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 an electronic keyboard rather than a piano (i.e. an acoustic piano), then we recommend you click here to read the help article on how to set up an electronic keyboard with JamKazam, as this help article will be more helpful to you.
If you want to play your piano in JamKazam sessions, then you're in the right place for a little deeper dive into the audio gear you need and how to set it up. Pictured in the diagram below is the basic setup for a piano on JamKazam.
In this configuration, you need:
- An audio interface for your Mac computer or for your Windows computer
- A microphone, a microphone stand, and an XLR cable for the piano
- A second microphone, microphone stand, and XLR cable for your voice (either for talking with other musicians in the session or for singing while playing)
- A pair of headphones to hear audio in the JamKazam session
To set this gear up properly:
- Connect one microphone using an XLR cable to one of the audio input ports on your audio interface. Mount this microphone on a mic stand so that it's held in place. Position this microphone so that the mic is within one foot of the piano's sound board - i.e. for a grand piano, under the cover and pointing down at the soundboard, or for an upright piano pointed down at the top of the piano immediately above the piano. You need to place the microphone close to the piano soundboard because every 1 foot of distance from where the piano sound originates will cost you 1 millisecond of extra latency.
- Connect one microphone using an XLR cable to another of the audio input ports on your audio interface. Mount this microphone on a mic stand so that it's held in place. Position this microphone so that the mic is close to where your head will be while playing the piano, with the microphone pointed at your mouth.
- Connect your headphones into the headphone port on the audio interface.
For Multi-Instrumentalists
For musicians who play lots of 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.