Drum Circle Instructions

Roger B. Dannenberg
April 18, 2016

The Global Net Orchestra Drum Circle allows you to play drums with people around the world by playing keys on your laptop. We’ll be joining forces with friends at Universitat Politècnica de València (Spain), who will accompany the drummers with electronic sounds from Soundcool simultaneously in Valencia and Pittsburgh.

Register

To participate as a drummer: Go to (No longer active:) http://www.music.cs.cmu.edu/drumcircle/register.html to register.

Download Software

Then go to https://sourceforge.net/projects/floctrl/files and download and install GNO-8 (or whatever is newest). You should find a Mac OS X app and a 64-bit Windows installer (tested on Windows 7 – no promises for Windows 10).

Run the Windows installer to install, then use the Start menu to run GNO-8.

On OS X, you can just open the application after you download it.

Stand alone vs Network mode

When you start the GNO program, a dialog will appear:
Stand along vs. network dialog box

Initially, chose "No" so you can run independently of the server and test the sound.

You should see the following window:

Click in the colored box near the top and type "a" on your keyboard. Do you hear a sound?

Audio Device Selection

If you do not hear a sound, open the Audio Device menu, which looks something like this:

Select a device you think will work. On Windows, I have had problems with the WASAPI interface, so even though that would give the best performance, you may have to choose an MME device to find something that works.

You must restart the GNO program after you select a new Audio Device.

Controls

Once you get sound, here is a guide to all the controls and options in the program:

Instrument Selection

Typing 1 through 5 selects different banks of drum samples:
1 = bongos, 2 = congas, 3 = cowbells, 4 = shakers, 5 = timbales

Playing Sounds

Each bank has 7 sounds. The leftmost letters on a QWERTY keyboard play the first sound loud (Q), medium (A), or soft (Z). The next-to-leftmost letters play the second sound loud (W), medium (S), or soft (X), and so on. Since there are 7 sounds, the loud versions are played by QWERTYU, medium by ASDFGHJ, and soft by ZXCVBNM. You can find all these letters as a reminder in the colored box where you type to make sounds.

The Mixer

Below the colored drum typing box, there is a bank of sliders.

Volume (dB) controls the overall volume. You can also use your computers sound system volume control if it exists - the two are independent, so if the sound is too quiet, be sure to turn up your master volume control in addition to the Volume (dB) slider.
My Volume -- currently disabled
Voice (dB) controls voice volume. When you join an ensemble, the leader can send voice audio to you.
Orch Reverb controls the reverberation level. Probably this should be very low (far left).
My Reverb -- currently disabled.

Chat Controls

You can chat with other members of the drum circle. Near the bottom of the window, you can enter chat text in the box labeled "Type HERE:."

You can talk to a specific person by prefixing your messages with @name followed by a space and your message.
You can talk to the leader(s) only by typing @admin followed by a space and your message.
Otherwise, your message goes to everyone, and displayed messages reveal the sender's name.

By default the chat window keeps the last 10 messages. There's no way to go back to earlier messages. If you uncheck the "Keep Only 10" box, all messages will be preserved, but then they may scroll off the screen. To facilitate reading sequentially, the "Dismiss" button removes the oldest message at the top, and the "ALL" button deletes all messages.

Joining the Ensemble

When it is time to play with the group, (re)start your GNO program.

This time, click "Yes" to "join a network."

You will be prompted for your User Name:

Enter the name you used when you registered for the drum circle (not your email address).

Next, enter your password. (Passwords are not secure, so please do not use this password where you have anything to really protect.)

Password prompt

If all goes well with the login, the web server will give GNO information to connect to the real-time drum data exchange server, and you will get a confirmation something like this:

Confirmation dialog box

Click OK.

In the top left, you will see some status information. It takes about 20 seconds to synchronize to the server, after which your status will become CONNECTED and you are ready to play, chat, or just listen. The "Round trip ms:" is the minimum time observed recently to send a message to the server and get a reply. Here, the value is 2ms, or 0.002 seconds, but from Spain, the number is 150ms or more, mostly due to the limited speed of light.

Status display

Interaction

Everything you play will be heard by other performers with a 4-beat delay. Timing is precise according to time stamps carried on every drum message.

There are a few ways the ensemble can interact:

Directions

General instructions may show up in your chat box. Also, the leader can issue instructions in bright-red bold letters just below the colored drum entry box. In "Solo Mode" (see below), instructions are generated automatically.

Follow the Dots

When you see yellow dots flashing in the colored drum entry box, you should try to play only on the flashes, which will repeat a rhythmic pattern. The pattern is controlled and can be modified by the leader (just to keep you on your toes).

Solo Mode

In Solo Mode, you will be prompted to play a "solo" for one measure (4 beats) -- play anything, but try to stay in time and play something interesting. Then you will be prompted to listen for one measure. This is one time where if you play, your notes will not be delivered to other players. Since everyone is delayed by one measure, you will listen to everyone's solo, but all played at once. The "solo" and "listen" instructions will alternate as long as solo mode is in effect.

Dynamics

You may get instructions to play softly. Remember that the bottom row of letters ZXCVBNM plays softly, so use these keys. Playing fewer notes will make things softer too.

Similarly, if instructed to play loud, use the top keys QWERTYU and play more notes.

Ending the Session

You can quit at any time with a menu command or key command (Apple-Q on OS X, Ctrl-X on Windows). If you are connected to the server and the server is terminated, your program should give you a message that you lost the connection. Confirming will exit the program.

If you lose your connection, it will not affect the rest of the ensemble, and you can restart and rejoin the group at any time.