How about recording a cross-continental AAD in less than 30 minutes, without breaking any of the AAD rules?
Or maybe you're looking for another source of inspiration.
If you've got a relatively fast internet connection (i.e. not your old 56kbps modem), and preferrably ASIO support from your sound card (many Creative cards have this), Ninjam can make it happen.
You might remember Ninjam from Brad's blog; even though it's very new, it's been very stable, and very free (GPL'd even).
It works something like this:
1) Download the Ninjam client for Windows or MacOS X
2) Install and run it!
3) In the client, choose a username (any will do), and connect anonymously to a ninjam host, for example test.ninjam.com:2049
4) If all goes well, you're in a chatroom that also doubles as a mixer. This is where you might get confused, and would understand it better first-hand than by reading my notes here. There's usually someone around to help out.
Basically, someone has already chosen a speed (e.g. 120bpm) and an interval length (e.g. 16 beats per interval) to jam with. Anyone can listen to the metronome and play to that beat. Whatever chord progression or groove you choose, try to make sure it spans the full interval length (e.g. don't do a 16-beat chord progression in an 8-beat interval).
Recording/playback is done in "fake-time". What you are hearing is what everyone ELSE recorded 1 interval ago. Similarly, what you record in this interval will be heard by everyone else after you finish the interval.
Makes sense? Maybe not? Just try it and you'll understand.
But in any case, it's hella-fun. I've used it for only a week, and I've jammed with drummers, vocalists, crazy pseudo-vocalists, guitarists, keyboardists, bassists, synthists (?), percussionists (drums, congas, bongos). Even some songfighters! (I'll let them speak for themselves though). Rap, rock, folk, techno, laid-back trippiness, and schlock.
Here's an example of what you might hear when things go well (note: this mix is mono and imbalanced, but doesn't have to be). This is "Las_Vegas" on guitar and me on organ, jamming to a drum/bass loop. But there's no reason we couldn't have used real drums/bass.
In the event of bad or clobbering musicians, everyone has the option to individually mute, pan or adjust volume levels of all other musicians (for their ears only). So you can kill the +30dB growler pretty quickly.
With the example of an AAD, theoretically you could have someone participate in the jam solely as a mixer -- they could mix and record the jam while everyone else is playing.
Anyway, I hope this makes sense -- if not, give it a try
. They've got an introductory manual to explain how to use the software, how it works, and how to jam well.We know from the Songfight! Live events that many of us are improv naturals, so Ninjam seems like a natural extension of what we already do.
EDIT: You can listen to the live jams by pointing your MP3 player to the Shoutcast stream at: http://ninjam.com:8000/ or use this playlist.