JamKazam News

Hi JamKazammers –

Read on for the latest software updates, blog posts, upcoming hosted online sessions, recordings/broadcasts, JamTracks catalog updates, and more.

 

Office Hours
We continue to offer two weekly office hours sessions for anyone who needs help.

  • JamKazam Session Office Hours (Every Tuesday 7-8pm US Central Time)
    If you have our app installed and your gear set up, you can join this JamKazam session as a safe space with a JamKazam support team member to experience and learn how to play in online sessions, or to ask questions about particular features or issues you’re having. To find this session, start the JamKazam app, click the Find Session tile, then click the Open Jams tile, and look for the session called “JamKazam Office Hours”, and click the Join icon on this session.
  • Zoom Office Hours (Every Wednesday 11am-12pm US Central Time)
    If you haven’t set up your gear yet and need help getting started, you can join this Zoom meeting room to ask a JamKazam support team member any questions you have. Don’t be shy, we’re here to help! To join the Zoom, click this link on any Wednesday at the time above.

 

New Features & Fixes

  • New Video Recording Feature – Big news! We have completed work to integrate JamKazam with OBS Studio, a terrific free software program for recording and broadcasting video and audio streams. Our first feature release based on this integration lets you make high-quality video recordings of your performances in JamKazam sessions. Learn how to use this new feature in our help article Making Video Recordings. Try it out, and send us a recording from one of your sessions at support@jamkazam.com. We’d love to share it with the community in our biweekly email. You can be a star!  🙂
  • Improved Volume/Level Controls – We conducted a deep dive review of our slider controls for setting your audio input levels, adjusting your personal mix, and setting your overall session volumes. We’ve made a number of improvements and fixed some annoying bugs, so you can enjoy your sessions with more reliable and performant controls.
  • Improved Backing Track & JamTrack Streaming – We have released an update to the audio mixer, improving the audio quality of backing tracks and JamTracks streamed to remote musicians from the user who opens the audio file locally, for more enjoyable multi-player sessions. Check out these improvements in your own sessions, and let us know what you think!

 

Latest From The Blog
Check out our latest blog posts:

  • Finding Other Musicians With Low Latency Connections – Read Part 6 of 10 in our series of articles on latency, in which we discuss how to find other musicians with whom you can play in enjoyable, low-latency sessions, which can be a lot more difficult than it sounds.

 

Free JamTracks + Video Mashup Fun
We’re going to try something new and fun! Send us an email at support@jamkazam.com asking for the JamTrack for the song “The Weight” by The Band. We’ll give this JamTrack free to the first 25 JamKazammers who request it. In exchange, we ask that you to learn the song, record yourself playing or singing along with the song using our new video recording feature, and get us a copy of the video (via email, Dropbox, whatever works) sometime in the 2 weeks after you get the JamTrack. We’ll edit up some fun mashup videos and share them back here with the community and through our social media channels. And we’ll announce awards for the best performances.

 

Upcoming Events
We have the following hosted session events planned for the next couple weeks. Click a link below for more information. If you want a session for a particular artist or genre you don’t see listed, drop us a note at support@jamkazam.com. (Note that a number of our session hosts are taking breaks during the summer, so we have fewer hosted events than normal right now.)

If you can’t access the event links below on Facebook, here’s how to find and join these sessions. Open the JamKazam app at the start date/time of the session you want to join. Click on Find Session on the app home page, then click on Open Jams.  You’ll see a list of currently active public/open sessions, and you should see the name of the event listed among our sessions – e.g. “Blues Session” or whichever one you’re interested in. Click the Join icon next to that session.

US Hosted Sessions

EU Hosted Sessions

 

If you’d like to host a session for a specific genre or artist or playlist, please email us at support@jamkazam.com, and we’ll work with you on it!

 

Session Recordings & Live Broadcasts
Following are some recording excerpts from hosted and private sessions, as well as JamKazam recordings and live broadcasts made by members of the community. Come to a session to join the fun!

House Of The Rising Sun, performed on violin & viola by Dynamic Duo. Use Somebody by Kings of Leon, performed by Live Jam Crew.

If you’d like to send us a recording or live broadcast of a JamKazam performance that we can share with the community, please send us an email at support@jamkazam.com with a link to your recording/broadcast.

 

JamTracks Catalog
We have added new songs to our JamTracks catalog. Learn about our JamTracks to see how you can play along with your favorite artists and songs. Below is a list of artists with total songs available per artist, and how many of these are new to the catalog. Click an artist link to preview the JamTracks available for that artist

 

Kudos
Thank you for the ability to do what this can do. It’s a great program. You’re great people.
– Tom M.

If you have kudos or a story to share, please send us an email at support@jamkazam.com. And as always, thanks for being part of the JamKazam community.

Best Regards,
Team JamKazam