If you haven't yet read our general help article on the gear you need to play and/or sing on JamKazam, we recommend you read that article now and then come back to this one.
If you play a piano (not an electronic keyboard, but an acoustic piano) or an acoustic drum kit (not an electronic drum kit), these are both acoustic instruments, but the setup for these instruments is a bit different, so if you play one of these two instruments, please refer to our specialized help articles for acoustic pianos and acoustic drum kits.
If you play an acoustic instrument like a violin, viola, cello, trumpet, trombone, sax, flute, clarinet, and so on, then you're in the right place for a little deeper dive into the audio gear you need and how to set it up.
Simple Setup
For most acoustic instruments and musicians, the simple setup in the diagram below will work well for playing on JamKazam.
In this configuration, you need an audio interface for your Mac computer or for your Windows computer, a microphone, a microphone stand, an XLR cable, and a pair of headphones.
Connect the microphone using the XLR cable to one of the audio input ports on your audio interface. Mount the microphone on the mic stand so that it's held in place. And then connect your headphones into the headphone port on the audio interface. That's about it.
You'll want to position the microphone on the stand so that the part of your instrument that produces sound is placed within a couple feet of mic, and so that the mic is pointed directly at your instrument, as many microphones are highly directional and will ignore sounds outside the direct aim of the mic.
Alternative Setup
For most acoustic instruments and musicians, the simple setup in the diagram above will work well for playing on JamKazam.
However, if you use JamKazam heavily, and if your instrumental mic is placed in a spot where it's inconvenient to also use the mic (when not playing) to talk with other musicians in your sessions, you may find it worth the investment to purchase a second mic/stand/cable to use for your voice (pictured in diagram below). In this case, you simply connect the second mic to the second audio input port on your audio interface, and position on mic in the best spot for your instrument and the other mic up by your mouth. Again, this is very optional, and just an optimization you can make if you find it useful and worth the additional investment in gear.
In this configuration, your guitar is sending a completely "clean" tone into the audio interface. If you want to apply other tones to your guitar - e.g. distortion, reverb, etc. - then you can use VST or AU software plugins to apply different tones to your guitar signal. JamKazam includes built-in support for VST and AU plugins, so you can do everything you need from inside our app.
If you also want to sing in session, you'll want to make sure you have a microphone, a microphone stand, and an XLR cable to connect your microphone to your audio interface (as pictured in the diagram above). If you're not going to sign, you may still want to get this gear, as you'll be doing a lot of talking in sessions, and this gives you high-quality vocal audio, which you'll find you really enjoy. But if you're only going to talk with others in sessions, then you don't have to get this microphone gear, and you can just use the built-in microphone in your Windows or Mac computer to talk in sessions.
For Multi-Instrumentalists
For musicians who play lots of different instruments, if you prefer not to have to constantly be plugging and unplugging different instruments and resetting your audio input level as you swap from one instrument to another, we recommend that you read our help article for multi-instrumentalists. This help article provides configuration advice just for you.