Here in the comfort of my home music studio in California (San Francisco Bay Area), I just experienced a musically rewarding hour (or so) playing keyboards, singing, & jamming together live, with fellow synthzone member-musician Rich Childs (RichUK) performing in his music studio, in Portsmouth, England. It was a terrific first session and I'm anxious to share the experience with you.

First of all, prior to our scheduled across the ocean (Atlantic) + across the North Ameican Continent Skype internet phone chat session (8 hour time zone difference), we both connected our vocal mics into our respective keyboards: Rich-PSR3000, and myself-Tyros. We then connected the audio outs (L/R) of our keyboards to the 'line in' on our computer's soundcard. After configuring Skpe to receive audio via the 'Line In' of our soundcards, and after donning headphone monitors, we were good to go. We could now speak to each other thru our mics into our keyboards (with talk button on to eliminate reverb), as well as play our keyboard & sing, and simultaneously hear each other play & sing as well. Rich entertained me with his terrific vocal/arranger keyboard rendition of "Blue Moon" as well as a rousing rendition of: El Cumbachero. I in turn played the latin-jazz tune: Route66, and Sway & the "Poor Side Of Town". We were both blown away with how impressive our performances sounded: impressively clear, and possibly equal to the quality of a hi-quality mono MP3. Rich even commented that it was like hearing a LIVE performance of the MP3's we have posted on our websites. We both felt like we were literally in the same room performing together. The only thing missing was it was mono, not stereo. We next decided to try playing & sing a song together. Upon me providing live piano accompaniment for the "Girl From Ipanema" , Rich's vocals appeared to keep coming in a bit (I thought) ahead of the beat. After several unsuccesful attempts at counting in when to come in, it was finally noticed that there indeed is a slight audio signal delay which made it difficult to hit the groove together on that tune. We followed that with "A Nightengale Sang In Berkley (Berkeley) Square" though, and for whatever reason (perhaps the internet tranmission finally improved) everything fell into place on that tune, with Rich singing it first in rubuta tempo with me supplying piano accompaniment (with the arranger off), and then going into tempo at the bridge. I took over the vocals on the second time around, and we then traded off taking nstrumental solos. What a blast, and I must admit, I really wished we had recorded that because we both felt it was a keeper for sure. After trading off on several more tunes from: Poor Side Of Town to Spanish Eyes, we decided it was time for a get down Blues jam session . That was perhaps the most fun , trading off solos and having just a rousing good time jamming (as the Brits might say). I played the B3 hammond sound while Rich deftly handled the piano parts playing terrific manual left hand bass lines with right hand solos. The musical exchanges back and forth we had sounded 'right in' the groove (pocket), if you know what I mean. We had so much fun that we've both promised to meet and play together at least once a week. We plan to record some songs together & I of course will post them on my website . Rich is both an accomplished vocalist & competant keyboard musician who I enjoy making music with. It was truly rewarding and I look forward to our next session. Let's see, is this 'East meets West' or 'West meets East'?

For those interested, here's a link to Rich Child's Website: http://richmusic.co.uk/ as well as my website: http://scottyee.com . I just re-listened to our website MP3 song demos and was amazed how similar the sound quality & performance heard during our LIVE Skype internet telephone connection session today sounded to our MP3s. This technology never ceases to amaze me.

Scott

Scott & Rich,
Thats pretty neat stuff.
I love music, especially being made by keyboard musicians and players.
Thats one of MANY reasons I'm frequently here at the synthzone.
Looking forward to future demos/perfromances by the 'long-distance' ensemble.

(Scott: Did you get a new day job selling Skype )

Scotty & Rich....Good show...sorry I couldn't hear it..Barkley Square, one of my favorites...you guys have really accomplished
something today a couple of real "Pioners"...
keep up the good work....record it next time.
Tony Rome

Great report Scott. Felt like I was at a Scott Yee gig yesterday... superb live performances from Mr. Yee!

When the lag becomes more noticeable, everything sounds fine to the singer singing along to the accompaniment provided by the accompanist, but to the accompanist the singer comes in up to a beat late (+/- rubato).

There's still a way to record these performances though. Whoever comes in second (eg. myself on A Nightingale Sang... or Scott on the blues jam) could record the proceedings to a program like Total Recorder which records all sound going through their soundcard, as everything would sound fine their end. Our blues jam sounded slightly out of sync to me of course... but I knew it sounded fine in California. So next time we'll have to try some recording... see how it goes.

Tony, up to 4 people can be in a Skype conference. This is something I'd like to try out... so if you're around, do join us sometime if you can. Scott mentioned it'd be great just to use this program for taking turns playing our keyboards/singing without sync issue concerns. That would be good fun... and I feel a fantastic way for other SZ arranger forum members to trade playing styles, techniques and ideas etc. with each other.

If anyone would like to meet up for a musical get together my Skype username is richmusicuk and once again Scott's is scottyee. From 12pm California time/8pm UK seems to be a good time.

Okay, Scott's sold me on Skype... it really is quite remarkable, a great tool for musicians too. http://www.skype.com

All the best,
Rich Child

Now that's NEWS! That sounds great. I hope we hear more from you and others who are delving into this evolving technology. Maybe some day soon we can have an on-line international SynthZone Jam.

Hi,

Yeah Skype is great, I've chatted with Scott, Rich & Tony about 1,5 hour ago, It was really cool to be able to actually have a real conversation with fellow Synthzoners .
I really encourage all Zoners to install this program, so we can have an online voice-chat synthzone community.
So far only a few Zoners are connected to each other thru Skype, and I hope more will follow soon.
BTW my Skype username is bluenote_x

Greetz ,
Marcel

Hm, it sounds not so interesting to me. We have to speed up the light (I told this in another thread) then we could jam with the whole globe. The time diffenrences between the signals from US and UK are caused by the big distance. Remember the light goes with 300,000 km per second, also the transmission stations and satelites causes some time shifting by interpretation und path switching...
...and last but not least you're still using a PC with Windows...

P.S.: It's a pity that the light speed is too slow...

P.P.S.: You've made some very nice songs, Richard! Unfortunality the most of them sounded very familiar to my ears. Did you cover the most of your repertoire? Sorry, for my uninformed question but your style do not represent that what I'm always hearing.
Nevertheless I could here some points out of it. It seems to me like you had recorded all songs with only one keyboard/synth/arranger (I've missed some other sounds from different engines). You have a great voice which will grow more and more with the years, I'm telling you! Maybe a visit in a big studio with more available performances would give you the great kick to the top...

------------------
Greetings from Frankfurt (Germany),
Sheriff ;-)

Yes, the time latency thing, prevents actual real time 'across the globe' concurrent live recording success, but I'm very impressed how much less the latency is now compared to the earlier internet telephone experiences I had. When speaking, the latency (delay) is inperceptible, and when playing, the perception is often only slight. In addition, both parties are able to speak at the same time now. The free PC-PC telephone benefits of Skype are still enormous. Synthzone members can PERFORM on our keyboards for each other, with impressive (abeit) mono sound, demonstrate & exchange playing tips LIVE, rehearse songs with fellow musicians in preparation for actual recording later via sending audio files back and forth over the internet, etc. Hey Sheriff, I think it might be really cool to have a free Skype 'voice chat' with you sometime: Germany to California. Interested? My Skype name is: scottyee. - Scott

Sheriff, many thanks for your kind comments.

Those songs don't really represent all of the repertoire/styles... as most of them were requests by friends and family.

'Someone, Someone' was the first song I'd recorded in many years. A friend asked me if I could record it for her, as she always remembered playing the original record which belonged to her father. Another friend heard it then asked if I could record their favourite, 'Unchained Melody'... Jim Reeves for my dad, 'If' for my mum... and so on. 'And I Love You So' was my own request!

Two of the songs are originals by writers in Scotland. Another one was originally made as a backing for another singer, so I thought 'since I'm at it I may as well record it.'

The sounds you're hearing are a Roland SC-880 module for the 2002 songs, a Clavinova CLP-170 for 'And I Love You So', 'For The Good Times', 'Take My Heart' and 'Baby Stay With Me Tonight' (piano only for this one)... and the 'marvellous mechanical mouse organ' that is the PSR3000 for 'You're The Only Good Thing', 'Almost In Love' and the instrumental. The two samples from '92 use a Roland PRO-E/D70 combination.

Thanks again Sheriff... and yes, always hoping for a visit to a big studio!

Cheers,
Rich