Menu

Effects of the Corona virus on Jamulus

2020-03-18
2020-09-30
1 2 > >> (Page 1 of 2)
  • Volker Fischer

    Volker Fischer - 2020-03-18

    On the current occasion I want to give you a status update on the Jamulus software.

    As you all know, we have an extreme situation caused by the new Corona virus. People are forced to stay at home and cannot, e.g., rehearse with their band mates. So suddenly there is a high demand for online jam session. If you look at the Jamulus download statistic, it seems to explode in the last few days. Attached is a screen shot of the Jamulus Connection Setup dialog containing an incredable number of 56 servers listed. I have never seen such an amount of listed servers. The maximum number in the past were 10, usually only 4 to 6 servers were listed.

    The configured maximum number of connected musicians on the Central Server was 12. Yesterday I had to see that this was not enough. The server was often full. This morning I changed the maximum number to 20. Unbelievable. I never thought that we would need that large number.

    As Jamulus experts know, it is possible that more than just one band rehearses on the same server since it is possible that you set the musicians of your band to solo so you only here them or, alternatively, you mute the other band musicians. With my band we do this on a regular basis. So it indeed makes sense to allow such a large number as 20 musicians on one server (if the streaming capability of the server is sufficient, which is the case for the Central Server).

    BTW, the configured maximum number of servers in the server list is 100. So we still have some headroom. But if the traffic increases further, even that high limit is questionable.

    I have to say that the Jamulus software was never tested under these extreme conditions. In some forums I read (I have to say that I have not tested it myself) that a similar software JamKazam (commercial product) has serious server issues these days. Having this in mind, I am surprised how stable the Jamulus server/client software is and how well it copes with this extreme condition. But now a lot of people rely on the stability of the Jamulus system. In the past I could easily reboot the Central Server on system updates. If we have more than 50 servers listed and about 10 musicians currently jamming on the Central Server, I do not want to do this. So I have to find a good time, e.g. in the morning when not so many servers are listed and active jam sessions are happening to fulfill the maintainence tasks. This is a really strange situation.

    To sum up, Jamulus seems to be a good tool to help musicians in this bad time. It seems that the software can handle the large traffic. At this point I want to encourage the people who have used Jamulus in the past and know how to set it up to help new users of the Jamulus software. Either connected at the Jamulus server and help them online or answering questions in the Sourceforge forums. I try my best to support the people but my resources are limited.

    I hope you stay healthy and can continue your band reheasals with the help of Jamulus.

     
    ❤️
    3
    • Jayne Rose

      Jayne Rose - 2020-09-08

      I am new to this. Please confirm that up to 20 members of a choir can sing together at the same time on a server with sufficient band width? Also, is there the potential for video capabilities?

       
    • Jonathan S Watson

      Not only are new groups moving to Jamulus, but also many large choruses and orchestras who would never have tried playing online before. The Vocal Revolution chorus had 26 singers on Jamulus recently, and that number will grow as more singers learn to use the technology.
      I echo the thank-yous.

       

      Last edit: Jonathan S Watson 2020-09-10
  • Brian Pratt

    Brian Pratt - 2020-03-18

    You really are the man of the hour!

    So it would be ideal for those who can figure it out to set up private servers, to avoid hits on your central server, yes?

    Thanks for the great software!

     
    😄
    1
  • Adam

    Adam - 2020-03-18

    Yeah, that's us. Couldn't get JamKazam to work coz it couldn't connect to their presumably-overloaded servers.

    So being able to run our own server is the key here it turns out.

    Thanks for your work Volker

     
  • Gilgongo

    Gilgongo - 2020-03-25

    LOL :-)

     
  • Gronaz

    Gronaz - 2020-03-25

    Not too bad as well

     
    😄
    1

    Last edit: Gronaz 2020-03-25
  • Laurent Schwartz

    Thanks for your great work @Volker.

    I tested Jamulus a few months ago and had difficulties to find people jamming with. Now these days, musicians are more and more.

    I made one page about jamulus client and one page about jamulus server on my french site and they are my best visited pages these days but configure audio (for client) or network (for server) is very difficult task for the average user at least on Windows.

    I've observe that a lot of people uses WIFI or bad internet connection to test jamulus ... and are searching for a solution.

     
  • Adam

    Adam - 2020-03-26

    Nobody reads our website, obviously, we are nobody. But we told all those nobodies who read about us nobodies about you anyway.

    There's a youtube video of us playing through Jamulus there too.

    Thanks again Volker.

    https://handsomejacks.co.uk/index.php/how-to-do-band-practice-online/
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TByp7Y51zZ8

     
    • Volker Fischer

      Volker Fischer - 2020-03-27

      Nice. I use Jamulus with my band Jitterbuffer since about 7 years with audio only. What is the benefit of having video, too? I guess the latency is too high to synchronize any playing through the video signal. One benefit is certainly that you see if any player is not sitting in front of his PC (because he tries to find a bottle of beer ;-) ).

       
      • Simon Tomlinson

        Simon Tomlinson - 2020-03-27

        we are livestreaming onto the Facebook group tomorrow a combined zoom video and audio stream as a live jam night event so that regular listening can watch the video.

         
      • Adam

        Adam - 2020-03-27

        Video isn't synched enough for a nod to signal when a beat should come, but it's plenty synched enough for a smile or a grimace to give feedback on how you're sounding.

        Video helps the human connection between the band members I think.

         

        Last edit: Adam 2020-03-27
  • Nicholas Neil-Boss

    Hi Volker - I would echo the thanks to you and the many other helpful people who have been brilliant with their debugging ideas and technical wizardry. I have set up a server and noticed that it seems to be used quite a lot by others, which is cool. I have not got my own bandmates up the curve yet, due to general coronavirus chaos. I am sure we will be using it soon. With an eye on the future, when I might want to share the space with another band, I was wondering what difference it would make to upgrade my VPS package to multicore and more RAM. I have a 4GHz, 1 GB RAM, single core setup. Would we notice any better performance if I went to 4 core with 4GB RAM. T

     
1 2 > >> (Page 1 of 2)
Want the latest updates on software, tech news, and AI?
Get latest updates about software, tech news, and AI from SourceForge directly in your inbox once a month.