Hello JackTrippers!
We have some wonderful sparks beginning over on Virtual Studio. Please use this thread to tell your JackTrip story - good, bad, ugly, beautiful, whatever! People want to know! Thanks!
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When, some months ago, I got optical fiber internet, I made an AI search to see if there was anything better than the poor initial experience with remote music making during COVID. JackTrip was among the results. I had never heard or read anything about it before.
Once installed on my Windows PC it worked, immediately! Unlike anything I had seen before. Bingo, I thought, if it works for me it should work for anybody else and it should be possible to connect with musicians nearby as well as farther away. But no! Hardly anybody believes this could work. When I finally found someone who wanted at least try, more often than not he or she would not succeed.
After a while, I managed to find people for who it works and who are interested. I had sessions with musicians from the north of England together with musicians from the south of France, from eastern Germany and from Switzerland playing together in real-time and recording a video. I thought this should be convincing but one had to believe me that this had been recorded in real-time rather than different videos pieced together.
To make it still more convincing I made a live-stream inviting all my contacts and beyond to interact with the musicians with questions and comments and the musicians would respond during the session between individual tunes.
There are some signs recognizing that for people for who meeting physically is not possible, playing together remotely might be a viable option. This is the case for online communities participating in online teaching/learning or for people attending international music workshops whishing to extend the experience beyond the in person event. People who have moved a lot and who have connections in different places are another example.
My conclusion is that the great majority of musicians I know does not want to use JackTrip or any other platform. Those who can use it and are interested, need to be found, which for me is an ongoing process to which I am fully committed because, for me, it is the only practical way of ensemble play.
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Thank you Thomas @wollethom for your thoughtful reflections, and for your continued participation and enthusiasm.
In addition to your insights regarding technical challenges, I feel like people are just not sure how JackTrip fits into their way of life. Like you mentioned, everyone questions its viability and they do not understand how it could possibly work. Granted, people are creatures of habit and as we know, JackTrip breaks those boundaries.
Hopefully, more people will allow JackTrip into their comfort zone and figure out how making music remotely is a huge benefit to them and others.
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