Since personal computers with sound cards first gained access to the Internet, there have always been a few tech-savvy folks who tried to create music with others using them to connect online. However, when the COVID-19 pandemic began in early 2020, and the world quickly learned that these viruses make it hazardous to everyone’s health to gather in groups, especially for the older participants, and the risk of infection is highest indoors in places like bars, restaurants and concert halls. Stuck at home, many more less technically oriented performers of live music began using online meetings for live music performances, and the numbers of musicians participating in online musical meetings exploded world-wide. The ‘lockdowns’ are gone, but his new online method for live music performance with participants from throughout the world, has persisted, and probably will continue for many years into the future.

As a result, in person music performances have become a bit less common, and live performers are regularly finding their audiences online, on platforms like Facebook and YouTube Live. The overwhelming leader in this new online field is the online meeting giant Zoom. The Zoom platform is especially attractive for older folks, who are most vulnerable to these new viruses. Perhaps even more attractive is the fact that performing live online eliminates the time and effort of traveling to an in person venue.

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The folks at Zoom have provided a webpage of their own with instructions This webpage is always up-to-date, and their advice there is brief and to-the-point. instructions on how to optimize your device for performing music. Click Here to review Zoom’s music performance instructions!

Unfortunately Mobile Devices smartphones, tablets, Chromebooks are, at best, ‘just OK’ for performing online music. Why they are so limited is beyond the scope of this article. Similarly, the web browser version of a Zoom meeting is generally inadequate for performing music. To sound your best, you should use the ‘Original Sound’ and ‘High fidelity music mode’, features, and to do so, you must have downloaded and installed the Zoom Client or App onto your computer or device. In summary, to sound your best, you should use a computer, preferably connected to the Internet with an Ethernet cable to minimize data drop-outs.

Zoom is constantly evolving, and so you should also make certain we have the latest version of the Zoom client running on your devices. You can find the latest version of the Zoom client on the Zoom website here: Zoom Windows and MacOS updates

If you already have the Zoom client installed on your Windows or MacOS computer(s), begin by checking that you have the latest version. Just click the Zoom client desktop icon to start the Zoom client dashboard, then click your small profile picture in the upper right corner, then select ‘then click Check for Updates.’ You can check this only when you are NOT already logged into a Zoom meeting. Open your Zoom desktop client and click on your icon in the upper right hand corner, and in the drop down menu, select ‘Check for Updates’, then follow the prompts.

For mobile devices running Apple iOS and Android, you should check for the latest updates on the Apple or Google Store, and find the release notes on the Zoom website
Zoom iOS updates, or Zoom Android updates

Now that you have the latest Zoom Client, you will need to do some ‘Set-up’. The Golden Link Folk Singing Society is a club from the Rochester, NY area that hosts weekly Zoom meetings for singers, and they maintain several excellent webpages that will walk you through the setup process. Their written tutorials cover setting up Zoom on either Computers or Mobile Devices like smartphones and tablets, and we reccommend that you read them now. Make a note of them so you can refer back to them anytime you have any questions.

Here is the link: https://goldenlink.org/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=724073&module_id=398708

Break-Out Rooms: Many music festivals have more than one event happening at the same time. When we attended in person, (pre-COVID), moving from one performance are to another was simple – we walked between physically separate performance venues. Many virtual music festivals are on virtual, and offered on Zoom. In these festivals, the performances are in different ‘break-out rooms’, and so, instead of walking, we need to move our Zoom client from one ‘room’ to another to see the various performances.

Here are two useful videos from W.B. Reed which will show you how to do simple Zoom set-up as well as how to navigate Zoom breakout rooms.

Zoom with Breakout Rooms on Computers Video: https://youtu.be/xepLf3LV2G0
Zoom with Breakout Rooms on Phones & Tablets Video: https://youtu.be/bf41s5h7y00

On your Computer versions of Zoom, here is a an excellent video tutorial to walk you through the set-up process, from YouTube creator ‘Greg in the Box’:
Zoom Settings for Music Performance – Update 2021

If you are using a very new Apple mobile device running the latest version of Apple iOS, (15 or higher), you should begin by setting it’s default audio to ‘Wide-Spectrum’. Here is a link to the related instructions on Michael Eskin’s website

Setting up Zoom for music on mobile devices like phones and tablets is very different, as their screens are too small for the same menus as computers, but you can at least turn on the Original Sound function.

Here is a one-minute tutorial video, with no narration, showing how to set up an Apple iOS device for music: Zoom Settings for music on Apple iOS mobile devices. Here is a slightly longer tutorial video, with full narration (and an unnecessary 26 second introduction which we will skip) Using original sound in Zoom – phone and tablet apps

Remember, ‘Original Sound’ can’t be ‘enabled’ in the ‘Settings’ mode – you MUST do that while you are in a Zoom Meeting!

While in a Zoom meeting on a computer, you must turn your Original Sound ‘on’ by clicking on the ‘Original Sound for Musicians is …’ button in the upper right corner (formerly in the upper left) of your Zoom Meeting gallery view screen. (On mobile devices, this button is found under the ‘More’ menu. When you do, the title on the button (or menu item) will change to ‘On’.

If you are on a mobile device, you will find this item under the ‘More …’ icon, usually located in the upper right hand corner.

Unfortunately, Zoom always defaults to the Speech mode, and so you must do this ‘Original Sound On’ step every time you enter any Zoom meeting OR Breakout Room.

From now on, when your original sound is ‘On’, your sample rate will increase from 24 KHz to 48 KHz, and all noise suppression will be switched off.

There is a cost, however. This higher sample rate will use more of your Internet connection bandwidth, and so a wired Ethernet is even more important than before. This ‘High fidelity music mode’ turns off the low level expander, so you will need to be in a very quiet, ‘sound studio’ quality space, and as always, to avoid feedback, it is HIGHLY recommended that you wear headphones!

Beginning in 2022, Windows updates included audio device drivers signal processing is intended to reduce non-voice signals coming from our microphones, and made it the default audio setting. Of course, musicians instruments are also suppressed, but since the January 2024 update, Windows users can attempt to turn this ‘Off’. You can find this option in your Zoom ‘Audio Setup’. Go to the very bottom of the main Audio Setup dialog box and click the ‘Advanced’ button.  Then set the new ‘Zoom Signal processing by Windows audio device drivers’ option to ‘Off’. More info here.

Also beginning in 2022, Computer manufacturers began including audio device drivers with signal processing intended to reduce non-voice signals coming from our microphones, and made it the default audio setting. Here one anecdotal description:

Our new laptop is an Acer Aspire, and these come with yet another AI-based ‘noise’ cancellation app which only lets voices through. It’s called the Acer Purified Voice Console, and it’s turned on by default. In Zoom meetings, it allows everyone to hear our voices, but it totally eliminates our instruments sounds!

To ‘fix’ this you have to go into this app and turn it off twice, once for microphone and once for speakers. Then every time you enter a Zoom, this app activates a pop-up asking you if you want to turn it on again, and you have to say ‘No’ twice.

So now on our new Acer machine, we not only must turn original sound on, and also turn off Windows ‘noise’ cancellation, but also turn off ‘Purified Voice’ (twice) before the computer will let you hear anything other than the human voice.

Andrew McKay and Carole Etherton, South Wales, UK

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Website VDO.Ninja Allows Neighbors to make music together

With the more infectious Omicron and deadlier Delta variants of the novel coronavirus running amok, many regions, including California, Oregon and Washington are ramping up mask wearing requirements, and there may be more restrictions coming.

But don’t despair. As you may know, Tony is a very techy guy, and here at AmeriCeltic, we not only track all the in-person Celtic Events around the West Coast, but also the COVID-complient virtual events and the tools that make them accessible.

As a user of all the free, peer-to-peer communication software you’ve possibly heard of, (SonoBus, Jamulus, etc.) I’m aware that all these peer-to-peer systems can enable folks to sing or play together if they are nearby in Internet terms. Unfortunately, they also require users to have technical skills that are well beyond most of our instrumentalist and singers skill sets, AND, they mostly don’t include video of the other participants.

Thankfully, there is an exceptionally easy to use option as well, which goes by the catchy name VDO.Ninja.

A decade ago some far-sighted people established an Internet standard called ‘web real-time communication’ (webRTC). (You can check it out here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebRTC). The WebRTC standard is supported by all the browsers, and so it will work on ANY device, including computers, phones, tablets, and even chromebooks.

When the pandemic hit, multi-disciplined techy Steve Seguin (@xyster) began building a head end based on it:

‘My main reason for releasing the VDO.Ninja software was because I saw a need for it at the start of COVID more than anything, especially since webcams were all sold out and no one knew how to use their phone as a webcam. I had been doing live streaming software development and productions since 2015, and had built a prototype of the idea for myself some years previously, so, when COVID hit, it was just a matter of releasing a polished and user-friendly version. I’ve since just listened to the needs of the community and added refinements. Many VDO.Ninja users are indeed students, including professors, teachers, and yoga instructors.’ — Steve Seguin

Steve built VDO.Ninja to feed into Open Broadcast Software, (OBS), for fancy ‘control room’ enhancements, and then livestream the result, but OBS is an extra step and NOT NEEDED to use this tool.

19 months later, VDO.Ninja is a well-tested service, and easily accessed from home through Steve’s website https://vdo.ninja.

Simplicity Since https://vdo.ninja is an entirely web hosted stand-alone system, there is NO signing up, NO downloading and NO installing.

Enter the agreed Room name

Join a ‘Room’ with Friends The simple way to use VDO.Ninja is to join a ‘Room’. A ‘leader’ will create a Room, and then share the ‘Room Name’ with other participants. Other participants just point their browser to https://vdo.ninja, and type in that ‘room name’ (See illustration on left.) Next, if there is no password, click ‘cancel’, choose your audio and video (most folks only have one choice), wait a moment while your system is set up, and when it turns green, press the ‘Start’ button, to be transported into that ‘room’ with your friends.

Once you are there, you will find that the ‘room’ looks, feels and operates very much like a Zoom meeting, but with peer-to-peer connecting the participants computers directly (no servers involved), the ‘delay’ between your colleagues audio signals will be very much less, and like Zoom, you will NOT be exposed to COVID infection from colleagues or random members of the public!

Now, of course, if you live hundreds of miles apart, or if your Internet connection is not very good, those limitations will cause their own delays and you may not be able to stay together, but if you are all living in the same city, this free service might make real-time music possible for you!

Really. It is so very simple to use that even technophobes have been able to jump in on short notice and sing with me (sans OBS streaming). Try it, and I think you will like it.

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If you are a musician looking to learn some new material, there plenty of such resources available online, including collections of both songs and instrumental tunes. Some are downloadable, so you can print a physical copy!

My good friend (and yours!) Michael Eskin, who is both a very skilled multi-instrumentalist and a skillful software coder, has recently spent a good deal of time expanding his set of musical tools which he calls ‘ABC Transcription Tools‘. As part if this project, Michael has reworked a number of the existing collections of Celtic tunes, and posted more than a dozen of these enhanced collections on his website for fellow Celtic tune players to use! I highly reccommend that you take advantage of these by clicking on the link below:

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The AmeriCeltic YouTube Channel

If you are looking for existing performances, check out our online Calendar, https://www.americeltic.net/events, but sometimes we want to hire someone to perform at a party and are looking for samples of their work or maybe just checking out a particular artist’s style. For these times, AmeriCeltic maintains the AmeriCeltic YouTube Channel. On the AmeriCeltic YouTube Channel you will find hundreds of videos organized into playlists for dozens of West Coast Celtic artists and Bands and a description and contact point for each.

These bands and individuals are actively performing LIVE at our regional venues and festivals, and almost all are available for special events. CHECK IT OUT! The AmeriCeltic YouTube Channel.