Route software backing tracks into JK?

[Filote]

Hi, New to JK as of today. Searched forum, but nothing answers this question:

I know backing tracks can be added from files into JK as tracks in a session; but I'm looking for a more direct approach. I'd like to have multiple audio sources into JK:

e.g., Take the signal out of backing tracks apps like "Band in a Box" (BIAB) or iReal Pro, and send that as an input track to JK
...as well as take the incoming piano and vocal mic from the audio interface as input tracks into the same JK session. 


Maybe Loopback by Rogue Amoeba or something similar might be able to do that? Maybe one way to do it would be make a virtual audio device:

inputs: signals from BIAB as well as the hardware audio interface. 
outputs: the output of the virtual audio device would be sent to JK.


Any thoughts?

Thanks,

[GDJ]

What you seek is tricky, but doable – but not advisable in my experience. There is an existing post regarding routing options from the DAW. It’s along the same lines on how to route to JK from other sources. Additionally, to be clear about Jam Tracks vs Backing Tracks. JT’s are purchase based with no option to specify a different source. But I get it, that you want to bring your own Backing Tracks to a session.
 
I decided to explore this option since I too have a DAW, BIAB and Soundflower. Let me say this first. If your interface has more then two inputs, or you can put a mixer in front of your 2 input interface  - it might be the better thing way to go. Unless your system has the horse power, you increase CPU processing and increase internal latency between the apps, soundflower is routing between.
 
Another reason this option is not good, in my experience. JK will only allow you to apply one Audio Device per session. You may recall in the Audio Device section they are treated as separate with the ability to Activate, Configure, Delete any one of them.

I created a new Audio Device, selected SoundFlower as the INPUT device AND the OUTPUT DEVICE SHOULD BE YOUR INTERFACE. If you are following along, at this point you realize, what about my Audio Interface INPUTS for guitar and voice, etc.  At this point you can say, this won’t work. They are not available.
 
However you can continue with the option to configure your DAW to handle your Mic and Guitar or other instruments. And note that BIAB has a DAW plugin. Of course this gives you plenty to play with in terms of controlling your own plugins, etc from the DAW. This also assumes you understand how to configure your DAW to SoundFlower, in the Audio settings
 
BIAB and Audio Settings. I won’t get started on how temperamental BIAB can be, but the Audio settings button on the toolbar is not working for me. Head over to
File>Prefs, Audio tab. You want to uncheck the use default option for the Output device. From that dropdown, choose Soundflower.
 
Jump in a solo private JamKazam session and you should be good to go. Make sure you have BIAB playing something!
 
Now, back to the horsepower comment. You will notice the sound can be scratchy. And, if you open your browser or a Word Document and start scrolling up and down you will hear how JK struggles with the sound getting interrupted sounding scratch. I’m using a Mac Retina PB 2012. Solid State Drive, plenty of memory to run photoshop and DAW at the same time. The point is, JK and background processing don’t play well. In a separate post I have, I summarize how my overall performance is more stable and better by having a custom boot OS with only JK and my AI software on it. My CPU processing is down to 10 percent.

The take home advise is this. Even with an ideal hardware setup, and if you were to get the Soundflower option working without the jitters, you’re still going to end up getting internet latency. It really comes down to this at the end of the day, to join musicians to have some fun and the latency issue impacts all of us. You have to ask yourself is it worth putting all the time in with the setup. For me, it is because I also enjoy configuring all this stuff and hope you find some of this helpful. I posted a couple of screenshots. I do believe it's important to have a good clean setup so when you're in session you're not troubleshooting stuff.
 
My setup i have a MOTU 8 input interface. In JK Audio Device settings ALL INPUTS ENABLED
Here are my Pairs

Channel 1 -2 (L/R)  Mic. Why 2 channels for a Mic? In my case I’m using a VoiceLice3 which is an excellent vocal harmonizer with some other great features I pass back to JK via these same channels. All stereo.

Channel 3-4 Guitar – Great for Stereo effects; ambient,  reverb, delay, phase
 
Channel 5-6 Roland GR-55 – you’ll have to look this up to understand it. It’s a guitar synth
 
 
Channel 7-8 Digitech Trio – This is my so called BIAB box pedal. I play chords to it, it learns and provides bass and drums with tempo and style options. This in effect in my backing track in the session. Other session players seem to get a kick out of this.


   
   

[Filote]

What you seek is tricky, but doable – but not advisable in my experience. There is an existing post regarding routing options from the DAW.

Awesome reply, thank you. I spent the extra $$ and got Rogue Amoeba's LoopBack. Works great in a solo test; have yet to try the setup in a real jam. I think the horsepower is there so we'll see! Thanks again for taking the time.

[aflynt]

Have you guys tried Blackhole instead? It's a zero latency virtual interface. I'm using that to pipe Mainstage into Jamkazam and it's working very well. You need to set up an Aggregate device in the Audio Midi settings and use that in Jamkazam to keep getting clock sync errors and glitches, though. The Aggregate device is sort of tricky. You need to set your interface as the clock source and Blackhole as the second device and enable drift correction for Blackhole. Then in JK you select that interface and the first 2 inputs and outputs are your interface and the rest are the "Blackhole" inputs and outputs. It gets confusing but you'd generally choose inputs 3 and 4 and outputs 1 and 2 for a single stereo instrument in JK.

-Aaron

[GDJ]

Thanks Aaron, i heard of it. While I have have a good stable Hardware setup, I am at the point of trying different signal paths for fun. I will try BH. Thanks