Problems with latency and jitter

[mhholmes]

In a similar place as mentioned at the start of this thread. Still a little too much latency to actually play music together. All band member interfaces (Scarlett Solos) running great (all green... 0 - 3ms latency with <0.5ms jitter). Internet latency and jitter running in the 30 to 50ms range with occasional jumps to bigger numbers (90 to 200ms). Total latency is now predominantly the sum of the three internet numbers. We are all close (within 5 miles) and all on the same ISP. We all have 100mbs download/5mbs upload. Called the ISP tech support yesterday. They are definitely experiencing some bottlenecks with the heavy loads that cv19 has caused, and are working to split some nodes to alleviate the pressure...but no dates.  He didn’t think upping our plans to higher upload would help (yet), as the bottlenecks are in the infrastructure, not in our individual service plans. Can’t shove even more data through the same clogged pipe. So we wait.

Last night I was in a session with a guy from NYC (Snake Diamond) who is a JK veteran of four years. He has great success with it with similar latency numbers to ours. His ‘adapt until it gets better’ tip was to have the drummer (only) play faithfully to a click track. Then everyone else follows the drummer. Once you get used to it, the drifting stops because there is a stable timing reference. If the drummer listens too much, he will fall behind and it falls apart. The drummer has the worst listening experience, but everyone else wins. Plan to try this in our next session. Sorry drummers. 😔

I've been using JK for about a month now for weekly rehearsals with my vocal quartet. One thing we've noticed is that using video increases the total latency between us. So, if you can live without video, do that. If you really need it, you can control the video resolution. Go for 1/2 VGA resolution, that will help.