[Christine Fletcher]

IS there a practical limit to how many musicians can play at once? I play with 4 cellists quite successfully but last night we tried 7 and it was rough. Too many variables?

[Christine Fletcher]

Looking for Advice for troubleshooting static when multiple musicians are present at once.

[David Liao]

Dear Christine,

Thank you for your questions. With fast internet connections, FarPlay is great in practice for sessions of up to around 8 participants (we know of a group in which 10+ musicians sometimes connect). FarPlay minimizes latency by sending audio and video directly between each pair of participants (this is called peer-to-peer connectivity), so the bandwidth each musician uses increases as more people join the session.

To troubleshoot static/distortion for your ensemble, please try the following.

• Do 1:1 test calls with your ensemble members. If you typically have good connections but encounter distorted audio from someone in a 1:1 call, ask them to go to our Troubleshooting Guide, click the “Change computer” and “Change audio” buttons as needed, and browse the suggestions under “Audio is distorted or stops working”. (Sometimes static is unrelated to session size, and troubleshooting one person at a time is easier than troubleshooting “Too many variables”, like you suggested, in a large group).
• If audio is clear in 1:1 calls, but crackly/distorted in a large group session, ask each musician to look in the You (…) subpanel. If the Channels pull-down menu says Stereo, change from Stereo to Mono Mix. (Sending Mono uses half as much bandwidth as sending Stereo, which can really help when a home internet connection has low upload speed).
• If you’re using video and you’d like to improve audio quality further, click on Video Preferences (in the Video menu on Macs or in the Options menu in Windows). Lower Your max outgoing bandwidth to 75 kbps and Your max resolution (width in pixels to 320. Press OK. If audio is still distorted, try having everyone turn video off completely.
• If audio quality still isn’t clear for a group of 7 participants, check that everyone is using a fiber or cable (rather than 5G cellular) internet connection with at least 50 Mbit/s of upload speed, as we recommend. If 50 Mbit/s of upload speed isn’t available, upgrading even just to 35 Mbit/s would help.

Thank you,
David Liao

• This reply was modified 5 days, 17 hours ago by David Liao.
• This reply was modified 5 days, 17 hours ago by David Liao.
• This reply was modified 5 days, 17 hours ago by David Liao.
• This reply was modified 5 days, 17 hours ago by David Liao.