[ absolutely no doubt in my mind that these instructions are somehow incomplete, or misleading in certain circumstances, or I missed something.  Corrections and questions in the comments will be answered as promptly as I can manage]

For the last several days, in the company of exceptionally generous humans Charles Shriner and Karl Fury, I’ve been experimenting with JamKazam (JK), and with methods of streaming audio from a JamKazam session out via an Internet radio station (in our case, electro-music.com).  It has been a rough ride, partly because JK has been up and down, and partly because what it does is….obscure.  

We had one problem that needed particular attention.  Each of us had noticed, at various times, that different players were getting VERY different levels from the session, both in terms of JK’s metering and in terms of subjective listening experience.   It was so bad, in fact, that sessions were breaking down completely because one or the other of us couldn’t be sure what he was playing. 

The procedures that follow will solve that problem, and help get you a productive session or online concert.  Or rather, I should say that they MAY do that — I still don’t trust JK to operate consistently with different host computers, across both OS/X and Windows, or with different audio interfaces. So, your mileage may vary, but maybe this will help you troubleshoot the problem(s).  Here goes.

First, know thy interface

These days, audio interfaces incorporate mixers, both of the hardware and software variety.  I have yet to see a software mixer whose interface I could understand without reading the manual.  I also have yet to see a piece of interface hardware that physically labels its external inputs and outputs in ways that also show up in the software with identical labels.  And no host computer EVER does anything but number all the inputs and outputs sequentially according to some scheme of its own devising.

It may seem tedious to sit down and make a map of which label on which input and output corresponds to which label in the internal software mixer, and which label in your host computer’s audio setup, but sooner or later you will really, really, REALLY be glad you did — it will end up saving time.  Focusrite tends to be pretty good about supplying a map of physical inputs to software names and channel numbers at the back of their documentation pamphlets (which, by the way, you can find online, as you can for any other manufacturer). MOTU, well, MOTU is frickin’ hopeless. I did eventually figure it out, through close reading of the manual.   So make the damn map.

In a concession to you impatient types, I’ll say that there are really only three IMPORTANT things to be absolutely sure of.   One is which pair of internal mixer channels corresponds to the physical inputs for the stereo pair that you’re feeding into your interface from your rig.  The second is which internal mixer channel corresponds to the physical input for a microphone that you’re going to use for chat with your bandmate(s).  And yeah, it probably should be an external microphone, though you can play around with mics on webcams and whatnot if you want.   The third thing — and this is essential — is to know which pair of channels your interface mixer software uses to receive stereo audio from the host computer.   Write all that down.

You might want to confirm all this by running actual signal through the interface before going further.  Make sure you’re getting steady audio from your rig and that tapping the mic and saying, “Is this thing on?” really works.  You have to use exactly those words — “Is this thing on?” — or the magic will fail and you will, like Sisyphus, push the rock of JK all the way up the hill only to have it roll back, again and again, throughout eternity.  

But I digress.

Run through JK’s interface setup

I’ll boldly say that if you’ve already  set up your interface for JK, you probably want to delete that configuration, but maybe I’m being too harsh.  Read through this and see what you think. If it doesn’t correspond to what you did, delete your existing config and start over.   Any attempt I’ve ever made to edit a JK interface config after the fact has ended in confusion and chaos. You have been warned.

In general, what you’re about to do is set up two “instruments” as inputs — one will correspond to the stereo feed from your rig, and the other will correspond to a mono feed from the mic you’ll be using to talk to your bandmates.   

Notice that I don’t refer to that microphone as a “chat mic”, because that is a term that JK uses for something that — if you pull its tail, or even attempt to set it up — is really going to screw you over.   Just sayin’. We’ll get there in a minute.

The first thing JK’s interface setup will ask you for is a set of inputs that you choose from a list it provides you (by looking at your interface).  You want to choose only the two that correspond to the stereo pair you’re getting from your rig. Uncheck all the others. It will ask for a label for that input pair — call it what you want.  I like “Accordion”.

Then you’ll have the opportunity to add another input channel.  Pick the input that corresponds to your mic, and label it “Vocal”.

Finally, you select two output channels to send out of the interface.  It’ll probably suggest good defaults, but do check. Hit NEXT.

The next thing it will ask you is whether you want to use a “chat mic” or use a music microphone for chat purposes.  TELL IT THAT YOU’RE USING A MUSIC MIC. Do NOT select the chat-mic option. Do NOT pick a channel from the list that is there.  Just tell it that you’re using a music mic and leave everything else the hell alone. You need to trust me on this.

Hit NEXT and you’ll be done.

Go back to the interface’s mixer for a hot second

Feed some steady signal through from your rig.  If you’re seeing it in two places in the interface’s internal mixer, it’s probably because you’re getting the same signal from the physical inputs from the rig and returning from JK via the channel that the mixer software receives from the interface.  Mute the signal from the physical interface — if you don’t, you’ll get extra level, and probably a slapback delay (if there’s any latency in the mixer). The JK literature refers to this as turning off direct monitoring; some interfaces actually have a hardware switch for this, but mine doesn’t. 

While you’re there, see whether tapping your mic does what it should.  Say another, “Is this thing on?” to appease the gods. It’s kind of like a novena, for software mixers.

Try a solo session

Go to JK’s session window (from JK’s home screen, hit the session pane at the upper left). Under “Start a session”, hit “Quick start solo”.  

If you did as suggested above, you’ll see a window with a row of tabs/pushbuttons across the top, and three main columns below.  Under “My Live Tracks”, you should see two very similar looking rectangles, each with your name and one of the track names you assigned when you were setting up the interface (mine say “computer” and “voice”).   Each rectangle has a set of icons — from left to right, you’ll see a person (either your picture, or an icon with headphones), an icon representing the track type (for example, a microphone for vocals), EITHER a blank space OR a little speaker,  a cartoon knob, and a colored dot that’s showing red, yellow, or hopefully green. Above the last three icons, there’s a horizontal level meter. 

Play something on your rig.  You should see signal on the meter. Tap the mic you’re going to use for chat.  Same deal. If all that is fine, you can adjust the signal from your rig so that average signal  (middle of the dynamic range you’re playing) is lighting up two green bars, and extreme signal is NOT going into the red.   You’re MUCH better off adjusting this level at your rig’s mixer, or whatever the last thing in your signal chain is before you get to the interface.  Messing with it at the interface inputs (say, with the hardware gains on physical inputs) is not a terrific idea. The goal, of course, is good gain staging, but you’re going to be flying blind, and JK is NOT going to let you do anything in the software mixer or computer audio routing system that will make any difference.  It just ignores it.

Now, you say, how do I mute my microphone when I don’t want anyone to hear me yelling at the cat for sleeping on my keyboard?  Good question. If by chance the rectangle representing your microphone track has the little speaker icon I mentioned earlier, the answer is obvious.  If it doesn’t, just click in the blank space to the left of the pan pot icon, directly under the left end of the horizontal meter. Presto! A slider appears, and it has a muting checkbox at the bottom. That, kids, is how it’s done.

Other fun facts to know and tell

If you end up having to troubleshoot this in OS/X, be aware that NOTHING that you do with audio routing, aggregate devices, multi-output devices, magic beans, or gourd rattles is going to make one damn bit of difference.  JK gonna JK, and it’s gonna JK all over your audio routing no matter how you set it up. Guessing the same is true in Windows.

One thing I WAS able to do is set up an Audio Hijack session that grabs JK’s output (‘take audio from application’) and runs it through a set of meters and recorders to a streaming internet station.   Very easy to do if you have your streaming-fu together. 

Adding video is a subject for another day, once I get it figured out.

WASH YOUR HANDS.