Collaborative environment for syncronizing audio from remote devices

Abstract

Apparatus and software systems are disclosed that allow real-time interactive playing of musicians each at remote sites from each other. The remote sites are interconnected over a local communications network or a wide area network like the Internet. The apparatus is connected to music synthesizers that accept streams of MIDI data for playing, or generate streams of MIDI data by playing. The streams of MIDI data are bundled by a MIDI management system into transfer control protocol packets, such that the packets of MIDI data may be transferred over the communications network as or within the transfer control packets. In addition, the networked, remote computer systems are synchronized to a standard clock which is appended to the MIDI data packets, and additionally, the network delay is calculated and also appended to the MIDI data packets. In this manner the local musician can receive the MIDI data packets from the remote sites where musicians are playing and in real-time play with them. The present invention allows other data bases of music to be interrogated and the music therein retrieved for local use, storing and/or editing. The invention allows the received MIDI data from remote sites to be precisely time positioned within the local memory as if on separate tracks like a multi-track tape recorder for later or real-time playing and/or editing.