03-01-2021, 02:25 PM
My band has been making recordings of JK sessions for most of the last year and we generally do this by importing individual instrument and vocal tracks into a DAW and using that for synchronisation and mixing. There are several observations we've made over this period.
- The amount of latency between any two participants varies throughout a session, so there is probably no simple algorithm for synchronising tracks exactly. For instance, if some packets are lost from one person's feed, they don't get stored in the recorded tracks and that person's tracks are shorter than those of other participants. With my band, we do the synchronisation in a DAW, by hand (and by eye and by ear).
- In a long session there will be considerable drift between tracks between the beginning and end of the session, so you really have to treat each song separately.
- Each participant's local tracks are always synchronised with each other. So when I import tracks into a DAW, I group each person's tracks together and move them around as a group. In my band, each player has a vocal track and at least one instrumental track, so this observation at least halves the synchronisation problem.
- There is usually a point in a song that can be used for synchronisation eg where everyone plays on a particular downbeat.
- If you don't play the kind of music where you can easily find sync points, the other reliable option is to do a quick synchronisation marker before starting each song. A way we have used is for someone to count 1 ,2 , 3, 4 then all strum, pick, blow, hit or make a short identifiable sound that can be used for synch purposes when the tracks are in a DAW. This only takes a few seconds and makes it very easy to line up tracks by eye/ear.
- If one player suffers significant packet loss during a song, there is nothing for it but to cut their recorded tracks and resync after the break.
Cheers,
Steve
- The amount of latency between any two participants varies throughout a session, so there is probably no simple algorithm for synchronising tracks exactly. For instance, if some packets are lost from one person's feed, they don't get stored in the recorded tracks and that person's tracks are shorter than those of other participants. With my band, we do the synchronisation in a DAW, by hand (and by eye and by ear).
- In a long session there will be considerable drift between tracks between the beginning and end of the session, so you really have to treat each song separately.
- Each participant's local tracks are always synchronised with each other. So when I import tracks into a DAW, I group each person's tracks together and move them around as a group. In my band, each player has a vocal track and at least one instrumental track, so this observation at least halves the synchronisation problem.
- There is usually a point in a song that can be used for synchronisation eg where everyone plays on a particular downbeat.
- If you don't play the kind of music where you can easily find sync points, the other reliable option is to do a quick synchronisation marker before starting each song. A way we have used is for someone to count 1 ,2 , 3, 4 then all strum, pick, blow, hit or make a short identifiable sound that can be used for synch purposes when the tracks are in a DAW. This only takes a few seconds and makes it very easy to line up tracks by eye/ear.
- If one player suffers significant packet loss during a song, there is nothing for it but to cut their recorded tracks and resync after the break.
Cheers,
Steve