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Comment by grayprog | Hacker News Reader

Lots of fun. Always wanted a live Internet jamming solution for a band. Now, if only it could work with real instruments plugged to the computer. But the network delays make it impossible. Waiting for the day when bits from Europe to the US won't take 100-150ms to travel. Not sure it's going to happen anytime soon, though.

Any 2 sounds played above 30ms apart start to be distinct to the human ears.

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The speed of light is always going to be a limitation for these kinds of applications . I dont see how the latency can be reduced enough to make this close enough to a live jamming session . Considering your 30 ms threshold it takes light that much time to travel 10,000 kilometers . Could we perhaps use some of the predictive techniques that games like Counter strike use ?

You could maybe use that to smooth out envelopes, but whether a note is played or not isn't something you could possibly predict. I mean, you could predict the most likely note to be played next based on some musical analysis, but there's no way you could get it accurate enough to not compromise the surprises that make music so interesting.

Quantum entanglement, perhaps? It's supposed to transfer information without any speed of light limitation.

If we could get enough bits to work with quantum entanglement then sure. But regardless to get information out of a quantum entanglement you have to send a basis of measurement before you can decode the data so you are still bound by the speed of light.

That's the best explanation I've read of why quantum tunnelling doesn't allow FTL information transfer. Thanks!

I don't think it does.

  Now, if only it could work with real instruments plugged to the computer.

I haven't seen this in action, but isn't that what these guys do? http://ejamming.com

Just a few weeks ago an extended family member mentioned them to me. He'd been using their software to play with his old bandmates, who are now scattered around the country.

Edit: Here's a link to their "learn more" page, which is hard to find: http://ejamming.com/learn-more/

I tried this and it works 'sort of'. Better than I at first thought, it is not in any way tight, the latency keeps being irritating. I did have a good jam from Germany with a guy in the US, though.

http://www.cockos.com/ninjam/

Interesting idea there, about delaying by a measure and not running for the shortest delay since it's still not good enough.

try it. it is so fun.

I'm old school - when improvising on the guitar I like to be able to read the drum/guitar/bass player etc based on looks, nods and general "intuition" (being person to person that is). Don't think an internet connection is going to be able to do that quite as well!

But, perhaps I'm being nostalgic :)

Combine it with video chat? Skype or Google hangout?

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