A very big happy birthday to the FarPlay user community and app! We released our first public beta four years ago this month. Many thanks to everyone who has supported FarPlay in our continuing journey.
Thanks also to all of you who’ve been testing FarPlay Meet, our platform that lets you connect with the wider FarPlay community, free to all subscribers. Meet remains in invitation-only testing. Interested in being among the first to experience Meet? Sign up now for early access to the beta.
What can you record remotely? An album!
Congratulations to Distansorkestern for this month’s release of their album Variations on a Star. Thanks to FarPlay, band members Johan Eriksson Rapp and Anders Teglund recorded all 20 of the album’s variations on “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” 250 miles (400 km) apart in Sweden. In addition to the technical achievement, their music is lovely.
We’ve worked hard to make FarPlay easy to use, so it can be easy to forget the powerful features it offers under the hood, like multi-track studio-quality recording, available with a Standard+ subscription.
FarPlay at 4 with Eden
Calling all singers and players! The incomparable Eden Casteel is launching FarPlay at 4, her new weekly online open mic series. Wednesdays 4:00pm–5:00pm New York time, you’re invited to drop by, plug in, and make music together in real time. The first session is November 26, and you can join for free via FarPlay Meet.
If you’ve ever wanted to sing with a truly fun and wildly talented accompanist, this is your moment. Eden is a reliably hilarious piano bar and open mic entertainer based in Rhode Island — but thanks to FarPlay that doesn’t matter! She writes and music-directs solo musicals (including her acclaimed cabaret Kahn Artist: Madeline And Me about her lifetime love of the Oscar-nominated actress), coaches singers, plays dueling-pianos shows, and brings infectious joy to every session she hosts. Learn more about her at edencasteel.com.
Ready to make music with Eden? Simply join the FarPlay Meet beta — free with your subscription — and look for Eden’s sessions under Open Sessions, where Meet users like you can browse and add sessions. Everyone’s welcome! If you love to plan ahead, you can even send Eden your music in advance at eden@edencasteel.com.
In related news, acclaimed jazz pianist Ben Lewis’ jazz jam sessions continue on a weekly basis with an evolving crew of participants. If you’d like to join, head to FarPlay Meet and look under Open Sessions.
Keep students waiting, if you like
When musicians join your Persistent Room before you start a session, they go to your Waiting Room. You can now have musicians in your Waiting Room stay there when you start your Persistent Room session, rather than being brought in the moment you join — perfect for teachers who want to check their audio and video before a lesson.
To turn this feature on, go to Account Preferences, scroll down to Persistent Rooms, check the Locked by default box for the desired room, and press Save Changes. Learn more about the Waiting Room in our account-management instructions.
Fix balance in mix recordings
Do some people sound loud and others soft in your mix recordings even though everyone sounds well-balanced in your headphones during sessions? Click Preferences, Recording, and then “Apply monitor volume gains when recording a mix“, as attendees of our monthly support session last month learned. See our blog post to learn more.
Interested in joining our monthly support session Saturday, November 22nd 2:00pm-3:30pm New York time (8:00pm-9:30pm Central European time)? Sign ups are still open! Our following session will be Saturday, December 20th 2:00pm-3:30pm New York time (8:00pm-9:30pm Central European time). Monthly tech-support sessions are available free to paid subscribers and students of FarPlay For Teachers subscribers. Sign up for monthly support sessions here.
Get in touch
We love featuring our amazing users. If you’d like to be included — whether you use FarPlay for lessons, rehearsals, jam sessions, or conversations — we’d love to talk to you. You can let us know by emailing us at contact@farplay.io.
Need help right away? Check out our FAQ & Troubleshooting Guide, which you can open from the Help menu in the latest version of FarPlay. If you haven’t already, upgrade free to the latest version.
If you’d like to ask tech-support questions, our forum is the fastest way to reach us. If you need to reach us privately, email us at support@farplay.io — we’re happy to help!
—David Liao & the FarPlay team