A recently released YouTube video aims to show the potential of an upcoming gadget called Aloha to create better online jam sessions. The device enables online video and audio collaborations between musicians by managing and reducing audio latency.
Musical Collaboration Everywhere | Museai | TEDxOslo
Last week, the company released music from artists Little, Sharooz Raoofi and Tom Varrall, who experimented with Aloha while in various locations around London. Aloha joins a growing number of products that allow musicians and amateurs to collaborate online. It’s a niche market that’s growing as musicians are forced to stay home due to the pandemic.
“Aloha is not going to replace being in a room with someone,” Simon Little, one of the musicians who produced the remotely recorded session, said in a phone interview. “But it opens up a new kind of collaboration when two people just can’t travel to be together.”
Aloha claims to reduce audio delay between computers over the internet. The problem with collaborating via typical video services for musicians is that there’s “too much delay” between when a sound is produced by one participant and heard by the other, Elk Audio CEO Michele Benincaso said in a video interview. The delay isn’t particularly noticeable on calls, such as Zoom, but it makes musical collaboration difficult.
