Posted: October 2013
From: Trip 3: VCU to UKZN March 2013
The following is an excerpt from an article written by Professor Antonio Garcia: The previous semester I had researched software called Source-Connect, which under the right conditions can provide ISDN-quality audio over the Internet between the participants with only brief latency. (The primary condition to be addressed is how each participant’s firewalls are arrayed, as functionality is easily blocked.) After installing and troubleshooting it on both campuses (one on a Mac, the other on a PC), we were then also able to run Skype (audio off) simultaneously. Skype’s own brief latency seemed to virtually match Source-Connect’s, allowing us to see and hear on both sides of the transmission. Music aside, it was great for the teams to reunite in this way: we greatly enjoyed seeing and hearing each other as one!
The final ingredient to the success of the Internet rehearsals was configuring the composers on the one continent to monitor the Source-Connect audio via headphones, while the rehearsing musicians on the other continent monitored the Source-Connect audio at normal volume over house speakers, thus avoiding any chance of a feedback loop.
So the composers could easily speak up and interrupt the rehearsal at the other school, as well as of course be easily heard with their advice to the performers.
Here’s a flashback to February from one of VCU’s jazz rehearsal rooms:
More info about Virginia Commonwealth University – Jazz Studies
More info about University of KwaZulu-Natal – Music School
