Hi all, this is Justin Deanon, and I help represent Ragazzi and JackTrip in two differing fields of work and would like to share our current accomplishment with LIVE rehearsals on-site. However, this is not our current setup in Ragazzi(as that information has not yet been disclosed), but this was our first test build that was allowed by JackTrip(and that worked!) to help setup for Ragazzi when the idea was still in its ‘beta.’ Happy to share this, and hope this helps out for future ensembles to find some kind of variation! Person to complete initial design is Russell Peck, who is a Ragazzi alumni and helps us out at JackTrip as well. We’re glad to discuss details or design ideas you may have.
Genre/use case:
Is it for a garage band, church choir, music lessons, something else?
It is for in-person LIVE rehearsal with JackTrip users and those in the room.
Microphones, cables, stands, amps, and interfaces… oh my!
Ethernet Cable
Rasberry Pi AC adapter
2 amps(Left Side/Right Side) , 2 cables to connect to the mixer for Stereo effect
Multichannel Mixer to funnel audio channels to JackTrip Analog Bridge
2 mics(Left Side/Right Side) , 2 cables to connect to the mixer for Stereo effect
Experiences/Struggles:
Depending on rehearsal venue, consider 30 minutes of setup/takedown before & after your rehearsal as the gear to get things going takes patience and a safe discipline when dealing with audio equipment. Turn any devices/speakers’ volume knobs to 0 before and after rehearsal to make sure the people in the room are not harmed by any accidental loud sounds. The most challenging part is making sure your wires are in their correct locations.
Are you going to provide an update on what your are doing now? I direct a children’s choir in the Washington, DC area. Have used JT throughout Beta and continuing now. We are planning our first in person rehearsal, some parents will bring their children, others want to sing from home. I have looked on the website, trying to find current information on the best way to set up to do this. Can’t find.
Hi Sandra!
As one of the folks who helped Ragazzi with the hybrid rehearsals, I feel like I can answer your question. Synthia gave a really good response as well!
Ragazzi stopped using the hybrid set-up when we went back in person fully in the Spring of 2022.
The way we did it was pretty much just a scaled-up version of what this post describes. The main difference was bigger speakers, a bigger mixer, and a couple more microphones. I ran the audio side of things, mainly just standing behind the mixer and trying to balance the people in-person and the people virtual. The main difficulty was making sure we didn’t have a feedback loop, which is pretty easy to avoid depending on where you pointed the microphones and other things like that.
If you’d like to talk “in-person” (online video call) please swing by the weekend support team during office hours. I host them from 1-3 pm most Saturdays and Sundays. I’d be happy to chat with you about how it worked then!
My choir has been trying to solve the same problem. I am very curious how you avoid feedback in the rehearsal space with this setup. The schematics are not making it clear to me how the in-person choir’s voices, if they are amplified into the room over the speakers, would not cause a feedback situation. I assume you are able to avoid directing their sound to the speakers and only the remote voices would be amplified in the rehearsal space. Is that true?
We needed this remote capability because one of our members moved far enough away that it was a 90 minute drive each direction to attend rehearsal. With the cost of the gas and the cost in terms of time, I knew we’d soon lose his participation.
Our approach is to completely eliminate the possibility of feedback in the rehearsal space by using two JT studios simultaneously, one for audio from our remote singer to the rehearsal space and the other for audio from the rehearsal space back to the the remote singer. Our remote singer has to wear headphones to avoid feedback at his end, and he reports the audio is exceptionally good – he can sing along just as if he is in person.
Meanwhile, in the rehearsal space, the audio from the remote singer is taken from the RPi and directed into the PA system in the space (it’s a relatively small church hall). In this manner, our remote’s singer’s voice appears to be in the room as if he is standing among us, and the voices of the in-person choir are not included in the mix directed to the PA system. Only the remote singer hears the ambient sound in the rehearsal space, which also includes his own voice.
In the rehearsal space, we used a single condenser microphone, which has a wide pattern which was able to capture the entire group of 15 voices and the piano very well.
We have 2 JT studios running simultaneously, and 2 RPi units at each physical location. It raises the bar in terms of expense, and we would have gladly used the desktop application, but the RPi units were more robust; we had none of technical glitches that cropped up using the desktop app with this admittedly oddball setup.
Thank you @reggersusa for this interesting and informative post. I have to take some time to visualize it all! Some photos would help a lot if you feel like it. Suffice to say that your scrappy grit inspired a workaround that works for the situation! Thanks again for sharing your experience.
Welcome @reggersusa! Thanks for posting your question. I think that your assumption is spot on - keeping any live audio away from the front of the speakers will avoid feedback. I’m glad to see in your next post that you went ahead with some solutions. Rock on and Please Keep in touch!
Hey there- I’m not sure why you’d need to use 2 studios for this. I think you could do the same thing by just turning the “Self Volume” to 0 if it’s not already. This should prevent any loopback from the choir back into the choir room.
As long as the other participant uses headphones, you should be good to go with one studio and self volume = 0.
Refer to flowchart of the setup. Order of workflow:
Both JT Studios started
Remote user attaches microphone to RPi and connects to JT Studio “From Remote”
Remote user attaches headphones to RPi and connects to JT Studio “From Rehearsal”
Rehearsal user attaches microphone to RPi and connects to JT Studio “From Rehearsal”
Rehearsal user attaches sound system to RPi and connects to JT Studio “From Remote”
Note on attaching sound system in the Rehearsal space: Using RCA=>XLR cables, take audio signal from RPi into Mic input of sound system. Using Line level input to sound system will result in poor quality. Use the Mic input to get good, full sound.
We have not yet tested aforsyth’s suggestion to set self volume to 0 and would like more details on which user and where to find the setting.
The self-volume is located in the Studio Soundscape settings (not the Bridge settings). Screenshot attached. And maybe @aforsyth has some other thoughts on usage.
Is there an IP listing of all the servers out there so I can see what has the best return time on a ping? I am running 500mpbs service, however, my round trip time is 49-55ms. Seems really low.
New user here and want to use this platform to jam with high school buds for a gig in September.
