Jamtaba's user guide - Ezeer/JomTobo GitHub Wiki
Welcome to the Jamtaba Experience..
JAMTABA is a software that allows anyone with a computer and an internet connection to play music online with other all around the world.
This user guide is meant to help you to configure Jamtaba and use it " as you want to " .
Jamtaba is highly configurable , so let's start by having a look to the different parts
that you will be able to configure or tweak .
Jamtaba is currently available as Standalone for Windows (32/64 bits), VST plugin (Windows only) and Mac OSX 10.7+ (64bits only), so in order to install it, you must choose one.
Download from www.Jamtaba.com the correct version for your system and run the installer in your system.
Follow the instructions on the screen and provide the right path in order to install the software correctly.
In order for VST plugins to work in Jamtaba it’s important that the correct path is chosen here. This path will be used to install the VST Plugin version of Jamtaba too.
Once the installation is complete, close the installer and run the software.
The first thing Jamtaba will do the first time is launched is scan for VST plugins in the folder you specified. If you have many plugins this may take a while, but it is done only once.
If you install more plugins you’ll need to add the path to the list using the (+) button and scan again pressing Refresh. To remove a path press the (-) button in the left of every folder. Use the Clear cache to delete all the plugins already detected. And if you have any non-working plugins, just add them to the Black list. Remove from black list is also allowed.
To access the VST menu you can use the F3 key instead (standalone only).
This section describes the basic functions of the Main Page of Jamtaba. This screen appears when you launch the software. It is very important that you learn what’s the name of each control, so you can communicate with others in the same language. In the image below, the green text box means you can click a button only and Red text box means you can drag a knob or fader with the mouse.
First go to the PREFERENCES Menu. It is located in the upper left corner below the Jamtaba Icon.
Now Jamtaba needs to know what Audio Device to use. You can use any USB and FIREWIRE interface on the market or your computer’s built in soundcard. Select the AUDIO option to continue (or press F1 in standalone version).
Device: This is your soundcard. Prefer ASIO drivers if possible. You can use ASIO4ALL if your souncard doesn’t have ASIO drivers.
Inputs and outputs: This is where you select which inputs and outputs you will be using. Jamtaba supports multichannel soundcards, so it will use as many as you have if you select them.
Sample Rate: This depends on your hardware. Use at least 44100 HZ (CD quality). Your latency will be less with higher sample rates, but you will also need more CPU resources.
Buffer size: Use the lowest value possible. If you hear dropouts and clicks, then try increasing one step at a time until the sound is clear. Smaller values use more CPU, but reduce the overall latency of the system. You can tweak this parameter along with the Sample Rate to achieve the best configuration possible for your system. Don’t be afraid to experiment!
Now it’s time to configure your MIDI devices. Connect all your equipment and turn them on. Next step is to select the MIDI tab in the preferences Menu (or press F2 in standalone version). Jamtaba will activate all the devices that appear in the list automatically, but you can uncheck anyone of them that you don’t want to use with Jamtaba.
This concludes the configuration of Jamtaba. Now it’s time to learn what’s in the Control Section.
In this section you will learn how to use all the powerful functions that Jamtaba has in order to expand your jaming experience. Here’s the complete description of the knobs, faders and buttons you’ll find while using the software. So let’s begin!
This are all the tools Jamtaba has to shape your sound. You can add Compressors, gates, effects and anything you want as much as your system can handle. Remember, the more plugins you use the more CPU and MEMORY you will need, so keep some resources free for the actual jaming experience.
In Jamtaba you can have up to two independent channels each of which can have two sub channels more. The two channels are sent to the jam room separate from each other so others in the room can adjust the mix in their local computers.
To add a second channel, just click on the wheel at the right side of the text box and select “Add Channel”. If you want to add sub channels, just click “Add sub channel”.
There’s an option for removing channels and sub channels too!
Jamtaba can save your jams for later use including all other participants. All the tracks are stored independently so you can have offline access to each track for remixing purposes.
To configure this option first check the “Save multi tracks” box and select the correct path in the Recording Tab under the Preferences menu (or F4 in standalone version) pressing the browse button and press OK at the bottom of the dialog box.
Now all your jams will be recorded automatically and stored in your local Hard Disk.
If you need to use them you will need another program like Reaper that can read the file that Jamtaba has created. Currently Jamtaba can not be used for offline remixing of your jams.
Next we will explain how to enter a room and start to jam with other people. This is where the fun begins!
What’s a Public Server?
By now you should know that a Server provides rooms where musicians enter to play music. Public Servers are provided for free for anyone to join by Generous People. They are very few and may be located all around the world. The most used are ninjamer.com and ninbot.com.
Joining a Public Server is very easy. Just click the ENTER button of the Server you want to join in the Main Page. Each Server has a LISTEN and an ENTER button.
If you’re not sure what kind of music is being played inside the Room then, before entering, press the LISTEN button to know if the jam suits your style and skill. You will be able to listen in real time.
Once you click the ENTER button Jamtaba will ask you to type a Name or Alias for others to identify you. Choose one and click OK.
This will take to inside the room where you can start playing immediately.
But before we explain what’s inside a Server, let’s check out another way to join a room. The PRIVATE SERVER.
A Private Server works the same way as a Public Server, but the difference is the URL is not Public, so it has to be entered by hand. First click the Ninjam Menu and then Private Server.
Now type the URL of the server and the port of your private Server. Also if you need a password, you have to enter it here.
Once you click OK Jamtaba opens the Server Window and you’re ready to play.
Now it’s time to learn the basics in the Jam Room. Let’s have a quick look!
Now that you are familiarized with the overall structure of the software, here we will explain in detail everything that can be done with each control in the Server Room, so you can enhance your jamming experience.
Let’s start with an overview of what you’ll see once you join any server (Public or Private).
Now let’s describe in detail each one of the pieces you will find in the Jam Room.
The Metronome is the most important element of the whole Jamming Experience. Here’s the most common shape used as an example, but you can choose many others.
But before we continue it’s important for you to know how the jamming experience actually works, so you can understand what role the metronome plays and why it’s so critical.
The best explanation of how this technology works is found in the ninjam website ( http://www.cockos.com/ninjam/ ). There we can read the following:
“Since the inherent latency of the Internet prevents true realtime synchronization of the jam, and playing with latency is weird (and often uncomfortable), NINJAM provides a solution by making latency (and the weirdness) much longer.
Latency in NINJAM is measured in measures, and that’s what makes it interesting.
The NINJAM client records and streams synchronized intervals of music between participants. Just as the interval finishes recording, it begins playing on everyone else’s client. So when you play through an interval, you’re playing along with the previous interval of everybody else, and they’re playing along with your previous interval.
If this sounds pretty bizarre, it sort of is, until you get used to it, then it becomes pretty natural. In many ways, it can be more forgiving than a normal jam, because mistakes propagate differently.”
Jammin’ in a ninjam room is a unique experience, but is non real time playing which makes it possible for anyone to join, independent of where you are located around the world (or the galaxy :D). It’s called Intervallic jamming.
The important thing to remember is that every player HAS to follow the metronome in order to be in sync with the others. Following the BPM (beats per minute) and BPI (beats per interval) are extremely important too for Ninjam to sound real. Keep this in mind as we walk you through the detailed explanation of the controls Jamtaba has.
This is an important topic to explain because tempo is one of the most critical elements when creating music, specially among a number of people, so BPM and BPI changes affect the whole mood of a jam and, on the other hand, can destroy the flow of ideas if chosen wrong.
For example in classical music, the tempo is conducted by the director using a baton. In popular music, the Bass, Drums or the guitar will lead the beat, but in a Ninjam Server it’s done be agreement. Someone proposes a BPI/BPM and the others have to vote yes/no/other. Some Servers use the majority (about 66%) of the vote for the change to be accepted. This is set by the Server Administrator and is under his/her control.
The typical way to vote in the chat window is to use the following format : !vote BPI 32 or !vote BPM 110. In Jamtaba when you use the BPI/ BPM box it sends the request to the room automatically, so you don’t need to type that in the chat.
Jamtaba puts in your hands all you need to create your own mix on the fly.
This is useful because not everyone has the same perception of a “correct mix”. It’s about taste, so everyone can have it’s own mix to be able to play comfortably.
Jamtaba comes with a very intuitive and useful Chat interface. It is mostly used by users inside the Server to talk about the jam and for voting too, but it can be used for anything you want. Some servers allow guests (peolpe listening to the jam via streaming, but not plaing) to chat with the musicians during a Jam session.
The Translation language can be changed too (see the “Tweaks” Page). Here’s what it looks like.
Jamtaba has a special feature that helps you jam comfortably when a chord progression is being played in a room.
If you type the chords separated by ‘|’ in the chat window or someone else writes them down, Jamtaba will recognize this syntax and display a dialog box asking if you want to use the progression. Just click the box to load it.
Transposing the whole progression is also possible. Just use the ‘#’ and ‘b’ buttons and press the chat icon to post for others to see or use in the chat.
If you need more room in your screen for instruments, effects, etc and you think Jamtaba is taking too much space, then go to the View Mode Menu and select Mini View.
This will shrink the Jamtaba Window to a minimum without loosing important information like the metronome or the Chat.
Jamtaba can be used as a VST plugin. Just open your D.A.W. and refresh the plugin list. There should be a new plugin called “Jamtaba 2”. If you installed the 32bit version, the the plugin will also be 32bit, but if you have the 64bit version of Jamtaba, the plugin will be 64 bit too. Consider that at the moment Jamtaba can’t work as a wrapper, meaning the 64bit version can’t open 32bit plugins and viceversa.
But why use Jamtaba as VST plugin if I have the Standalone version?
Most of the musicians that use the computer to work with audio (sound designers, studio engineers, etc.) already have their favorite D.A.W. running and probably there’s where most work is done, so there’s no need to change that with Jamtaba. Just open the plugin inside Cubase, Reaper or Studio One and start Jamming! The VST version of Jamtaba has the same functionality as the Standalone, except for the routing and VST plugins that are handled by the Host.
Here you will find more information about the ninjam community.
Finally let’s adress the help menu. Here you will find useful information about other aspects of Jamtaba, such as history, who’s involved in the development, the Wiki page that has more updated information and an online version of this manual in case new improvements are included that can’t be explained here. At the bottom of the menu there’s a link if you want to contribute with opinions and suggestions.
Changing the Chat Translation Language:
By default , Jamtaba will use your local settings for the language, but if you edit the “Jamtaba.json” file, give for exemple “fr” as parameter at this line : “translation”: “fr”, you will end up with the chat translated in french .
TROUBLESHOOTING
Even if Jamtaba was very well coded ( ^^ ), it is possible that sometimes it crashes .
To be able to understand and fix the crash , we have made a tool to log the
events that occured in a session .
If you get stuck , you will perhaps contact us , and our answer will be to ask you for the log .
So it is a good idea to learn how to use it right now !
-logging.ini
That tool is configurable by the way of a .ini file that you can manually edit .
( Located for windows in C:\Documents and Settings\ **** \Local Settings\Application Data\Jamtaba 2 . )
By default , the content of the file looks like this :
And the resulting log produced by Jamtaba looks like that :
default.INFO: Reading settings from "C:/Documents and Settings/Salon/Local Settings/Application Data/Jamtaba 2/Jamtaba.json"
default.INFO: "Starting Jamtaba 2.0.4 Standalone (i386) running on Windows XP (i386)"
Now , let's tweak a little bit ...
We gonna set the jt.Audio=false to true .
This is the new output produced by Jamtaba :
default.INFO: Reading settings from "C:/Documents and Settings/Salon/Local Settings/Application Data/Jamtaba 2/Jamtaba.json"
jt.Audio.INFO: initializing portaudio...
jt.Audio.INFO: Starting portaudio driver using ASIO4ALL v2 as device.
jt.Audio.INFO: Starting portaudio driver using 512 as buffer size.
jt.Audio.DEBUG: using __WIN32 scpecific stream infos for inputs in PortAudioDriver.cpp 202
jt.Audio.DEBUG: using __WIN32 scpecific stream infos for outputs in PortAudioDriver.cpp 235
jt.Audio.INFO: Trying initialize portaudio using inputParams and samplerate= 44100
jt.Audio.INFO: portaudio driver started ok!
default.INFO: "Starting Jamtaba 2.0.4 Standalone (i386) running on Windows XP (i386)"
jt.Audio.DEBUG: releasing portaudio resources... in PortAudioDriver.cpp 360
jt.Audio.DEBUG: closing portaudio stream in PortAudioDriver.cpp 348
jt.Audio.DEBUG: portaudio terminated! in PortAudioDriver.cpp 363
jt.Audio.DEBUG: Audio mixer destructor... in AudioMixer.cpp 41
jt.Audio.DEBUG: Audio mixer destructor finished! in AudioMixer.cpp 49
jt.Audio.DEBUG: destructor PortAudioDriver in PortAudioDriver.cpp 122
jt.Audio.DEBUG: AudioDriver destructor. in AudioDriver.cpp 66
That kind of log would be very useful for our support team ( join us ! ^^ ) .
Now you know the basics for debugging Jamtaba , you are an Advanced user !
CONGRATULATION !
This ends this user's guide. We hope you take advantage of the full power of Jamtaba and enjoy making music with people all around the globe.
Sincerely,
The
Team
A PDF copy of this manual can be downloaded from here : https://github.com/elieserdejesus/JamTaba/files/37528/Jamtaba.User.s.Guide_jamtaba.v.2.0.6.pdf