Cheers Toby for the listen and feedback. I am trying to add some more modern songs to my repertoire , anything after 2000 is modern to me. Funny you noticed the chairs, i was going to search for something that looked right with the rest of the room but in the end I just dragged these 2 chairs from another room because they are comfy and now this is their place. Hope you are well mate.
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Yep, the principles would be the same. Iām sure if youāre competent on Linux youād be able to figure it out 
Haha, not sure you need that Eric, your sound was great this OM 
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Well said Brian !!
Iād say āyesā Dan. Also you can probably bypass Reaper and just setup Zoom to receive audio directly from the same source that Reaper does.
Is there a real, specific advantage that many folk set themselves up with tech obstacles and seek to incorporate Reaper into their chain?
Why not AI ā Zoom direct?
Is it just to add reverb to vocals?
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Just finished watching! What a show! 
Disappointed to have missed it live (ended up having a gig to go to that night with a couple of mates playing so had to make a tough call 
)ā¦ also would have loved to contribute as a performer from the southeast (or is it southwest? 
) of the globeā¦ next time I promise! 
Quick reactions from my viewing just nowā¦
Mal & Lara - loved Stuck in the Middle!! Listened the h*ll out of the Reservoir Dogs soundtrack back in my teens. Great movie (perhaps my all time favourite along with Pulp Fiction) and great soundtrack! Maybe my second favourite tune from a Tarantino movie after Urge Overkillās cover of Girl, Youāll be a Women Soon, or maybe that one from Kill Bill by the 5.6.7.8ās. Loved it! 
Brian - You never disappoint! So good! Loved the dynamics in bothā¦ and that you didnāt censor the lyrics Plus the Bill Bailey cover, channelling your inner Tom Waits, was brilliant! 
Craig - Super well done mate! What a great debut! Especially having to manage all the tech alongside playing and singing! Both songs were mint! 
That practice in Bali paid off for sure! 
Alexey - What can I say, but astonishing! 
I have said before that I could listen to your playing all night and I reiterate it now, just mesmerizingly stunning! Both were delicious in their complexity and beauty. I appreciate you had some small trips at times, but that just (barely) prevents me from giving up guitar immediately 
The speed on the second piece just blew me away!
David - Great rendition of Whatās Going On! I was wondering if the hat was a shout out to Linda Perry? You just needed some goggles on there and you wouldāve been the spitting image mate! 
I hope you donāt mind me mentioning the shaking hands, you mentioned it in the interlude between songs, that is my number one barrier to playing liveā¦ to see you navigate it so well gives me hope and I will try to reflect on that when being hesitant to put my name forward. Thank you for being the shining light of motivation to us all that you constantly are 
Plus Neil Young, just fab! Love your work buddy!
Ron - I have always loved your performances and this one was just as special! 
I appreciate there were some level concerns (reading through the above chat), but thatās live performance and putting those minor moments to one side, your playing, singing and overall production on these was outstanding mate! Whiter Shade of Pale was phenomenal! Please play more OMs! 
P.s. You and Mal arenāt long lost brothers are you?
Eric - Great to see you again mate! Guitar roomās looking amazing!! 
That gorgeous LP was sounding sweet! Loving the solos!! On fire buddy!! 
Dan - Always a treat to see you perform! Thoroughly enjoyable! Really painted pictures for me! Very cleverly constructed lyrics, catchy yet with just the right amount of darkness and sweetly played, sir! Top stuff!
Well done again to all the performers, big thanks to the organisers for making this happen and the live audience for making it a proper show! 
Just a thought around the low volume levels over Zoom, I wonder if folks could advise if they did or didnāt have the below highlighted settings enabled?
My thinking is thisā¦
The auto-adjust might help or hinder, it would raise the Zoom output if itās too quiet, but could also fluctuate as it receives varying levels to try and balance things (I have seen it misbehave on calls before, although that was typically due to a bug with a specific version), so perhaps could be best to disable that and just set a fixed position at a good level? Or if you had it disabled, then try enabling it to see if it adds a boost (even when in what appears to be the max position, I have felt the auto-gain goes beyond that if need be when enabled).
Iāve mentioned elsewhere that I suspect the echo cancellation setting does more than justā¦echo cancel I believe it also adds some auto gain to normalise levels. Therefore Iām wondering if those that may have been a bit quiet had that setting disabled? I would be interested to know if it was a factor.
I actually had a test run with Craig a couple of weeks prior and he sounded great to me and at a good level, I was at work and try to keep those headphones at a constant setting to help with troubleshooting such issues, however as it was a one-to-one call with no one to compare, I canāt say for sure now that I hadnāt bumped my level a bit
Our tech support rep at Zoom is a guitar player too, so he might have some inside wisdom on this, so I could perhaps reach out to him for advice if helpful
Backing tracks?
Although Iāve been playing around with my Tone Master Pro (which is now my AI instead of the Scarlett) and I can play those more easily direct through there from an external source, so wouldnāt need Reaper in my setup now thankfully
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Good points and thoughts Jeff, and interested to know more on your development work using Tone Master Pro.
Using a baseline premis, I lean towards @Richard_close2u, questioning a need for any complex audio chain. Personally, as a relative ānoobā, itās KISS for me.
That said, quite a few JGC members enjoy playing accompanied by backing tracks; from drum beats to full-on band performances, muting or dialling down their instrument part; which does require some form of AI.
I donāt have any recommendation to make other than ācaveat lectorā; albeit less of an issue in here.
For sure, everyone should check their Zoom settings ā¦ Regularly ! ā¦ Zoom have a habit of making changes, documented in the āsmall printā ā¦ ie. most of us have fallen foul of the āmusicansā toggle switch.
For the āadminsā ; perhaps Jeffās discussion points warrant a move to a more appropriate thread to broaden the audience.
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My initial thought was that Iād need to use something to combine the 2 inputs on my audio interface (Guitar + Mic) into 1 since Iām guessing Zoom is similar to Discord & Teams in that it only lets you pick one āmicrophoneā.
However, in Linux, I used a tool that gives you a graphical representation of your audio connections and lets you change them, so I could probably use that to direct both inputs into Zoom. In the Windows world this would probably be similar to using something like VB Audio cable.
I think introducing Reaper adds a few different possibilities to the mix, though:
- Adding VST plugins for various effects.
- Adding backing tracks or MIDI instrument tracks (e.g. drum loop)
- For the more adventurous, Iāve seen some ways to setup Reaper to do a sort of ālive loopingā which could then also incorporate something like a keyboard or MIDI controller.
That said, the songs Iām thinking of for my first OM are probably going to be on my acoustic, so I think I could easily just go simple and use my Blue Snowball USB mic for both vocals and guitar.
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It lets you pick one input ā¦ an interface is an input for this purpose.
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Mic (via PlayAcoustic) and Gtr (via PODGO) into AI
AI declared as Zoom input/mic
Simples
That has been my approach recently and I can use up to 12 inputs on my AI if needed.
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Ahhā¦ This might be a difference with how it presents in Linux, or it could be a difference in the type of AI, but I just took a look for my Volt 2. The input selection has individual options for Volt Mono Input 1 and Volt Mono Input 2 and nothing with 1 + 2 combined by default.
The last couple of OMs I have gone direct into Zoom from my AI with guitar in one channel and vocal in the other. So the two channels are combined into one source by Zoom.
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Over and above on the review and feedback, Jeff. Much appreciated.
Now I am not sure how to take being the spitting image of Linda Had no idea of her hat preferences. Just felt like a change from my usual, just for the fun of it.
As for the tension, when I first started playing OMs, both the virtual Community and the live in-person events, I would shake terribe, struggle to breathe, mouth went dry dry dry. No argument it was super scary and stressful.
But over time that eased, the more I did it the more comfortable I became. Then I had the long break and am back experiencing that tension. But I know if I keep at it it will pass.
So the only way through this is to participate as much as you can. And honestly, given your playgrade, you donāt have any worries in that regard.
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Thanks Jeff, appreciate it. Iām never happy when I hear myself back, just one of those things but I was happy that I didnāt seem to look as nervous as I felt
Good point, pretty much my settings were as follows:
Might have to try some experiments with those settings
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It is worth hovering your cursor over those question marks for a brief descriptino of each function.
Most people do not need them selected.
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Actually, apologies Richard, but I disagreed, I think most people should have High Fidelity Music Mode and Echo Cancellation enabled
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Jeff, can you share a little bit more of the technical details. Iād like to understand this better as my uneducated view was to leave off. Iāve also not tested the two options to make a comparison.
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Definitely worth following up David. From the early days, my understanding was that EC would impact non voice signals and strangle the guitar. Not sure who suggested that, as the discussions were at the old place, long gone.
Hi David,
Yeah of course At least Iāll try! 
My understanding was that Original Sound was first introduced by Zoom to help ācorporateā users (like us at my university) who have more complex AV setups that send an already processed audio signal to Zoom so didnāt want Zoom to then also process that signal, which may reduce the quality. Thankfully this option also helps us musicians as well. They then went further to help us by adding High Fidelity Music mode a few years back which aims to optimise the quality of music/instruments (rather than voice) being sent over Zoom. The trade off is that it uses more CPU processing and data, but unless you have slow PC &/or a poor quality connection, you shouldnāt experience too many issues with that.
I covered the echo cancellation subject in more detail in another thread here, but to summarise, if you arenāt wearing headphones, then you should have it enabled or at least toggle it on and off (or constantly mute & unmute), otherwise youāll cause echo for others when they speak and you still have your mic open. If you are wearing headphones, then it could still be worthwhile as I suspect it does add some adjustments to help normalise your audio with others which may help out those that are too quiet. But if youāre concerned that it colours your sound (although thatās not something Iāve noticed from my testing), then have it off, but wear headphones.
Nothing is set in concrete though, as each personās setup is likely different, so your best idea is to test with (ideally) two others in a meeting, so levels can balanced evenly between all three parties, instead of a 1-1 test, which can be misleading at times (unless someone has a known good level theyāre working too).