Teachers Using JamKazam for Lessons?

[Dennis B]

I'd be curious to hear from anybody who is teaching lessons online using JK. 

I began teaching my lessons online in mid March when this whole Covid-19 mess hit - over night things had changed from teaching in my local studio in a music store here in Boulder, CO to teaching at home online.

I use everything .. whatever the student is comfortable with - Zoom, facetime, Skype, Google Duo etc ... but those apps really have limitations.

I then heard about JK - and went about getting it set up.  I see all sorts of potential with it.  The biggest drawback is it is not easy for those to set up who are not well versed in the ways of computer audio and DAW operation.  Most people do not understand many of these basics. 

If it is not *easy* for students to set it up ... it will never be used widely by the music student population.  I'm not trying to be negative here ... I want this to be a workable option.  I'd even pay a monthly fee if I could teach my lessons with JK and all my students could use it without the hassle of getting everything set up.  BUT - it's got to be EASY!

So I've been using it with 1 student and we have been playing some classical guitar duets and it works pretty well.  But he is techno-savy and he stuck with it until everything was working OK.  He is a programmer and his comment to me was "this is not ready for prime time".

So I passed on the info about JK to another student who is in his 70's and retired and also somewhat technically inclined with computers.  He said he wasted 4 hours trying to get JK to work on his PC with his UAD Arrow interface - frustrated and felt he had wasted valuable time.  This is NOT the kind of experience I want my students to have because it reflects poorly on me.

On the other hand - when using JK - I can speak and the other person does not get cut off - the full duplex aspect seems to work quite well.  The results are way better than the above mentioned apps.

When going to jamkazam.com and clicking on the JamBlaster or JamClass links - they lead nowhere.  many of the links in the JK a[pp lead nowhere - This just looks really bad and unprofessional.  Again I not trying to be a jerk - I'm trying to offer some constructive criticism.  I think the JK people are really onto something ... but it's gotta be more solid and easy to set up.

Any other teachers out there that can share their experience and tips with JK and teaching?

I've yet to try to join any random jam sessions online but would like to in the future.

Thanks for listening!
Dennis

[outhere717]

Hi Dennis,
I wish I had seen this post five months ago!  I am in exactly the same boat over here in Maine, and I concur with everything you said in your comments.  So much potential here but not intuitive to navigate.  I've tried to find how to connect to this offering called "Jamclass" but nothing leads me to it (neither when I'm logged in on my browser nor when I'm logged on on my desktop client).  I have two families/students who have been willing to try to navigate the set up such that we've got both ends working, so to speak.  It's just not up and running yet.  I've even contributed to JamKazam's GoFundMe campaign because I believe it's an awesome idea and a hugely needed one as well.  I also wrote JK emails a couple times asking for assistance and haven't heard back, very discouraging.  I do hope they can move this forward~ it would be outstanding if it could be "user friendly", especially as students/families have so much on their plates with Covid/remote working/ remote learning~
Since it's been such a while, do you have any update info on your experience?