Remote sectional rehearsal?

[daveburch235]

Dear listers, while my community orchestra is on I definite hiatus due to pandemic, I am considering how to get my low brass section together virtually (using something like Zoom) for rehearsal. Obviously, we would need to see each other, and more importantly, the sound transmission would have to be instantaneous in terms of human perception. Has anyone here tried this?

[BGuttman]

There have been a couple of threads on this very topic. Big problem with something like Zoom is the latency. On a typical setup the latency (lag between source of sound and receiver) is about 100 ms. Any latency greater than 30 ms will be heard. I guess if all you want to do is Bach Chorales at a slow tempo, that might work, but most likely not.

[AndrewMeronek]

IMHO the closest thing to a "sectional" would be to perhaps Zoom to discuss what to do - but otherwise to create a collage where each person records their part at home and someone combines them together with something like Audacity, and then discuss and repeat.

[daveburch235]

Thanks, Bruce and Andrew. I had searched for an existing thread but did not find the magic search expression. I will probably look toward "missing part" rehearsal recordings or something like Andrew's "collage and repeat" suggestion. Or organize an outdoor sectional on somebody's driveway.

[BGuttman]

Outdoors on a driveway may be your best bet, provided the weather cooperates.

The Big Band I play with had an outdoor rehearsal in the parking lot of the hall in which they normally practice. Unfortunately I had to bow out due to vision problems.

[andym]

I posted this in the tech thread but for small groups soundjack.eu provides a low latency sound solution. The downside is that it can be hard to setup and you will get more stable results if you use Ethernet instead of WiFi. I’ve achieved about 80ms across the country and 30 to 40 ms across a nearby region. For comparison, sound travels about 1 foot per millisecond. One of my cousins has used it to jam with people across the Atlantic.