Compared to Rocket Network?

[peeder]

Hi I was a developer for a few months on the Rocket Network project...a huge Paul Allen-funded version of Ninjam, effectively, back in 1999-2001 odd. It got purchased by Avid and now I think it's called DigiDelivery.

It was (and is!) a very cool idea, and I'm glad to see someone else trying to make it happen. It got integrated into both Cubase and Logic before Avid grabbed it. It never seemed to take off, but they had versions of it (dubbed "Res Rocket Surfer") going back into the mid-90's. A guy from Londonbeat (seriously!) ran the show.

Anyway I'm wondering how Ninjam compares to that if anyone has a long enough memory.

As I like to say, never let not being first get in the way of doing good things!!!

[synthany]

hey yeah - I've been interested in online music collaboration since about 1999, and was just thinking about Rocket Networks the other day.

- I'm pretty sure that Rocket was post and play - not live.

[peeder]

That's right...before I got there they had already given up on the idea of "realtime" or even "faketime" jamming and the thing basically facilitated doing overdubs...it had a chat window that floated above the DAW and gave you controls (I programmed that part back on Mac OS 9) and you would lay down a track and it would magically appear in the other peoples' DAWs and they would lay one down and back it would come to you. It was DAW-neutral...people in the same session could use different DAWs, although they all had to support the toolkit.

I'm reading Justin's responses over on Gearslutz and I get the idea...Ninjam's for authentic jamming, where you just play the same rhythm and riff over it and maybe it goes through some odd psychedelic-era transitions and the whole group gets resynchronized. But everyone's listening and responding to what everyone else did a few seconds ago...

I guess this would create its own form of art and it's certainly interesting. I imagine listening to 1969-1970 Miles Davis would help get you in the mood for it. Although I wouldn't be surprised if most Ninjam users skip that and go straight for the bong! =) =) =)

[AndyMc]

yeah rocket was play local then postand it was way too buggy, laggy and way before its time, as in the net bandwidth back then was too low for most.. It was worse than open source imo.

But NINJAM has some other things that are great for any musician in the way of it makes u a better musician listening and playing with others.

Its like having loads of great players come around and teach you how to play like them. :P

They got rocket in loads of software and it was good even though buggy, but the bandwidth back then just couldn't handle it.
Shame though.

But then doesn't Reaper + Ninjam do session mode now?
Also a lot of the more popular songs don't have many key changes in them, apart from the bridge and chorus which yeah it would be nice to do.
So many songs can be done, people just get writers block when its not there style or they'd played themselfs out.

But back to what you said peeer,
NINJAM is nothing like Res Rocker midi client or like Rocket Control. I think there is a midi client like res rocket, ejammer I think its called, but thats more like ninjam than res rocket or rocket control.
NINJAM is unique as it did what rocket couldn't, live streamed audio. We may get it 8 beats later but its live when it leaves and only 8 beats old when it arrives.

So I suppose NINJAM being first in what it does doesn't get in its way, it just leads the way. ;)

Anyway thats my view on it, i'll quietly move over to that wall now to be stoned.

[drew]

Damn I loved Rocket network. :( Tim seemed a bit down after that, or was that a mistaken impression?

Anyway.. NINJAM is different enough to feel like something that isn't just copying Digital Musician or Rocket (which is always good!) - it just needs to get out of that seperate window and onto the REAPER timeline now IMO.. although maybe then people would suggest it is copying!

My number one request right now is for a way to see where remote material has arrived (green).. or is being recorded but has yet to arrive (red) so you have a better idea what's going on at the other end.

I imagine this could actually take the form of a thin line similar to Premiere/Final Cut Pro "unrendered" lines just above the ruler, or as a solid block in a track space.

At the moment it's a surprise when you move the playback position around and hear new audio.. a nice surprise if you're just having some fun, but obviously not the best when collabing on a track to a tight deadline!

Rocket rocked.. but yes it was ahead of it's time especially in bandwidth terms!

I'd say you should be proud to have been a part of it peeder! Were you a coder?

[LeftyF]

Heya Peeder. I lived on ResRocket / Rocket Network from beta 1 through death's door. Were you at the San Fransisco office? I was out there in (I think) 1998 for work and spent an afternoon hanging out with Willy and Girlie. Those were fun times :-)

This is definitely a different animal from Rocket, but I think session mode may start to get closer to what was great about Rocket which to me was being able to do production quality session work globally. For all it's faults it was amazing to be able to do full on global music production remotely. NINJAM is great for immediate gratification, but I'm interested in seeing if the REAPER functionality expands to more offline collaboration on completed arrangements for final production work. If it can do this, use lossless compression and export to somthing like OMF that Pro Tools can eat, then this could get really interesting...

Take care and good luck!