Cyber Jam

[Stillpicking]

OK I just got off of a site called NINJAM. I found the url that a cafe member posted earlier this week and thought I would give it a shot and try it out. I hate reading manuals so I skipped that PDF stuff and tried to sign up. I must have been too tired to follow through and gave up my first try.

Tonight I gave it another shot. I had the house to myself, wife and son went to a movie so it was me and the 2 cats, my G4 and my mando. I was bound and determine to get this working.

Anyway I got signed on as a member and went through the typical registration and wait for a email reply back with my ID link back to the site. From that point on it was a few trys to get connected to one of their FREE sound servers, looks like 6 pickers per server. I got right in with a jam.

You need a good internet connection and a fairly up to date computer sys to use this but it really DOES WORK in real time don't ask me about the sound delay issues these guys who are doing this must have their cyber act together because it is almost like playing in your own woodshed.

Now the down side, no it doesn't cost you but there are NO mando pickers on this site currently unless you count yours truly. I jammed with a couple of kids and I assume kids as they had the typical elec. bass and another was patching in was elec. drum stuff. Rather crude but the technology was not. As of right now its free and there are only a few who seem to be actually using this site. I say that we should jump on board, sign up some cafe members and have at least a weekly jam.

Anyone that is up for this reply back to this thread or PM me and I will try and walk you through the setup. Once you are in as a member the hard stuff is over.

Lets do it, jamming in real time with any cafe member without leaving home, think of the gas money saved and the ability to jam 24 hours a day I better stop before I get to far out with this.

Sorry I forgot to put the url in for the main site here it is. www.ninjam.com

OK let the jamming begin!!!!

[eastcarterman]

im going to follow this thread, very interesting....

[Stillpicking]

OK thanks for staying tuned I only put this up late last night.
I am hoping to get some action from a few brave souls who want to jam in cyber space, "this is not a joke guys this really works"

Almost forgot one of the best parts to this is that it works on both Mac OSX and Windows so potential for anyone to logon and jam is there.

I am not a computer scientist I only use this technology to teach graphic design at a university so there is no hard techno stuff involved and I will try and provide some help if you get stuck signing up here is the url for the site.

www.ninjam.com

Hope to see some cafe pickers sign on soon.

[Adam Tracksler]

I just downloaded it, maybe I can figure it out in the next few days and we can have a jam.

[grandmainger]

I'm registered... Same username as here... Might see you there one day. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/mandosmiley.gif

Germain

[arbarnhart]

Sorry to hear the family news. I was a kid like that and I am now a middle aged family man with a real job, a house and savings for the kids' education and my retirement, so things can turn around. But it won't hurt to ask the big guy for some help.

I tried joining and either their email activiation is very slow or something is wrong. I tried to login in with my email address even though I hadn't activated and it recognized it and offered to send the email again (and I told it to) so it had my address right. Interesting technology; I don't quite get it and I am a technogeek. I understand how it could let me add to someone else's playing in what seems like real time to me, but I don't get how it could seem like real time to both of us.

[mandolin_cauldron24]

I'll give it a try. In the next few day ...I'll post back Stillpickin. (out)

------------
C.J. Clayton
" Spread the word ,bluegrass is here"

[Stillpicking]

Well here is an update on my son, my wife tracked down where the party was happening and called the police. Police showed up and busted the whole bunch. The kid who set this "party" up was suppose to take care of the owners cat while they went on vacation but instead turn the place into a party hang out for under age drinking and more. The party leader is in the lockup and we have our kid back and we are thankful for that.

Tomorrow will be another story thanks for any prayers that you guys said as he was passed out on the floor at this place and who knows what else he might have gotten into.

Just a quick tip as to registering on NINJAM. The first time I tried it appeared like I got in but I had no access to anything other than as a guest. So the next day I registered again using the same username and the same password thinking that it would tell me that I am already a member but it didn't it just took it as if it was a new registration.

They sent me thier email with a link back to the NINJAM site and I logged in with the user name and password that I entered on my first try.

This is a new site so I think maybe the registration process is a little buggy. Once your in though you won't need to go through the process again as I have logged on with no problems since.

I'll check back tomorrow and see if anybody needs help getting in.

I don't understand how NINJAM makes this work but I was jamming last night online with it on my G4 Mac with my headphones plugged into my G4 and a cheap little mic plugged into the mic input on the G4.

I could hear others jamming and I could also hear myself jamming with them but there was no time delay or at least it was so little that I didn't notice it.

For those who are trying to register and are having a little trouble just try it again as it is worth the effort.

[Adam Tracksler]

How the heck do I connect?

[grandmainger]

How the heck do I connect?
Do you get a connection error when you create a new connection to one of their server? If so, you need to make sure you are connecting anonymously (as in ticking the anonymous box in the 'connect' dialog box.
You need an account to gain access to the server list, but you have to be anonymous to connect to the actual jam...

[Stillpicking]

Hey guys I am back thanks for the prayers for our son last night it worked out better than my wife and I expected.
We are working towards some goals and last night was a setback but we will carry on as any parent who loves thier kid (s) would.
Again I am really thankful for all of your kind words and support!

Now back to NINJAM hang in thier the first time getting connect is a little strange but just keep at it.

The last post here was a very good tip about getting into an open server without using your password/username. Again this site looks like it is still in beta testing.

Here is another tip you can go to the jam section on their main page and it should take you to the window that lists all of their servers what I did was to select the title of one of the servers and did a copy and pasted it into the NINJAM control panel, took a couple tries but I got in and jammed a little.


If I have time latter I might go on NINJAM and see if I can get in.

Mike

[mpeknox]

Alright...i'm signed up now with the same username as here. what now?

Edit: OK, i was able to connect to server and hear myself playing guitar. wasn't too thrilling but if anyone else has been successful, i'd love to try it out with another picker. feel free to send me a PM or email.

[mpeknox]

ok, it DOES really work. nobody on there but some rock & rollers though.

[arbarnhart]

Still not getting activation email. I made sure all spam filtering is turned off. Maybe I will try again with another alias and address.

OK I did and it sorta worked. That delay is bizarre. I need to go read their docs. I also need to practice tunes that will be attempted. It's enough like really playing with folks that it gave me my jitters. That stuttery blues I was playing got a lot smoother once I got off line. This could be good for me if I figure out how to work it...

[MandoMonster]

Registered...activated...haven't jammed yet.

[wxfloyd]

I'm also registered. under username wxjeremy. maybe we should mention this in the general discussion forum. I'm sure a lot of people who don't normally visit this board may be interested.

[Stillpicking]

Anyone want to try a mando jam say tomorrow sometime?

You can get 6 on a server. If we want to do it then who ever is in should agree on a simple set list ahead of time and which keys you all will be playing the tunes in.
You really need to do this ahead of time as its a little different than a "live on your porch jam"

A littl bit of planning makes using the site easier in that your not using time communicating.... "so what should we all do next" and "what key you doing that in" stuff.

You can talk live during the session but if folks begin to talk over each other it gets a little confusing as there is no visual/facial communication going on, actually for some of us that might be a positive..... Just joking... yea!

Lets see, I'll start this rolling by suggesting tomorrow Sat.8/12 11AM EST and see if we can get 6 pickers.

After we get 6 registered NINJAM pickers we can start to select maybe 6 tunes to jam with the keys. In other words a jam set list in the order that we want to jam, yea... sounds like too much pre-planning but after messing around a couple times on NINJAM I think this will make for better jam. We can always change on the cyber fly if we want to.

Just one more thing please don't sign on for the jam until you are a registered NINJAM user and have successfully logged on at least once and tested you computer.

You need to be able to know if your computer can process the digital sound clean enough and fast enough to actually be in a jam and that requires a little bit of pre-testing on your part before trying to join a jam.

I don't want this first jam to become an on-line realtime trouble shooting tutorial. I'll be happy to try and walk folks through getting registered but I don' want to use on-line server time for that.

OK enough said, who are the 5 brave souls (Iam already in) that are ready to "mando cyber jam"

Mike

[berkeleymando]

I haven't checked this out yet, but tell me, it works by connecting a mic to your sound card?

[Stillpicking]

That is basically all you need plus a fairly up to date computer. I doubt that dial up connection will be fast enough.

Of course you need to register as a NINJAM user and then setup the software but its that real hard.

[Philip Halcomb]

Anybody up for a ninjam say around 8:30PM EST tonight?

[musicman]

Is anyone still using this program. I took the spring and summer off from the mando for some climbing and travel. but it souds pretty neat.Anyone?

[Stillpicking]

Well I was for a time but there wasn't a whole lot of mando action with it so I dropped it for the time being.

I think some folks had a bit of a hard time with the very slight delay time when jamming on it.

I found that if you plugged a good head set in and listen/played that way that it worked fine.

The headset blocked a very slight delay if there was one.

Might have not worked for others who didn't use a headset or had an older computer with a slow processor or a slow internet connection.

I would be willing to mess with it more if there were folks from the cafe that wanted to invest in the time for setting up their computer and doing some practice with the site. There is a learning curve to it in terms of setup and using it but I still think it has potential.

Heck I was even thinking of forming a cyber mando group and recording some live music using it but I am a dreamer, any dreamers out there?http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/rock.gif??

Mike http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/mandosmiley.gif

[Permanent Daylight]

I'd love to participate, and I can play just about anything, not just mandolin. I'll try to get things setup later tonight.