Basically, the title. After years of inactivty, I’ll be taking music (cello) lessons again, with my teacher of yesteryear, from whom I’ve moved half a country away.

She has suggested Zoom but is open to alternatives. I don’t particularly like Zoom, plus I have a feeling better quality can be had through a custom solution - but I’m at a bit of a loss as to what exactly would be a good fit for this project.

Maybe Jitsi? Does someone here have experience with it and could tell me if it’s possible to set something like a “target” audio quality?

For hardware, I basically have two options. Both are already in use, for different things, and have sufficient processing capabilities - albeit no GPU:

  • host everything at home. Plus: lowest possible latency from me to the server. Not sure how much that is worth though.
  • root server in the Hetzner cloud: much faster network speed. Again though, not sure how beneficial that is, the ultimate bottleneck will always be my upload speed (40Mbit)

OK, I realize that this post is a but of a random assortment of thoughts. I’d be really happy about suggestions and / or hearing about other’s experiences with similar use-cases!

  • eksbEnglish
    2·
    3 months ago

    You could use multiple USB microphones and do the mixing in software. I prefer using an audio interface (e.g. UMC204HD) because it is simpler to set up and adjust levels, and because it lets you use any widely available microphone, or plug in an instrument (e.g.: electric guitar, electric piano). You can plug your headphones into the audio interface and adjust the relative level of your own sound and what is coming from the computer (e.g.: your teacher). sweetwater.com has the UMC204HD and the UMC404HD on sale right now.

    I do not have any experience with pick-up mics.