Collaboration in Real Time **Ideas**

[mattyp78]

So far, all I have seen people post about is collaboration by uploading and downloading tracks from a server. I take it that the whole thing is done over a much longer period of time than would normally be the case and therefore organisation seems to be a difficulty.

I might be missing the point but why not work in real time using a webcam and a chat program like MSN messenger or the apple one iChat. With the advent of broadband surely we are connected fast enough to stream audio & video even if the audio streamed is only an audition and a project file or MP3 is sent (within Messenger) for a better sound quality.

When 2 people are in a studio together they don't work on the same computer at the same time so why should this be any different. It probably would require 2 computers but music people are likely to have that anyway.

Ideas on a postcard,

Matt

[SQ4]

Audio has to be streaming.
OR
The application should communicate over TCP/IP.

How else could there be realtime collab?

[Rajah]

So far, all I have seen people post about is collaboration by uploading and downloading tracks from a server. I take it that the whole thing is done over a much longer period of time than would normally be the case and therefore organisation seems to be a difficulty.

I might be missing the point but why not work in real time using a webcam and a chat program like MSN messenger or the apple one iChat. With the advent of broadband surely we are connected fast enough to stream audio & video even if the audio streamed is only an audition and a project file or MP3 is sent (within Messenger) for a better sound quality.

When 2 people are in a studio together they don't work on the same computer at the same time so why should this be any different. It probably would require 2 computers but music people are likely to have that anyway.

Ideas on a postcard,

Matt

Great point, if gamers can shoot up in real time on the net, why not?

[mystahr]

It should be doable at one point in time.....

I hope its sooner then later

[Kriminal]

Well, the reasons some collaboration take a while are that we dont all live in the same time zone, we dont all sit at the PC all day/night, and we dont all have ideas jumping out non stop. So, its easier to download, have a listen when its convenient, play around and then get back to the other person.

[idobs]

The biggest problem I see with real-time "gigs" is latency. Within the US, latencies can easily be over 150ms. If two people wanted to play together simultaneously, this just wouldn't do. (If you think about it, people are unhappy with their soundcard latency if it's anywhere near 30ms!)

Until the latency problem is fixed (and it really can't be fixed when it comes to trans-continental projects, unless someone knows how to bypass the speed of light), I'm OK with a compromise: I do one musical take, then the other person does their musical take against mine.

It'd be nice if a DAW was network-aware, and let both of us be pointing to the same project. It could coordinate our different "takes".


Not sure if any DAW already does this...


-Ido

Well, the reasons some collaboration take a while are that we dont all live in the same time zone, we dont all sit at the PC all day/night, and we dont all have ideas jumping out non stop. So, its easier to download, have a listen when its convenient, play around and then get back to the other person.

[Sascha Franck]

It'd be nice if a DAW was network-aware, and let both of us be pointing to the same project. It could coordinate our different "takes".


Not sure if any DAW already does this...

Both Cubase and Logic were capable of that when "Rocket Network" started their services.
But, due to the most miserable management ever they vanished from earth. From what I remember, their technology was licensed by someone else (might even be Digidesign).

The concept (apart from being a bit buggy) has been working great, I've been taking part in a few sessions and it was immediate fun. No downloading, no converting, cutting, trimming etc - the tracks of the other participants just flew in straight. And when you were done adding something all you had to do was press the little Rocket button and they would fly into the others machines.

One possible problem however was that you just couldn't work cross-host-style. So everybody had to use the same host.

However, it shouldn't be too much of a problem for an x-host and x-platform format. Audiofiles could be timestamped (the now "common" broadcast wave format for instance is) and MIDI parts would be no problem anyways.
Unfortunately there's no timestamped compressed audio format yet - and working with 24bit audio files in realtime would cause quite some bandwith issues.

However, I have also been collaborating with people over some FTP accessable to all participants, and it wasn't that much "un-realtime" either.
When using OGG files you get rather good sounding compression, en- and de-coding them won't add any silence (which is what is happening with MP3 files - I really wonder why everybody is still using MP3 for collaborations when OGG is SOO much superior).
With a little chat window opened placement of tracks is no problem either, alternatively the start position could be added to the filename (organ_lick03_bar65.ogg is pretty much selfexplaining).

Really, collaborations can happen "almost" realtime, with the only problem being that people may use different plugins. But IMO that can pretty much become part of the fun too.
All you need is a proper FTP server (so more than two persons could collaborate) and an agreement on file formats and naming conventions.

[SoftJunkie]

i have found a happy medium between 'rocket network' and ftp. i have used a private peer-to-peer program called 'waste'. it was originally developed by a guy at 'nullsoft', the company who created 'winamp'. it lets a group of users transfer files between themselves without the need for a server. it basically give other users in the group access to folders that you specify. it works very much like napster used to. the difference is that the share network is private. the data is encrypted as well. it comes with it's own chat program.
oh and it's free.

i have used waste to share a sonar project (project + audio files) with another musician to add keyboard tracks to his recording.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/waste/

[Sascha Franck]

Nice find, SoftJunkie, will have a look at it whenever a new collaboration is ahead.

[Rajah]

Has anyone seen this virtual recording studio (site) as yet?

http://www.digitalmusician.net/index_eng2.htm

[Borogove]

It'd be nice if a DAW was network-aware, and let both of us be pointing to the same project. It could coordinate our different "takes".

The DAW doesn't have to be particularly network-aware as long as the users use some protocol for avoiding stepping on each other's work. Just use the OS level file-sharing features.