Hooking musicians up in ‘realtime’ across the internet is nothing new. As far back as the year 2000 you had the likes of Cubase VST and it’s ‘Rocket Power’ feature doing just that.

With about 98% of the UK still running on dial-up connections back in the year 2000 though, a feature such as this was nothing more than a pipe dream. Fast forward 9 years and a Digital revolution later and things have certainly come on a bit. That 98% are now in reach of at least a constant 1mb pipe; either cabled or dongled. A more than adequate connection for some ‘cloud computing’ or real time transferring.

The concept of ‘Virtual Jamming’ has never really carried much weight in my mind. Back in the day when I’d look at that Rocket Power button in VST it just seemed so out of reach. Like a feature they’d put in just for the rich and famous. I never gave it (or it’s architecture) any further thought.

It wasn’t until a few months ago that such a concept was re-introduced to me with the release of the Virtual Glass plug-in. Virtual Glass is an almost identical idea to Rocket Power yet far more feature-rich and ‘peer-to-peer’ based rather than being dependent on a Server side solution which Rocket Power required.
Wow, cool looking solution your probably thinking. Yes, I agree. It looks amazing.
Now part of me says ‘I love it’ and I can’t wait to try it. We have a friend in Costa Rica that we work with so maybe something like this would be superb. Get a giant plasma screen in the Studio and our friend in Costa Rica is right there in the room with us in the UK – well a ‘visual representation’ of him anyway.
But I’m not sure if it would work for me. I guess you never know until you try it which is something I might consider. Personally, I think music should be made with every physical person in the room. I think we spend enough time stuck in the interface as it is. Human interaction is becoming a scarce commodity and something that is in need of a revival in my opinion. It’s almost retro to go and see someone these days!

Another dimension to this Virtual Jamming notion  has just recently been launched by Indaba Music, Session Console 2.0  – the worlds first online DAW.
This press release gives you the lowdown. A different angle to Virtual Glass, pushing it’s ‘cloudness’ rather than it’s ‘musician in the roomness’.

Now this approach really doesn’t do it for me at all. Not only can you not see your jamming buddy, but you are storing your beautiful music on someone else’s server. No way Jose. Call me old fashioned but my data stays on my disks. End of story.

Back in the day when I dreamt of the futuristic world of online collaborations I realise now that I wasn’t developed enough as a musician to see it’s serious shortcomings. Musicians jam together all in the same room for a reason – they are a team, a unit, a troop…. all working together in harmony, getting to know each other’s persona’s and tolerances. They are in-essence, forming a band. You need that room time, that togetherness, that camaraderie so when you get out on that stage at the Coachella Festival and blow the crowd away you are doing it together.
You can keep your online communities for me. I’d much rather you just knocked on my door. We could even nip down to the local for a pint. How’s that going to work with a plasma screen?

“Keep Music Live” they used to say. These concepts are about as “Live” as a room full of servers. Sounds pretty dull to me.