Ever feel the need to jam with your instrument but don’t have a good place to play? Your old garage band buddies spread out over the country and the occasional phone call is the closest you get to the good ol’ days? Check out Ninjam and you’ll be covering the Clash again.
Some people chat online. Some play Guild Wars. Other JAM! Robin Good at his blog Masternewmedia, picked up on a great software program called Ninjam for people who want to jam online.
One of the biggest potential problems he discussed with the problem of latency. Anyone who knows music, knows timing is crucial. The Ninjam software actually uses the latency against itself by figuring it in terms of measure. Since the intervals get synchronized, it’s easy enough to work them into the sound.
He said the system has requirements including quite a bit of CPU power and bandwidth (192kbps for typical 4 person jam, 512kbps for 8). He said 64kbps was typical for outbound.
It requires Windows 2000 or later, 2GHZ P4 or Athlon 2000+ or faster. Sound hardware with ASIO drivers is also required as well as GUI and ncurses versions. For Mac OSX folks, 10.3 or later, G4 1GHZ or faster, and terminal ncurses application.
He emphasized the main issue it outbound bandwidth and stated it’s an alpha release.
For musicians wanting to jam online, this looks like a great way to get it going. He’s got a lot more details ober on his blog. Check it out.
John Stith is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
