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 drum kit rather than an acoustic drum kit, then we recommend you click here to read the help article on how to set up an electronic drum kit with JamKazam, as this help article will be more helpful to you.



If you want to play your acoustic drum kit 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 drum kit on JamKazam.




In this configuration, you need:


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 directly above your drum kit, pointed down at the drum kit, and ideally within one foot or so of height from the snares and cymbals at the top of your kit. You need to place the microphone close to the drum kit because every 1 foot of distance from where the drum sounds originate 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 kit, with the microphone pointed at your mouth. 
  • Connect your headphones into the headphone port on the audio interface. 


If you want a greater degree of control over the levels and mix of the different parts of your kit, you can purchase an audio interface with more than two audio inputs, and simply purchase more microphones to individually mic up the different parts of your kit - e.g. you could put one mic above the kit as we've described, but add one more mic on the kick.



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.