Author: David Liao

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

Do some people sound loud and others soft in your mix recordings even though everyone sounds well-balanced in your headphones during sessions? Check the checkbox for “Apply monitor volume gains when recording a mix”, as attendees of our most recent monthly support session learned.

• Go to Preferences. Click on the Recording tab.
• Click “Apply monitor volume gains when recording a mix“. Adjustments you make to the monitor sliders for other musicians and yourself will be reflected in your mix .wav recordings.
• If your own monitor, under “You (Your Name)”, is muted, your sound won’t be included in the mix recording.
• Drag your monitor toward the right to include your sound in the mix recording.
• Click “Apply monitor panning when recording a multi-user mix“. Adjustments you make to the pan knobs in multi-user sessions will be reflected in your mix .wav recordings too.

Mix recording is available to all Standard, Standard+, and FarPlay For Teachers subscribers and all participants in sessions created by FarPlay For Teachers subscribers. If you want to adjust balance and pan after making a recording, use multi-track recording, available to Standard+ and FarPlay For Teachers subscribers, as well as all participants in sessions created by FarPlay For Teachers subscribers. Learn more about recording with FarPlay here.

—David

Thanks to all of you who’ve been helping us test 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.

My Funny Valentine, 6700 km apart

Our own Dan Tepfer on vocals in Paris, France and Ben Lewis on piano in Chicago, improvise on Rodgers and Hart’s “My Funny Valentine” 6700 km apart.

This is just one of many serendipitous musical moments from Ben’s Open Sessions on FarPlay Meet, which he’s been holding weekly. Ben writes, “Using the impressive FarPlay Meet beta … I’ve connected with new players and can ‘make public’ any active session I wish to share.” Read more and check out clips from Ben’s Open Sessions at his new post on our blog.

Want to join Ben’s Open Sessions or create your own for others to join? Join the FarPlay Meet beta, free with your subscription. Ben’s session meets Tuesdays 11:00am-noon New York time / 5:00pm-6:00pm Central European time (4:00pm-5:00pm Central European time on October 28th). Bring your instrument, your voice, or just come to listen — everyone’s welcome.

Monthly support sessions

Quick reminder that October’s monthly support session is Saturday, October 25th 2:00pm-3:30pm New York time (8:00pm-9:30pm Central European time). Our following support session will be Saturday, November 22nd 2:00pm-3:30pm New York time (8:00pm-9:30pm Central European time). Sign up for support sessions here.

Monthly tech-support sessions are available free to paid subscribers and students of FarPlay For Teachers subscribers. These sessions are a great way to get live tech support for FarPlay and FarPlay Meet. Check out highlights from past sessions.

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

Thanks to all of you who’ve been helping us test 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.

Rehearsing some Bareilles together, 1400 miles apart

Stephannie Moore on vocals in Florida and Ben Lewis on piano in Chicago rehearse Sara Bareilles’s “She Used To Be Mine”, 1400 miles apart. Stephannie writes, “Ben and I have never met in person. He found out that I was using FarPlay and he was looking for some fun collaboration. This was a live, synchronous run through that we did. … it’s a pretty amazing thing to be able to do this together”.

Dr. Stephannie Moore ⁨works with students across the US, UK, Europe, and Asia. She’s also a clinical researcher who specializes in preventing and rehabilitating singing voice injuries.

“A monster of a pianist” (Chicago Jazz Magazine), Ben is founding member and Musical Director of the Lt. Dan Band with actor/bassist Gary Sinise.

Drop in on Open Sessions with Ben

Want to jam with Ben? We’ve introduced an exciting new feature to FarPlay Meet, Open Sessions, and if you join the FarPlay Meet beta, you can have access to Ben Lewis’s weekly session, all free with your subscription. Ben’s session meets Tuesdays 11:00am-noon New York time / 5:00pm-6:00pm Central European time (4:00pm-5:00pm Central European time on October 28th). Bring your instrument, your voice, or just come to listen — everyone’s welcome.

Share clickable file links with FarPlay Chat

Need to share a new chart quickly with your student or band? Just paste the link to your shared folder of PDFs (Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.) into FarPlay Chat. This makes your link clickable for others in your session, as attendees learned at one of our recent monthly support sessions. See our blog post for details.

Interested in live tech support? Signups are still open for this month’s support session today, Saturday, September 13th 2:00pm-3:30pm New York time / 8:00pm-9:30pm Central European time. Our following session will be Saturday, October 25th 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.

Get in touch

We’ve been loving 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

Need to share a new chart quickly with your student or band? Just paste the link to your shared folder of PDFs (Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.) into FarPlay Chat. This makes your link clickable for others in your session, as attendees learned at our monthly support session Sunday, June 29th, 2025.

• Open your file-sharing service. If you’re logged into Gmail, just click the Google Apps icon near the top-right corner of the webpage and click Drive . You can also go to Google Drive directly by opening drive.google.com.
• Create a folder for the music you’d like to share, if you don’t already have one. In Google Drive, click the + New button and choose New folder. Type the name of your folder into the dialog box that appears. Then press Create.
• Double-click to open the folder you created. Drag files you want to share from Finder on your Mac or File Explorer on your Windows PC into your online folder.
• Make the folder viewable for anyone who has the folder’s link. In Google Drive, click the small triangle next to the folder’s name in the file-location bar, go to the Share submenu, click Share, and use the pull-down menu in the General access section to choose “Anyone with the link“.
• Copy the folder’s link.
• In a FarPlay session, click Chat (in the Tools subpanel). Paste the link into the chat and press enter. Others in your session can now click the link to open your shared folder.

If you use a file-sharing app that automatically backs up files from your computer, pause file syncing for the folder where FarPlay is saving your recording, if you’re recording. This minimizes latency.

—David

It’s been so fun meeting impromptu with other musicians on FarPlay Meet, our platform that lets you connect with the wider community of musicians who use FarPlay. Thanks to all of our users who’ve helped us test FarPlay Meet so far. Meet remains in invitation-only testing for a little while longer. To sign up for the waitlist, reply here!

Oteil Burbridge and Roots Rock Revival jam coast-to-coast

Two-time Grammy-winning bassist Oteil Burbridge played in Dead & Company’s concerts in San Francisco this month to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Grateful Dead, but that didn’t stop him from jamming and teaching at the “Roots Rock Revival” camp in upstate New York, 2900 miles away.

Retreat to Music is a nonprofit that was part of the team that made the magic happen. Here’s what they had to say:

“A very sincere, personal shoutout and THANK YOU to our friends at @farplayapp – this app, paired with their TOP DRAWER tech support, made this concept a reality. We are so grateful for the insight and passion you put into making a real-time communication platform that is accessible to everyone.”

Stop instruments from cutting out

Does the sound from instruments cut out even though speech sounds clear? We previously explained how to fix this on PCs by turning Windows Signal Enhancements off. On Macs, set the Mic Mode to Standard, as attendees at our monthly support session Saturday, July 19th, 2025 found out. Learn more at our blog.

Interested in live tech support? Signups are still open for this month’s support session today, Saturday, August 23rd 2:00pm-3:30pm New York time / 8:00pm-9:30pm Central European time. Our following session will be Saturday, September 13th 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.

Get in touch

We’ve been loving 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

Does the sound from instruments cut out even though speech sounds clear? We previously explained how to fix this on PCs by turning Windows Signal Enhancements off. On Macs, set the Mic Mode to Standard, as attendees at our monthly support session Saturday, July 19th, 2025 learned.

On macOS 14 Sonoma or macOS 15 Sequoia

Open a session in FarPlay. Click the orange microphone , green camera , or purple screen-sharing icon in the menu bar. Check that you’re looking at the settings for FarPlay (settings for other apps might be available). Make sure the Mic Mode is set to Standard.

On macOS 12 Monterey or macOS 13 Ventura

Open a session in FarPlay. Click the Control Center icon in the menu bar. Click Mic Mode.

Under Mic Mode, make sure FarPlay is set to Standard.

On older Macs

Older Macs don’t have a Voice Isolation setting to disable, but you should still turn noise reduction off to maximize audio quality and minimize latency. Open System Preferences > Sound. Click the Input tab.

Click to highlight the microphone you want to use from the list of microphones.

Near the bottom of the microphone settings, make sure “Use ambient noise reduction” is unchecked.

Why does this problem happen?

The Voice Isolation Mic Mode on newer Macs and ambient noise reduction on older Macs filter out background noise. This is great for conversations in noisy environments. However, filtering out non-speech sounds is undesirable when trying to play instruments, so be sure to turn noise reduction off when making music over FarPlay.

—David

We’re getting ready to share some exciting news about FarPlay Meet, our platform that lets you connect with the wider community of musicians who use FarPlay. Thanks to all of our users who’ve helped us test FarPlay Meet so far. Meet remains in invitation-only testing. To join the waitlist, reply to this newsletter!

Over 1000 miles, as the “Songbird” flies

So cool to see vocal coach Stephannie Moore, in Florida, sharing this clip from a lesson with Lily, in Connecticut — over 1,000 miles apart! Thanks to the real-time accompaniment and immediate feedback made possible by FarPlay, they’re able to workshop Fleetwood Mac’s “Songbird” just as effectively as if they were in the same room.

Dr. Stephannie Moore ⁨works with students across the US, UK, Europe, and Asia. She’s also a clinical researcher who specializes in preventing and rehabilitating singing voice injuries. Lily Farrell is a theatre major at NYU Tisch School of the Arts.

Turn VPN off to fix blurry video and high latency

Getting murky video? Unusually high latency? Make sure everyone uses an Ethernet cable to connect their computer to the router that receives the internet signal where it first enters the home. Avoid wireless repeater/extender routers and Ethernet-over-power adapters. Ask everyone to turn their computer’s Wi-Fi off. If that doesn’t fix the problem, have everyone turn VPN off, as attendees found out at our June support session. Learn more at our blog.

Interested in live tech support? Signups are still open for this month’s support session on Saturday, July 19th 2:00pm-3:30pm New York time / 8:00pm-9:30pm Central European time. Our following session will be Saturday, August 23rd 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.

Get in touch

We’ve been loving 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

Getting murky or blocky video? Is latency unusually high? Make sure everyone uses an Ethernet cable to connect their computer to the router that receives the internet signal where it first enters the home. Avoid wireless repeater/extender routers and Ethernet-over-power adapters. Ask everyone to turn their computer’s Wi-Fi off. If that doesn’t fix the problem, have everyone turn VPN off, as attendees of our monthly support session Sunday, June 29th, 2025 found out.

Turning VPN off just takes a few clicks:

• In macOS Ventura and later, click the Apple menu, then System Settings. In the sidebar at the left, click VPN. If there’s any VPN that is “Connected”, flick its switch to the off position.
• In macOS Monterey and earlier, click the Apple menu, then System Preferences. Go to Network. If the list of network services at the left shows that any VPN is “Connected”, click on that VPN and click its Disconnect button.
• On Windows PCs, click Start > Settings > Network & Internet > VPN. Look through the list of VPNs on the right. If you find a VPN listed as “Connected”, click its Disconnect button.
• If you’ve installed separate VPN or security software, look for the software’s icon in the menu bar at the top of the screen on a Mac or in the System Tray at the bottom of the screen on a Windows PC. Click the application’s icon to look for its VPN-off switch.

—David

We’re thrilled to say hello to so many new subscribers! Looking for users to try FarPlay with? We think you’ll love FarPlay Meet, our platform that lets you connect with the wider community of FarPlay users. Meet remains in invitation-only testing. To join the waitlist, reply to this newsletter!

The Gomalan Brass Quintet rehearses on FarPlay!

Here, for the first time, all five brass players rehearse together in real time from the Italian cities of Genoa, Turin, Parma, and Reggio Emilia, across 150 miles! They’re performing a stirring rendition of the Triumphal March from Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida, a fitting way to announce their arrival on FarPlay. Bravi!

Spice things up with backing tracks

Your student on FarPlay can play along with a backing track on YouTube on your computer! Simply bring system audio into your FarPlay session with our Input Mixer. See how violin teacher Laurel Thomsen got set up in minutes in the video highlight below from our May support session.

Interested in live tech support? Signups are still open for this month’s support session on Sunday, June 29th 2:00pm-3:30pm New York time / 8:00pm-9:30pm Central European time. Our following session will be Saturday, July 19th 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.

Get in touch

We’ve been loving 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