[AG-TECH] Real Time Music Collaboration

[Markus Buchhorn]

G'day All

[I've left the whole message in for Bob's (cc'ed) information...]

During the previous H323 Megaconference(2) event, Bob Dixon (OSU) 
coordinated a virtual barbershop quartet (or tried to?). I don't know how 
it was done, or how it worked out as I missed the event, and there's 
nothing on the web site about it. Bob - some Access Grid folks are looking 
at a similar project, and would be interested to know what you did and how 
it went (if it went).

Cheers,
         Markus


At 01:07 PM 12/03/2002 +0000, Osland, CD (Chris) wrote:
>I see, by looking back at an e-mail I sent last week, that I
>rather buried two possible solutions to the latency problem.
>May I restate them, as I think they have some mileage...
>
>Method 1 - "Audio Conductor"
>
>One site produces in effect an augmented click track, with enough
>of the melody for people not to get lost.  This goes to all
>players, who just listen to this and play in time with it.
>Hence the term "audio conductor".  All feeds from the players
>go to one site, which retimes them individually, having worked
>out which node is last to arrive.  This site then rebroadcasts
>the resulting mix to everyone but only the listeners, not the
>players, listen to it.  This is rather like an orchestra doing
>the score for a film, each listening to parts of what is
>happening on headphones.
>
>Method 2 - "Round Robin"
>
>One site lays down a bed for the piece - maybe a drum track.
>A second node listens to this and plays (=adds) their player(s)'s
>contributions.  This feed goes to the third playing node, which
>does likewise.  The feed from the n'th node (if n nodes are playing)
>is the one that all the listening nodes listen to.  Typically the
>n'th node will be the vocals (if the piece is pop/folk/rock/vocal).
>This is rather similar to the multi-layer approach taken by
>groups that do the drums in LA, the guitars in London and
>the vocals in the Seychelles, by lugging a 24-track tape or
>ProTools system around.
>
>It has been pointed out to me over lunch that many classical
>pieces (e.g. string quartets) cannot be done this way, as at
>different times each of the instruments may lead the timing;
>possibly a non-recorded harpsichord continuo would be appropriate
>in this case!
>
>The person who noted this is a classically trained cello player,
>so I guess I can lob that in as a possible contribution from
>here as well.
>
>Cheers
>
>Chris
>
>
>
>____________________________________________________________________
>Chris Osland                         Office tel: +44 (0) 1235 446565
>Digital Media and Access Grid      Medialab tel: +44 (0) 1235 446459
>BIT Department             Access Grid room tel: +44 (0) 1235 445666
>e-mail:   C.D.Osland at rl.ac.uk               Fax: +44 (0) 1235 445597
>
>CLRC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (Bldg. R18)
>Chilton, DIDCOT, Oxon OX11 0QX, UK


Markus Buchhorn, Information Infrastructure Services,   | Ph: +61 2 61258810
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