FarPlay Blog

We’re proud to be featured in the December issue of the legendary jazz periodical DownBeat, in print since 1934. Writer Ed Enright, an accomplished saxophonist living in Chicago, tested FarPlay out in real-world circumstances by playing a session with bassist Massimo Biolcati in New York City and pianist Dan Tepfer in Paris, France. He gave FarPlay a rave review, remarking on how easy it was to get the session going, and how natural the musical interaction felt once they started playing together, despite the great distances involved. The complete text of the review follows.

Continue reading “DownBeat Magazine gives FarPlay a rave review”

FarPlay 1.0.5 is now out, with an updated design and improved usability, including efficient audio sample rate handling. Upgrade now at farplay.io/download.

Ever since we started making FarPlay, one of our most persistent challenges has been how to manage different sample rates between users. FarPlay operates natively at 48 kHz, which enables us to offer studio-quality audio without excessive bandwidth use. However, in some situations, for example when a user had another audio app running on their machine at a different sample rate, FarPlay would be unable to set the sample rate of the audio device to 48 kHz. In the past, this could result in audio being audibly shifted — for example, if a user’s audio device was set to 44.1 kHz, their output would be transposed by about a half-step. Not ideal when trying to make music together!

In this new version, we solve this problem by integrating an extremely efficient audio resampler, which is able to convert the incoming audio to 48 kHz on the fly, with functionally no added latency.

We also have integrated FarPlay’s new look, including new icon, color scheme and logo.

We’re proud of this release and hope you’ll enjoy it. Happy New Year and happy music making!

Version 1.0.4 features a lovely new MUTE button, allowing you to temporarily mute your own audio without having to change your audio device to “no audio”, as you did previously.

This version also adds an advanced port forwarding setting that allows users to choose specific ports for FarPlay to use for its communications. This is useful in situations where a user is behind a particularly restrictive firewall.

Lastly, this version fixes an issue that affected FarPlay video on Fedora Linux.

Enjoy!

This intermediate update brings important improvements both in front of and behind the scenes:

• Audio and video connectivity improvements
  We’ve increased the robustness of our peer-to-peer connection mechanism.

• Customizable mix recording
  When recording a mix of your session, every participant used to be recorded at the same nominal volume and panning. Now, you can use the levels and panning you’ve chosen for your monitoring in the recording. Just go to Preferences -> Recording to enable this option.

• Custom video quality settings
  FarPlay now allows you to set your video frame rate, resolution and outgoing bandwidth manually. First, Start Video, then go to the Video Options menu and select Video Preferences to access the settings.

• Audio device switching improved
  FarPlay now detects when an audio device is disconnected and reacts appropriately, among other improvements.

• Signed Windows installer
  No more warning messages when installing FarPlay on Windows! Our installer is now properly signed.

Today we announce FarPlay 1.0, our first non-beta release, featuring built-in video, multi-user sessions, multi-track recording, and multi-channel broadcast output. We’ve been working hard to make this major step forward, and we look forward to seeing what you make with it!

A complete list of new features follows:

• Multi-user mode (requires subscription)
• Built-in Video
• Auto latency control
• Improved connectivity
• Multi-channel recording (requires subscription)
• Windows installer (MSI)
• Mac installer (DMG)
• Multi-channel broadcast output (requires Standard+ subscription)
• Linux deb and rpm packages
• UI fixes
• Audio recording now properly detects and reports file opening/writing errors
• Sending audio latency fixed when using unsynced playback/recording devices
• Ubuntu 22.04 compatibility fix

Download FarPlay 1.0.2 free here.

For International Make Music Day, on June 21st, Dan Tepfer played live with musicians all over the world, from Australia to the US via Japan and Europe, using ultra-low-latency audio app FarPlay. An 11-hour musical marathon featuring Jo Lawry, Sophia Bacelar, Jelena Kuljic, Kristin Berardi, Michael Janisch, Sam Anning, Seigo Matsunaga, Paul Brody, Massimo Biolcati, Noah Preminger and others. Featuring brand-new FarPlay features such as multi-user sessions and multichannel Broadcast Output.

FarPlay co-creator Dan Tepfer did some free improvising with bassist Seigo Matsunaga over FarPlay. Seigo was in Kyushu, Japan, 6800 miles (11000km) away from Dan in Brooklyn. Even with latency around 80ms, they had a blast playing together.

Dan Tepfer, in Brooklyn, played w/ French pianist Thomas Enhco, in Paris, on his livestream last Monday, and with latencies around 45ms, they were able to make real music together!

FarPlay version 0.3.7 is out today, with the following improvements:

• Windows: support for native audio devices (experimental).
• Windows ASIO: use ASIO Control Panel for ASIO buffer size configuration.
• Linux: support for Jack and PulseAudio devices (experimental).
• Select input channels directly from channel menu on the main session window.
• Preferences: improved channel configuration.
• Use fixed -3 dB gain for recording mix tracks.
• New BO channel layouts for mixing local and remote audio (with fixed -3 dB gain).
• Fix an issue when mono mix was played in stereo when monitoring your own sound.
• Extend volume sliders to +10 dB. Double clicking on the slider sets it to 0 dB.
• Improved HiRes displays support on Mac and Windows. Respect Windows system scaling settings.
• Minor UI fixes (don’t open multiple preferences windows, error messages, tooltips).
• Connectivity workaround for rare cases when FarPlay keeps displaying “Initializing service…” message (SSL CA workaround).
• Connectivity fix: never send packets larger than standard Ethernet MTU (1500 bytes). Prevents audio disconnects right after session join (a rare issue happened mostly on Windows at specific configurations).
• Use fixed 1000 ms delay when recording without BO (ignore BO delay in this case).