In this unit we will briefly compare two free Mac-based platforms that can be used for rehearsing and performing online in real-time. Zoom is a popular virtual meeting platform which has been used successfully by a growing number of musicians during the pandemic to rehearse and perform to audiences online. Jamkazam, on the other hand, is a platform specifically designed to facilitate the real time rehearsal and performance of music by musicians who may be performing considerable distances away from each other – even in different continents!
Zoom is familiar to most people through its principle use as an online meeting platform. The initial set-up is straightforward. But to use Zoom for music activities you will need to adapt a number of audio settings in order to get the most out of this video conferencing software platform. These include:
- Ensuring your instrument is adequately connected to Zoom. For best quality this is usually achieved via an audio interface
- Optimising call settings within Zoom to ensure that all the musicians can be heard as clearly as possible.
Sound on Sound have written an excellent guide on using Zoom for musical activities.
Jamkazam offers much more in terms of features that will appeal to musicians including an effective ‘distributed’ (centralised) online metronome click which can be turned on and off. Jamkazam offers the facility to load ‘audio’ for looping such as drum grooves which musicians may want to ‘Jam’ to in real time. It is possible to stream backing tracks to performers and to record video and multitrack audio. Jamkazam offers a very effective musician focused experience but with all these features comes a more in depth set-up process. Things to consider are:
- To work effectively, an audio interface is required
- The audio set-up process takes a little time, but thankfully there is some good guidance built into the platform
- The audio set-up process is quite challenging for users of software synthesisers
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