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I love the idea of connecting musicians over the internet. But in many music technology applications latency is critical and from a musician's standpoint the t
by sirwitti 5y ago
I love the idea of connecting musicians over the internet.
But in many music technology applications latency is critical and from a musician's standpoint the technically achievable latency is not suitable for actual music making apart from some exceptions - even with dedicated hardware.
When making music that depends on a beat, pocket or groove any roundtrip latency larger than 3ms is noticeable and >6ms is not playable.
If you play software synthesizers on your computer you probably will be aware of the issue since the sample rate and buffer settings of your soundcard alone introduce latency that ranges from playable (for me <4ms) to unacceptable.
Since network latency alone can easily get worse than that I don't see technology like this being usable for playing serious music that focusses on rhythm.
Note that the demo they use is piano and singer which in combination with the chosen song is decently forgiving latency-wise.
I'd like to hear a demo with a grove where they switch between each participant to hear each musicians version.
- jokteur 5y agoAs long as the latency is consistent, then it is possible to get used to it. Organists who play on big church organs frequently deal with huge latency, especially when playing with choirs or orchestras who are situated >30m away.
- sirwitti 5y agoAs it happens I used to play the organ and yes latency can be a real issue, especially in orchestras. Orchestras are notoriously behind conductors to the point that conductors conduct ahead of the time they want the beat to be. Drummers in orchestras need to guess (and have the experience) at which point after the conductor's beat they hit in order to be in sync with most of the other musicians. That's a tough spot to be in latency-wise :) Apart from that organ music tends not to have a strong focus on rhythm and groove, in which case latency is less of an issue.