My friend is moving overseas, but we would like to still collaborate on music.

We would like to be able to record music together in real time.

He has somewhat limited engineering production skills.

Have any of you tried BandLab, Splice, Soundtrap, JamKazam, Pibox, or Sessionwire? Ableton Link?

It would be nice to work in real time. If a web based solution, I can always export to Ableton Live later for production. A bit lofi is OK.

Thanks!

I'd probably try the Blue Cats stuff before paying for a service. I've not yet done so, but will eventually if the other person gets around to following through.

Thanks! I didn't know about the Blue Cat Fader Hub. I will try it out.

I have used AudioMovers Listen To for remote collaboration. I find it simple to set up and not too expensive. But it is about taking turns. Not real time playing.

Sorry, but this is not going to happen. Even if you lived in the same town. Everything is digitized, multiplexed and in the case of overseas, sent up to a satellite.

Have you ever called someone in the next room and heard the delay coming out of their phone? Have you ever watched a satellite interview on TV with someone overseas?

If you had your own copper wire from you house in the USA, under the ocean and directly to your friend's house in Europe, the delay would be 40 ms - in each direction. You would count off 1-2-3 you friend would hear you 40 ms later and he would play a note and you would hear that 40ms after he played the note he thought was in time to you.

That would be the fastest you could expect.

Thank You. I kind of discovered that today from playing around. I was just thinking that audio "tennis" might be the ideal method. If I am experiencing latency in my own set up, it doesn't make sense that doing anything remotely would work better.

Have you compared AudioMovers ListenTo to anything else? Why do you like it?

You kind of have to keep track of the various "whens" but
a lot of these things will line it up for you. Just not simultaneous.

exactly. Even if you could eliminate 100% of your own local latency, there is nothing you can do about the speed of light. Never mind the digitizing and 'packet' systems of today's telecommunications.

Well I have used Source-Connect for working with the big boys. It is quite expensive. But you can get a 2-day license if some TV show or ad agency insists you use it. Besides being pricey, there is a serious learning curve. It is as far away from user-friendly as you can get.

I have not tried any of the others on your list.

One thing I like about Listen To is they have a thing where they give you a URL and up to 50 people can listen at a time. Anybody with a browser. Not just people with a DAW. During the pandemic, I taught Zoom classes in audio production, but the audio quality on Zoom is horrendous, so any time I had subtle audio things I wanted them to hear, I used that url thing.

My plan is for us to try the Blue Cats stuff and, if that isn't sufficient, to try Audiomovers on a monthly basis.

Thank you for the detailed reply.

I watched this video and it seems like both of these guys are engineers using ListenTo. Have you used this with novice tech people at all? I have the skill to make this work on my end, but I am a little concerned about my musician friend.

I did not have my students put it on their machines. It was strictly one-way with them. They were novices but obviously if they are taking a class, they are not 'non-technical'. But rapid back and forth was just not necessary in a class situation.

I have helped people remotely using TeamViewer. There's a free version and it is relatively simple for the 'other' person to download and install. Then they send you a 'code' and this allows you to log in and control their mouse and see their screen.

To be clear: I have set people up in this way. Helped them install stuff on their machine, configure settings etc etc. But in the end, they still have to operate the equipment. Otherwise you might as well email mp3 back and forth and chat about it on the phone. Used to do that all the time, and some of that stuff came out pretty good.

Come to think of it, there is something to be said for these slower ways of working, just as there is in slower methods of cooking food. It really depends.

I think there is a limit on how 'simple' such programs can be, because the task itself is not simple. If someone is really struggling with computer stuff, it is going to manifest itself much earlier just in their operation of the DAW, way before you ever get to collaboration software.

But IMO, if he can use a DAW, he can probably use this.

This seems to be the norm with a lot of these Apps, to varying degrees. I am not surprised at all.

First Impressions... and I fully acknowledge that some of the issues I had with some of these Apps may be down to me and needing to spend more time with them...

BandLab - As a tennis volley back and forth web based DAW, this one is pretty good. Some limitations compared to Ableton Live, etc. are expected. You can import and export audio pretty easily. The latency for audio recording isn’t too bad. It’s a little off, but seems to have some built-in compensation? It would be simple to quickly export a recording to Ableton, time stretch, and bring it back in. The simultaneous recording feature is gone. However, once one user saves, the other can see the additions and add to the session. It's free, but there is a paid version with a few extra features.

SoundTrap - Like BandLab, but problematic and requires a paid subscription. I tried doing this on my computer and I couldn’t record audio without serious lag, never mind adding a 2nd user.

Muse - The setup was very smooth as well as inviting someone to a session. Latency was expected. The end user sound was distractingly late. On the DAW end, I was running a computer on a powerful network. Every file that I recorded sounded comb filtered. I couldn't seem to get a clear recording. I know that there are variables so I am still willing to play with this.

Sessionwire - The way Sessionwire sets up everything makes a lot of sense, in terms of sharing HQ audio and listening in real time with a client. However, I could not get the recording side to work. I assume that it will work in a similar way to Muse or AudioMovers ListenTo, by having to bump and shift audio in the session due to network latency. I may come back to it, but my first attempt was problematic.

Blue Cat Fader Hub - This seems like a really nice plugin, but requires an experienced user on both ends. If your user is a great musician but a tech novice, the setup isn’t simple enough to be a practical option.

It's prob identical setup, but...

As far as I know, for Blue Cat, only the DAW person might want Faderhub. The other person(s) would use Connector.

Thanks for reporting out on this! I look forward to hearing more about your tech adventure....