically for the needs of musicians. It was designed with all the features needed to meet the needs of rehearsing online including video, audio, low latency, integration with audio interfaces, file sharing, backing tracks and more. The biggest issue is that it is peer-to-peer, meaning, there is no server and you directly connect to other users. This can be problematic as well as a challenge to configure. But for the most part, Jamkazam is works like it claims.
I used Jamkazam a few times and had slight latency, but in all honestly it was probably on my end (I live in an are where I only get high speed cable internet and it is sketchy at best). It worked well and was kind of overkill for what I was trying to do (just me and another guy working on songs together) but for a full band, some of the mixing functions would be a handy addition. The last time I used it latency seemed to be the biggest issue. My jam partner then suggested Jamulus.
Jamulus is an open-source (free) application for macOS and Windows and is pretty basic in terms of what you get, however, that is a plus when it comes to overhead on your system. Configuration, like with Jamkazam, takes a little tweaking and time, but once you get it the application really is super easy to use. There is no video, however. So you’ll want to be sure to have microphones connected so you can talk to each other. It does have a chat window, but personally I’d rather just talk to my band mates. You basically launch the application, pick your nearest server and off you go.
Now, the biggest downside is that anyone can join the server which means if you want to have a private practice, you have to stay on top of the application and mute people who join your channel. That is kind of a pain and it would be nice if there was an option to make a session private, but it isn’t that burdensome. A little bit of latency then and again, but nothing that kept us from carrying on a full blown rehearsal. Was it perfect? Not even close. Did we accomplish what we set out to do and work up some songs? Absolutely.
Final thoughts
So, the answer to the topic is, yes, long distance band rehearsals can not only be done, but can be done rather easily. Is it perfect, no, but if you need an option to get everyone together when getting together in person is not possible, Jamkazam or Jamulus are two very viable options. Since I cannot really test it, I would say if all the members of the rehearsal have very good high speed connections and a decent to really good computer, and a grasp of technology, your group could hold rehearsals online with very little effort and no travel costs.
This opens the door to potentially forming bands with members who are all at a distance from each other, but could hold online rehearsals and then meet wherever to play their show. Definitely makes for an interesting situation and opens the doors to more potential band members that might be a better fit even though they are not local to you.
I would love to hear folks thoughts and experiences on this!
Thanks for reading!