5 ms·

I wish there was a good way to sing together over videochat. The lag makes it impossible--if you've tried singing Happy birthday to someone over Zoom, you've pr

I wish there was a good way to sing together over videochat. The lag makes it impossible--if you've tried singing Happy birthday to someone over Zoom, you've probably noticed that it's the worst! Everyone tries to adjust to everyone else's lag and it just makes everyone even more and more out of time with each other.

dlkf 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_music https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_music
barbegal 6y ago
You're right you can't all hear each other. Some choirs use instructions like https://www.makingmusic.org.uk/resource/zoom-online-rehearsals-vocal https://www.makingmusic.org.uk/resource/zoom-online-rehearsa... where everyone is on mute and can just hear themselves and the choirmaster. I think a technological solution would exist: A and B hears choirmaster, A and B's sound is sent back to server which syncs it with the choirmasters sound before sending to C, D, E and F. C, D, E and F's sound is sent back to the server which syncs it and sends to G, H, I... etc. So most people can sing along hearing some of the choir and the latency overall shouldn't be too bad. Scales with log(n) * max(latency)
madcaptenor 6y ago
I haven't tried it, but maybe singing a round would work? The whole point there is the delay.
- uhoh-itsmaciek 6y ago
  In a round, the delay is under your control. If you start singing the first line when you hear me sing the second one, you're actually starting to sing at (second line ts + $latency). And then I hear it another $latency later. A round could work if your call software compensates for this and delays your singing for me until the next round "entry point". That is, you hear my "Gently" and join in with "Row," but it's not played back for me until I start singing "Merrily." This could work, but as you can see, it would need some clever delay management.
raxxorrax 6y ago
It is incredible how even minuscule delays can be heard. I first laughed about calibrating sound systems with microphones to compensate for different cable lengths until a sound engineer let me listen to the differences. He could hear if a box had a delay about 2-3ms. Quite hard requirements.
- amelius 6y ago
  Note that delays can also be an issue when singing in real life. In a large church choir, people in the back have to start singing a tiny bit earlier than people in the front because of the speed of sound in air. And then there is the pipe organist too, often at an ever greater distance. https://music.stackexchange.com/questions/30454/how-does-a-pipe-organist-deal-with-latency-or-delay https://music.stackexchange.com/questions/30454/how-does-a-p...
  - bobbiechen 6y ago
    You also see this in marching band, where playing in time with the conductor's hands results in messy sound for the audience, because of how far apart different band members might be. The conductor also can't listen to the sound and hear if the band is in time - so you have to watch their feet instead. There's some good videos about these effects on the Drum Major Academy website: https://drummajor.org/marching-band-sound-delay https://drummajor.org/marching-band-sound-delay
- SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
  > I first laughed about calibrating sound systems with microphones to compensate for different cable lengths until a sound engineer let me listen to the differences. Seriously? Even if electricity has a drift velocity of 50% the speed of light, that's still 150,000 meters in 1 ms - how long is this cable???? There must be something else at play.
  - danharaj 6y ago
    It's not the transmission through the cable that matters, it's the fact that you're using a long cable to put things far enough apart that the speed of sound matters.
holri 6y ago
ninjam should work, although I have not tried it myself, anyone else? https://www.cockos.com/ninjam/ https://www.cockos.com/ninjam/
GuiA 6y ago
I've found that the lag impacts even day to day speech. Turn taking cues are all out of whack, and I notice that e.g. my teammates interrupt each other significantly more. It makes conversations in groups larger than 4-5 people very awkward.
DonCopal 6y ago
Then how is Smule possible?
- zodiac 6y ago
  The parts are recorded at separate times
zodiac 6y ago
I saw someone on a facebook group for choral directors who got 10ms latency over 30km. It can be done but requires somewhat specialized hardware (ethernet cable to the router, external audio interface and mic), network setup and software
daralthus 6y ago
https://endlesss.fm/ https://endlesss.fm/ gives you a shared loop pedal. It's not real time, but just as social and the looping means you don't have to worry about lag.

dlkf 6y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_music https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_music

barbegal 6y ago

You're right you can't all hear each other. Some choirs use instructions like https://www.makingmusic.org.uk/resource/zoom-online-rehearsals-vocal https://www.makingmusic.org.uk/resource/zoom-online-rehearsa... where everyone is on mute and can just hear themselves and the choirmaster. I think a technological solution would exist: A and B hears choirmaster, A and B's sound is sent back to server which syncs it with the choirmasters sound before sending to C, D, E and F. C, D, E and F's sound is sent back to the server which syncs it and sends to G, H, I... etc. So most people can sing along hearing some of the choir and the latency overall shouldn't be too bad. Scales with log(n) * max(latency)

madcaptenor 6y ago

I haven't tried it, but maybe singing a round would work? The whole point there is the delay.

uhoh-itsmaciek 6y ago
In a round, the delay is under your control. If you start singing the first line when you hear me sing the second one, you're actually starting to sing at (second line ts + $latency). And then I hear it another $latency later. A round could work if your call software compensates for this and delays your singing for me until the next round "entry point". That is, you hear my "Gently" and join in with "Row," but it's not played back for me until I start singing "Merrily." This could work, but as you can see, it would need some clever delay management.

raxxorrax 6y ago

It is incredible how even minuscule delays can be heard. I first laughed about calibrating sound systems with microphones to compensate for different cable lengths until a sound engineer let me listen to the differences. He could hear if a box had a delay about 2-3ms. Quite hard requirements.

amelius 6y ago
Note that delays can also be an issue when singing in real life. In a large church choir, people in the back have to start singing a tiny bit earlier than people in the front because of the speed of sound in air. And then there is the pipe organist too, often at an ever greater distance. https://music.stackexchange.com/questions/30454/how-does-a-pipe-organist-deal-with-latency-or-delay https://music.stackexchange.com/questions/30454/how-does-a-p...
- bobbiechen 6y ago
  You also see this in marching band, where playing in time with the conductor's hands results in messy sound for the audience, because of how far apart different band members might be. The conductor also can't listen to the sound and hear if the band is in time - so you have to watch their feet instead. There's some good videos about these effects on the Drum Major Academy website: https://drummajor.org/marching-band-sound-delay https://drummajor.org/marching-band-sound-delay
SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
> I first laughed about calibrating sound systems with microphones to compensate for different cable lengths until a sound engineer let me listen to the differences. Seriously? Even if electricity has a drift velocity of 50% the speed of light, that's still 150,000 meters in 1 ms - how long is this cable???? There must be something else at play.
- danharaj 6y ago
  It's not the transmission through the cable that matters, it's the fact that you're using a long cable to put things far enough apart that the speed of sound matters.

holri 6y ago

ninjam should work, although I have not tried it myself, anyone else? https://www.cockos.com/ninjam/ https://www.cockos.com/ninjam/

GuiA 6y ago

I've found that the lag impacts even day to day speech. Turn taking cues are all out of whack, and I notice that e.g. my teammates interrupt each other significantly more. It makes conversations in groups larger than 4-5 people very awkward.

DonCopal 6y ago

Then how is Smule possible?

zodiac 6y ago
The parts are recorded at separate times

zodiac 6y ago

I saw someone on a facebook group for choral directors who got 10ms latency over 30km. It can be done but requires somewhat specialized hardware (ethernet cable to the router, external audio interface and mic), network setup and software

daralthus 6y ago

https://endlesss.fm/ https://endlesss.fm/ gives you a shared loop pedal. It's not real time, but just as social and the looping means you don't have to worry about lag.