The RealTime Audio Webcam is a Zoom-like web conferencing app designed for musicians, by musicians, and features:
- Session & individual track recording
- Live Streaming
- High-quality audio & video (lower latency, better video resolution, and higher audio quality than Zoom)
- Interactive instrument tuners
- Reverb & pan effects
- Voice pitch detectors
- GPS metronomes
- Chord & scale chart generators
- Touchscreen interactive piano
- Music-related whiteboards
Paired wirelessly with a RealTime Audio-enabled device, musicians can jam together remotely with both audio and video.
This user guide will help you learn about and navigate the RealTime Audio Webcam application. It is designed so that you can choose topics of interest or you can scroll through the entire guide. If you have any questions, comments or need support, please email support@realtimeaudio.com.
Play together from anywhere.
https://realtimeaudio.com/support
TABLE OF CONTENTS
The Sign-In Page
The Sign-Up screen
Webcam Homepage
Setup Guide
Settings
Devices
Profile
Calendar
More
Pre Meeting
Enable pre-meeting screen check box
Display notifications for Chat messages
Music Mode
Hide self-view
Language
Desktop sharing frame rate
Maximum number of participants who can be pinned to the main stage
Sign In/ Sign Up
Mic and Video Permissions
Pre-Meeting Screen
Settings
The Webcam Room
Selecting a device - Microphone, Speaker, or Camera
Screenshare
Chat
Live Speech Translation
Music Mode
Connecting to a RealTime Audio device
Raising and Lowering your hand
Reactions
Manage participants
Tile View/Spotlight View
Profile
Elipses (More actions)
Performance settings
View fullscreen
Security options
End-to-End Encryption
Recording
Live Streaming
Mute Everyone
Disable Everyone’s Camera
Share Video
Share Audio
Select Background
Speaker Stats
Settings
Embed Meeting
Hamburger Menu
Pair RealTime Audio device
The personal mixer window
Mute my mic
Settings Cog
Volume Fader
Master mute button
Mute track button
Solo track button
FX button
Profile tab
Audio Settings
Audio Channels
Audio Quality
Hybrid Session
Audio Mode
Latency Metrics
Host Tab
Unpair RealTime Audio device
Add participants
Embed on my site
Claim This Room
Explore other Room
Create a New Room
Sign In
Upload Media
Tools
Chromatic Tuner
Metronome
Low-Latency Metronome
Guitar Chord Chart Generator
Guitar Scale Generator
Piano
Whiteboard
RealTime Audio Webcam Best Practices and Troubleshooting Guide
Use An Audio Interface
Use A Nice (non-USB) Microphone
Use Headphones
Use A Nice Camera
Consider Your Lighting
Use an Ethernet connection when possible
Troubleshooting
Refresh The Browser Page
Camera And Microphone Not Allowed
MAC: Enable and select the microphone, speakers, and camera on the computer
MAC: Allow computer permission to access the microphone, camera, and screen recording
“Allow” access to the microphone and camera on the browser
Adjust Video Quality
Turn Off Anti-Virus Programs (especially Avast)
Turn Off Ad Blocking Extensions
PC
Mac
Turn off Firewalls
Screen Sharing Issue on Mac
The Sign-In Page
Point your browser to https://web.realtimeaudio.com and you will see a green website appear. This is where you can sign in, or create an account by clicking on the green text that says “Sign Up”. If you do not wish to create an account or you do not have an account you can enter as a guest by clicking on the text that says “Continue As Guest”.
The Sign-Up screen
The Sign-Up screen is where you create an account. You will be asked for an email address and to create a username and password. You can then register your account by clicking the green “Sign Up” button. If you do not wish to create an account or you do not have an account you can enter as a guest by clicking on the text that says “Continue As Guest”.
Webcam Homepage 
The homepage is where you enter a room name and join or create a session. This page
also has three icons in the upper right-hand corner. A lightbulb that will show you the setup guide, a cog wheel that will allow you to set settings for the meeting, and a profile icon with a down-pointing chevron that will take you to the Sign-In screen.
Setup Guide
This is a step-by-step animated guide explaining how to set up your equipment with a RealTime Audio-enabled device.
Click the “Help with this” button to find out more information about a specific step.
Click the “Contact support” button to reach out to RealTime Audio support for more help. Click the “X” in the upper right corner to close this guide and return to the homepage.
Settings
This allows you to customize your settings for your session. You can change devices, change your profile name, access your Google Calendar, and more.
Devices
This allows you to select a microphone and camera and test your audio output. Once you have made your changes, you can click on “Ok” to store your changes or click on “Cancel” to return to the homepage without saving your changes
Profile
You can change your profile name by typing it into the text box. Save your changes by clicking the “Ok” button or click on “Cancel” to return to the homepage without saving your changes.
Calendar
You can add your Google calendar to the RealTime Audio Webcam. Sign in with your Google account and you will see upcoming events listed on the homepage below the “Join” button. Your calendar will appear on the homepage.
You can join a meeting from the calendar if the meeting has a room assigned to it by clicking on the “+” to the right of the meeting as you mouse over the meeting.
If there is no webcam room name assigned, hover over the meeting and click the “+” icon to the right. A random word generator will create a meeting link for that particular meeting. You will want to make sure that you share this room name with your participants!
Clicking the “Recent” button will show you the recent rooms that you visited and tell you how long you were in that particular room. You can also enter these rooms by clicking on their names from this list.
Hovering your mouse over a room name will show a blue trash can on the right. You can click this trash can and remove this meeting from your list of recent meetings.
More
There are more settings that allow you to customize how your session/meeting works:
Pre Meeting
Enable pre-meeting screen check box
Checking this box will have all participants see a pre-meeting screen where they can enter their names and change their settings.
Display notifications for Chat messages
This will allow for a pop-up to display when someone in the session sends a message via the chat function.
Music Mode
This mode is disabled by default. There are many features embedded in RealTime Audio that make it great for typical web conferencing and non-musical meetings. These include low pass filters, echo cancellation, dominant speaker mode, noise reduction, automatic volume adjustments, etc. However, many of the features that make typical web conferencing great, make music-making problematic. To manage this issue, we’ve created “Music Mode” as a way to toggle between these two use cases. Turning on music mode turns off all the features intended to make most webcam sessions easier. Enabling this mode provides a more accurate stereo sound of the highest quality. Because echo cancellation will be turned off, you’ll need to wear headphones to prevent feedback. Music Mode is not available when paired to a RealTime Audio Device. Music Mode is currently not available with the RealTime Audio mobile device apps.
Hide self-view
Enabling this will remove your video thumbnail from your view of the webcam session.
Language
You can choose the language you would like to be displayed. This is default language is English.
Desktop sharing frame rate
Depending on your bandwidth, you may be able to use a higher frame rate when sharing your screen during a session. Higher frame rates will show a clearer image. However, a higher frame rate might affect your bandwidth which could make your meeting experience sub-optimal. Note that any changes will require you to restart the screen share.
Maximum number of participants who can be pinned to the main stage
This is the number of users who can be permanently pinned to the session window. These users will not change from the session screen even if someone else is talking during the meeting. These users will always be “on-screen”.
Sign In/ Sign Up
When you click on this icon you have the option to view the Sign In/Sign Up screen.
If you are signed in you have the option to view the recordings that you have made.
Click on "My Recordings" to bring up a page of recordings where you can download, copy the link, share the recordings on Facebook or have the link emailed to you.
Mic and Video Permissions
If this is the first time you are joining a room you will need to grant your web browser permission to use your microphone and video camera. Click “Allow” in the pop-up that appears on the screen.
Pre-Meeting Screen
The pre-meeting screen allows you to enter your name, and join a session. You may also choose to enter the session without audio by selecting the chevron located at the right side of the “Join Meeting” button.
You have the option to mute your microphone and camera by clicking on the mic icon or the camera icon. If you choose either of these options you will see the icons change to include a line through them, indicating that the mic and/or the camera have been muted.
Users can select a background if they wish by selecting the icon.
The user can select and preview different background blur options or images to use as a background and add their background. The user can also screen share their background.
Note that selecting a background will affect the user's bandwidth and the user may experience issues during the session. The user can select and preview different background blur options or images to use as a background and add their background. The user can also screen share their background.
Note that animated gifs are not available at this time.
Save your changes by clicking the “Apply” button or click on “Cancel” to return to the pre-meeting screen without saving your changes.
Settings
You can edit your settings from this screen as well by selecting the cog icon.
Press the “join meeting” button to join the meeting, You will see yourself and any others that are connected to the same room.
If you have a RealTime Audio-enabled device connected, you should see a popup that says "A RealTime Audio device has been found. Please use the connect button to connect this device."
Pressing the “Skip” button will close this pop-up and return you to the webcam view.
If you select the box next to where it says “Don’t ask me again” this pop-up will not show again. You can always bring this pop-up back by selecting the three lines (hamburger menu) located in the upper left corner of the webcam screen and selecting “Pair RealTime Audio device”.
If you do not see the popup screen and have a RealTime Audio device connected you can refresh the search by clicking on the refresh icon located in the upper left corner of this pop-up (the icon that is made up of arrows that make a circle). You can also click on the “Troubleshoot Device Detection” button to show the setup guide and get further information for help with setup. From here you can email RealTime Audio if you are still experiencing trouble.
The Webcam Room
This is what a meeting room looks like using the RealTime Audio Webcam. You can see the three-line menu in the upper left corner, sometimes called a “Hamburger Menu”. At the top of the screen is the the name of the room with the duration of the meeting and a performance icon
In the upper right corner of this screen is the self-view.
Note that there is a crown in the lower-left corner of this video thumbnail. This is letting everyone in the room know that this particular user is the moderator of this meeting which means that this user has additional controls. These controls include changing security options, which include “Enable Lobby” and Enable End-to-end Encryption” This moderator can start and stop a recording or start and stop a Livestream and they can mute everyone’s microphone and disable everyone’s camera.
The white three lines in the green box will give you connection metrics for that participant.
Thumbnail icons (not all may be applicable):
The lightning bolt means that the user is paired to a RealTime Audio-enabled device.
The microphone icon with the line through it means that the user's webcam mic is muted.
The crown means that the user is a moderator.
You can even click the name of your user (“User” in the picture above) and change your user name from here if you like!
The three dots in the blue box will allow you to change the volume for a participant on the webcam. You can also send them a private message. If you are the moderator you will be able to grant other participants moderator rights or kick them out of the webcam. You can also mute their microphone or video camera.
You can flip your video view and hide your self-view by clicking on the three dots located on your thumbnail image.
At the bottom of this window is a toolbar that includes the red hangup button:
Selecting a device - Microphone, Speaker, or Camera
If you didn’t already select your preferred communications device before you entered the meeting room, you can still do so while in the meeting. Clicking the upward chevron next to the mute button (or camera button) will reveal a list of available devices on your system that you can select to use in your meeting. Of course, this will depend on what devices you have on your specific system so the list will differ from one system to another.
Screenshare
Clicking on this will allow you to start and stop screen sharing.
When you select this, a new window pops up that allows you to choose if you want to share your Entire Screen, a Window, or a Chrome Tab.
Select what you want to share by clicking on your choice. For this example, the user is sharing their entire screen. Then select the screen that you want to share just below the text that says "Entire Selection". The “Share” button will light up as will the “Cancel” button.
Click “Share” so that all users can see your screen. Note that you may create an “Infinity Mirror Effect” because you're sharing an image that's showing your camera, which creates an infinite loop. This can be avoided by selecting a specific window or specific a Chrome tab rather than sharing the entire screen.
If you select a Chrome Tab there is a box in the lower-left corner that allows you to share audio from that specific tab.
When you select “Share” The screen will begin to display what you selected to the other participants. A bar appears at the bottom of the screen that allows you to click “Stop Sharing” to end the screen share. You can also click the “Screen Share” icon in the toolbar to stop sharing your screen.
Chat
Participants can chat, create polls, and even chat in their own language! When you select this icon from the toolbar a window will appear on the left side. You can close this window by selecting the Hamburger menu (three lines) located on the upper right side corner outside of this window or by selecting the chat icon from the toolbar.
Participants can type messages in the box located at the bottom of this window. Emojis and files can be shared in the chat as well by clicking on the smiling face icon or the paper clip icon. When uploading a file, you are asked to choose the file, and click “Open” to load the file into the chat.
Live Speech Translation
Clicking this button allows you to speak in your language and have your gender selected so that others can hear you in your selected language and gendered voice. The system will do its best to identify your language and gender. However, we recommended that you use the drop down menus provided to select YOUR native language and gender manually. Keep in mind that the language drop down should be set to YOUR native language. It should NOT be set to the language that you want your speech to be translated to for others. This way, no matter what language is spoken to you, it will be translated into your native tongue. In the same way, the gender selection should be set to YOUR gender. This way, everyone else will hear you in THEIR own preferred language but will hear you in your preferred gender.
To access these menus and select YOUR native language and gender, click the downward-facing chevron to the right of the language and gender selection. If you don't want to have every word dictated and spoken to you aurally, you can mute the speaker icon by clicking it and turning it red. If you don't want to have every word you speak translated for others, you can mute the mic microphone by clicking it and turning it red.
You can speak your message and the system will automatically send it when you have finished speaking. You may also type into the message box and then press the highlighted paper airplane button to send the message.
A pop-up message will display showing the name of the user and the message that was sent:
There is also a badge with a number that shows in the toolbar next to the chat icon:
The chat message also populates in the chat window:
Users can create polls from this same window, by clicking on the word “Polls” located next to the words “Live Speech Translation”. Then click on the “Create a poll” button located at the bottom. You can then add your question, and your answer options, change the order of the answers, edit them, and then send it to the participants:
A pop-up notification lets the users know that there is a new poll and the chat icon shows a number to indicate that this has populated the chat window.
Users will see the poll, can make their choices, and see the results as well as the details!
Connecting to a RealTime Audio device
A white lightning bolt icon is found in the toolbar. If you click on this icon, the device detection pop-up screen will appear and you can connect your RealTime Audio device.
Once you are connected, this lightning bolt will turn green and an upward-facing chevron will appear. You can access your personal mixer from this menu, or disconnect your RealTime Audio device.
Music Mode
The RealTime Audio Webcam is made exclusively for music. This mode disables several audio processing features used specifically for web conferencing. The users must mute their microphones when they are not speaking or playing, and everyone should be using headphones which will help to reduce feedback.
To enable this mode click the musical notes icon.
When you start this mode, you will note that your session reboots. You can disable this mode by clicking on the musical notes to disable Music Mode. Note that Music Mode is currently not available when using the RealTime Audio mobile apps or when using a RealTime Audio-enabled device.
Raising and Lowering your hand
Click on the hand icon to raise your hand. A yellow box highlights your video thumbnail and your view to show that your hand has been raised. The hand icon is also highlighted in grey. Lower your hand by pressing the hand icon again.
Reactions
The RealTime Audio Webcam has audience reactions that will display on the screen and play sounds. Activate these reactions by clicking on the up chevron next to the hand and selecting a reaction:
Manage participants
Click on the people icon to manage or invite more participants to your session:
After clicking on this, a window pops up on the right side of the screen:
You can invite someone to your session by clicking on the “Invite someone” button. A pop-up display shows you different methods of sharing. You can copy the URL and send that to the participants, or you can share the meeting invitation and use email-specific clients to send the invitation or embed the meeting code:
If you have a lot of participants you can search for them by name. Hovering over a name brings up some new functions. You can mute that participant or click the ellipses (three dots) and choose additional features. If you choose to “Grant moderator rights” know that this particular user will have the same controls that the moderator does.
You can also add breakout rooms for your participants, by clicking on the “Add breakout room” button. The breakout room appears with a number next to it. To add a participant to the breakout room click on the ellipses to bring up the menu, then click on the bottom where it says “Send participant to Breakout room #1”. A pop-up will display to that specific participant to let them know that the moderator has moved them to the breakout room.
To remove the participant from the breakout room click on the ellipses next to the breakout room name, and select “Close”. All participants from the breakout room will be moved back to the main room.
The moderator can also mute everyone, by clicking the “Mute all” button at the bottom of the window. Here the moderator can allow participants to unmute themselves once they have been muted.
The ellipses (three dots) in the bottom right corner of the window bring up some more functions that the moderator can control:
The moderator can stop everyone’s video cameras, allow participants to unmute themselves and start their video as well as some more features that can be enabled by clicking on the checkbox to the left of the descriptions:
There are also other tabs on this menu where you can change other settings for the meeting.
Tile View/Spotlight View
Clicking on this will result in changing your personal view from seeing everyone on one screen (the stage), or seeing one person on the stage. When recording or Livestreaming, the default view is the Tile view. If you select a video thumbnail from the right by clicking on it the video view will go to spotlight view and that change will be recorded and presented as well. This works well if you have a participant who is performing a solo and you want to feature that participant during the recording or Livestream.
Profile
Clicking on this brings up a window that allows you to change your display name. To change your name, simply type into the text box that is located under the text that reads “Set your display name”. To save your changes click the “OK” button. To cancel your change and return to the session click the “Cancel” button. There are also other tabs on this menu where you can change other settings for the meeting.
Elipses (More actions)
Clicking this brings up a menu with more actions. The moderator has more actions
available:
Performance settings
This brings up a menu that allows you to adjust your video quality. Higher settings can affect bandwidth. To make a change click on the white dots located on the black line:
View fullscreen
Selecting this will result in your session taking up the entire screen of your monitor. To exit
this view, click the “ESC” key on your keyboard or select the ellipses from the toolbar and
select “Exit full screen”.
Security options
Selecting this will allow you to turn on Lobby mode and/or use End-to-End Encryption.
When Lobby mode is enabled, all participants will have to “Ask to join” the room. They will see a window on the left of their screen that says “Asking to join meeting…” with a loading animation below it. You can change your settings while waiting to be admitted to the room.
The moderator will see a pop-up that allows them to admit or reject the participant asking to join the meeting. Selecting admit brings the participant to the meeting. Selecting reject does not allow them into the meeting and a message displays for the participant letting them know that they were not allowed into the meeting.
End-to-End Encryption
This is currently experimental, When this is enabled this will effectively disable server-side
provided services such as phone participation. Please keep in mind that the meeting will
only work for participants joining from browsers that support insertable streams. We suggest
that you leave this disabled for now.
Start recording
Selecting this will result in a pop-up that will allow you to start the recording or cancel and
return to the meeting.
When you have clicked “Start recording”, a pop-up will appear which will alert all
participants that the recording is getting ready.
When the recording has started another pop-up will alert all participants that the recording has started:
A red “REC” 
will appear at the top of the screen next to the room name to let you know that recording has started. You will also hear a voice say “Recording is on”.
To stop the recording
To stop the recording select the ellipses (three dots) from the toolbar and select “Stop recording”. A pop-up will display asking you to confirm that you want to stop the recording or you can cancel this action and continue your recording. Clicking confirm will stop the recording and you will hear a voice that says “Recording has stopped.”
A loading animation is seen and a pop-up notification will be shown to all participants as the
system processes the recording:
When this process is complete, another pop-up window will appear allowing you to share the recording on Facebook, download the recording to your computer, or copy the recording link:
When you have finished making your selection, select “Close” to return to your session.
When using a RealTime Audio-enabled device, you will have the function to record
individual tracks. This means that each participant's audio will be recorded as a
separate track. Your process for recording is the same. You want to make sure that you
enable individual track recording by selecting the check box:
When you finish the recording and confirmed that you want to end the recording, you will see a pop-up that lets you know that the audio is being processed. This is moving the audio file from the RealTime Audio Enabled device to the server so that you can download these individual tracks:
You will then see a pop-up that will allow you to share, download, copy and download the individual tracks:
When you select “Download individual tracks recording”, a compressed file will download into your download folder and will have the name of your RealTime Audio Enabled device. Inside this folder will be the individual audio files in .wav format. There is also a Reaper file and an Audacity file if you wish to import these audio files into either of those audio editing programs. You can also import the .wav files into any audio editing program that supports using .wav files.
Start live stream
The RealTime Audio Webcam can live stream your session. Select the “Start live stream” function from the ellipses (three dots) located in the toolbar.
After selecting this, a pop-up will appear that will ask you to sign in or enter your live stream key from YouTube.
You can find your stream key from your YouTube account. Open YouTube in a new tab on your browser and then log in to your YouTube account. Click on the camera icon in the upper right corner, and select “Go Live” from the drop-down menu:
You will be taken to the YouTube Studio where you can copy your stream key by pressing the “Copy” button.
Keep your YouTube tab open in your browser. Return to your RealTime Audio Webcam tab and paste your stream key in the text box under the text that reads “Live stream key”. Then press the “Start live stream” button.
A pop-up notification will appear to all participants that lets everyone know that the Live Streaming is beginning.
When the stream is ready, you will hear a voice say “Live streaming is on”. There will be a pop-up that displays:
You will also see an icon of the word “Live” 
located at the top of the screen next to the name of the meeting room.
When the live stream begins, the default view is the tile view. If you want to highlight a specific participant during the live stream, click on their thumbnail to put them in Spotlight mode. This will change during the live stream. If you are using a RealTime Audio-enabled device, you can raise and lower the volumes of each user as you wish by moving the faders on your mixer. You can find your mixer by clicking on the three lines menu (hamburger menu) at the top left of the screen, and selecting “Mixer”. Your mixer will appear and you can click and drag on the faders to raise or lower the volume of each participant. During the live stream, you can click over to your YouTube tab, and watch and listen to the live stream as it is happening or you can remain on your RealTime Audio Webcam tab and continue to make visual and audio changes.
When you are finished with the live stream select “Stop live stream” from the ellipses (three dots) located in the toolbar.
A pop-up will display to all participants:
You will also hear a voice say “Live streaming has stopped”.
You can edit your live stream on YouTube if you wish.
Mute Everyone
Selecting this from the ellipses (three dots) in the toolbar will allow you as the moderator to mute everyone’s mic in the room except yourself. A pop-up window will appear and let you know that the users will be able to unmute themselves. You can continue this by selecting “Mute” or return to your session by clicking “Cancel”.
Disable Everyone’s Camera
Selecting this from the ellipses (three dots) in the toolbar will allow you as the moderator to turn off everyone’s video in the room except yourself. A pop-up window will appear and let you know that the users will be able to turn on their cameras themselves. You can continue this by selecting “Stop video” or return to your session by clicking “Cancel”.
Share Video
Selecting this from the ellipses (three dots) allows you to share a YouTube video or a Vimeo video. Clicking “Share video” results in a pop-up window appearing that asks for the web address of your Youtube or Vimeo video. Place this address into the text box, and click the “Share” button. If you do not want to share, click the “Cancel” button.
The video will display on the webcam. To stop the shared video, select “Stop video” from the ellipses (three dots) located in the toolbar.
Share Audio
Selecting this from the ellipses (three dots) shows you an animated video that will show you how to share audio from a Google Chrome tab.
Select Background
Selecting this allows a participant to change their background by using pre-programmed blurs, images, sharing their screen, or uploading their image.
Note that selecting a background will affect the user's bandwidth and the user may experience issues during the session. Here the user can select and preview different background blur options or images to use as a background and add their background. The participant can also share their screen as their background.
Note that animated gifs are not available at this time.
Speaker Stats
Selecting this shows you the name of the participants and the amount of time that these participants have been speaking. Select the “X” to close this pop-up and return to your session.
Settings
Selecting this displays a pop-up that allows you to customize your settings for your session. Store your settings by clicking the “OK” button. Return to your session without saving changes by clicking on the “Cancel”.
Embed Meeting
Selecting this allows you to embed your RealTime Audio Webcam room into an HTML or CSS code location as an iframe. A pop-up will display the code that you can copy and use in your programming.
Click the “Copy” button to copy this code to your clipboard. Click the “X” to close this pop-up and return to the session.
Hamburger Menu
In the upper left corner of the Webcam session is the Hamburger menu (three lines). When you click on this you will bring up more options.
The menu has a lot of features:
Pair RealTime Audio device
This brings up a pop-up window that will allow you to connect to a RealTime Audio-enabled device. Pairing to a RealTime Audio device allows you to use ultra-low-latency technology. When you are paired to your device, the webcam microphone is muted automatically.
If no RealTime Audio enabled device is detected that pop-up will display:
Suppose you have a RealTime Audio enabled device, and are having trouble detecting it. In that case, you can try pressing the “Refresh” button which is represented by the circling arrows located in the upper left corner of the screen. If you want to troubleshoot your device, click on the “Troubleshoot Device Detection” button to bring up the step-by-step animated setup guide. There is also a way to email RealTime Audio should you need further assistance.
If you want to get back to your session, you can click the “X” in the upper right corner, or press the “Skip” button.
If you do not want to have this pop-up show again, check the “Don’t ask me again” checkbox.
If you do have a RealTime Audio enabled device, and pair to it successfully, you will see your personal mixer pop up with a message window:
You can close this message by clicking on the “X” in the upper right corner.
The personal mixer window
This window has a few features in it:
Mute my mic - this will turn off your audio so that no one can hear you
Settings Cog - this allows you to change your profile name and add your instrument, change audio settings, view latency metrics, and select a host based upon ping and upload speeds.
Volume fader for the track - This allows you to adjust how loud or soft someone is in your headphone mix. If you are the moderator of the meeting and have started a recording or a live stream, your volume settings will also be the volume settings for the recording or live stream.
Master mute button - this is specific for the Host, only. Selecting this will mute an individual track for all users. The particular user who has been muted can unmute themselves, but they will not be heard in the other participants’ mixer until the host has unmuted (clicking the master mute button again) the particular user.
Mute track button - This will mute this track in your headphone mix. You will not hear them.
Solo track button - This will allow you to only hear this track in your headphones. All other tracks will be muted.
FX button - This button will allow you to apply effects such as reverb, volume panning, or delay panning to specific tracks. Please note, that reverb is currently only available to your tracks and can not be applied to the other participants.
Clicking the Settings Cog on your mixer brings up the following window:
Profile tab
This is where you can change your name and add your instrument.
Audio Settings
Audio Channels - There are three modes available: Mono and Stereo modes use one and two audio channels respectively. Mono-in/Stereo-out: The audio signal sent to the server is mono but the return signal is stereo. This is useful if the sound card has the instrument on one input channel and the microphone on the other
Audio Quality - The higher the audio quality, the higher your audio stream’s data rate. Make sure your upload rate does not exceed the available upload speed of your internet connection.
Hybrid Session - allows the low-latency audio to be mixed with users who do not have a RealTime Audio enabled device. Those who do not have the RealTime Audio-enabled device will notice a delay with their audio, but they can hear the low-latency audio performances.
Audio Mode - The smaller the network buffers, the lower the audio latency. But at the same time, the network load increases, and the probability of audio dropouts also increases (particularly if your network connection has any significant jitter). Setting this to Highest Audio Quality (128) will reduce the amount of dropouts but may increase latency. If you set this to Lowest Latency Mode (64) may reduce latency and may increase the number of dropouts that occur. If you are unsure, try starting with Highest Audio Quality and experiment with what feels best for you.
Latency Metrics
You can view your latency metrics and learn more about how each of these can affect your session.
Host Tab
This screen will show you who the recommended host should be for your session. If you are unsure, you can select the checkbox next to “Auto Manage Host” and allow the system to pick the best participant to be the host. If you are self-hosting, you want to make sure that the participant who is hosting has the fastest upload and lowest ping speeds.
You can close any of these tabs by clicking on the “X” in the upper right corner and return to the webcam session. If you need to get back to the mixer, click on the hamburger menu in the upper left corner and then select Mixer.
Unpair RealTime Audio device
this will disconnect you from the RealTime Audio enabled device and return you to your webcam session. When you are unpaired from your RealTime Audio-enabled device, your webcam microphone will unmute automatically.
Add participants
Selecting this allows you to add participants to the webcam. You can invite them by sharing a link, sending an email, or even sending a text message.
You can close this pop-up by clicking on the “X: or clicking the “Close” button.
Embed on my site
Selecting this brings up a pop-up that has the code for your room to use on a website.
Claim This Room
You must be signed in to claim a room. If you aren’t, you will be shown a pop-up asking you to sign in:
Once you are signed in you can claim your room via this pop-up:
The room name and the owner’s name will automatically be populated.
You can choose to make this room private and you will be shown a password for the room for all participants to use when entering the room:
You can also publish the room and specify a category for it:
When you have made your choices, click the “Claim” button or if you do not want to claim the room, click tine “Cancel” button to return to the webcam.
Explore other Room
Explore and search for other RealTime Audio Webcam sessions. You can select the category to search for by clicking the down arrow in the box that says “Select Category” and selecting a category to search by.
You can also search for a private room or a public room or both by selecting the appropriate checkbox.
If a room is found, a listing of Rooms will be displayed. You can select the room and join the room. Note that if the room is private you will need to enter the password to gain access to the room.
Create a New Room
You can create a new room if you like by selecting “Create a New Room”.
In the text box that says “Room Name” enter the name of your new room (you can enter spaces, but please note, the spaces will not be saved in the URL address of the room - if you type in “My Jam Room the URL will read as web.realtimeaudio.com/myjamroom):
Click the “Create Room” button and you will enter your new room. If you do not want to create a new room press the “Close” button to return to your current room.
Sign In
Selecting “Sign In” from the hamburger menu will bring up a pop-up that will allow you to sign in to RealTime Audio. If you already have an account, enter your email address into the text box that says “Enter Email Address” and then enter your password into the text box that says “Enter Password”. If you have forgotten your password, click on the text that says “Forgot Password”. You will be prompted to enter your email address, and if you are registered, you will receive an email to reset your password. If you don’t have an account, you can click on the text that says “Sign Up” and create a new account. A reason for having an account is so you can claim a room and keep it for yourself. No one else will be able to create a room with the same name.
Upload Media
You can upload MP3 audio files or PDF documents to share with everyone in your session by selecting “Upload Media” from the hamburger menu. File sizes must not exceed 5MB.
Select your media category by clicking on the downward chevron to the right of the text that reads “Select Media Category” and choose either “Share Audio” or “Share Files”. For this example, the “Share Audio” selection has been made.
Then click the “Choose File” button to access files on your computer. Select the file you wish to upload and press “Open”.
Then select the “Submit” button to share the file. A message should pop up that says “File uploaded successfully” and the file can be found by navigating to the hamburger menu, selecting the down arrow next to the word “Tools”. The file will show up under “Share Audio” or “Share Files” depending upon the type of file you selected to share. You will need to click on the down arrow next to the Share Audio or Share Files to find the file, and you may need to scroll.
Select the audio file you want to share and it will open on the whiteboard:
Press the triangle play button to hear the audio file. Close the whiteboard by clicking on the “X” in the upper right corner to return to the webcam.
Tools
This is where you have music-related tools: a chromatic tuner, metronomes (if you have a RealTime Audio enabled device, you can use the “Low Latency Metronome), guitar chord and scale generators, an interactive piano keyboard, a whiteboard, and your shared files (audio and PDF). To access these tools, click on the down arrow next to the word “Tools”
Chromatic Tuner
This tuner works with the webcam tuner and will display a frequency and text to let you know if you are sharp or flat. Click the “X” in the right corner to return to your webcam when you are finished using the chromatic tuner.
Metronome
This will help you keep time while you are playing. You can set your beats per minute by typing in the desired time in the box under the text that says “Beats Per Minute:” You can increase or decrease the speed of the metronome by pressing the “+” or “-” buttons. Set your beats per bar, by typing in your choice in the box under the text that says “Beats Per Bar:” Start the metronome by clicking on the “Start” button. The metronome will start and you will see a corresponding number that shows you what beat the metronome is on. Click the “Stop” button to stop the metronome. To return to the webcam click the “X” in the upper right corner of the metronome window.
Low-Latency Metronome
This metronome is only available with a RealTime Audio-enabled device. This works the same way as the regular metronome. The only difference is that this particular metronome is synchronized using GPS technology so that all RealTime Audio-enabled devices receive a signal to start the metronome at the same time. The participant who starts this metronome will start it for all participants in the webcam using the RealTime Audio enabled device. They can also stop this metronome for all of the participants. There is a short countdown before the metronome starts which allows the RealTime Audio devices to synchronize. Individuals can change the volume of this metronome by moving the ball on the blue line from left to right. Left is quieter, right is louder. An individual can also stop this metronome so that they no longer hear it. There is no visual indication of what beat you are on with the Low-Latency metronome. To close the Low-latency metronome and return to the webcam, click the “X” in the upper right corner of the Low-latency metronome window.
Chord Chart Generator
To share a chord chart with all of the participants, select the key of the chord and the type of chord, and then press the “Generate Chord” button. This will display guitar tablature at the bottom of all of the participants' screens. To close this and return to the webcam, click the “X” in the upper right corner of the chord chart generator window.
Guitar Scale Generator
To view guitar scales, select the key and the type of scale and press the “Generate Scale” button. This will display a virtual fretboard on all of the participants' screens. To close this and return to the webcam, click the “X” in the upper right corner of the guitar scale generator window.
Piano
This interactive piano will display for all participants. It can be played by using your mouse or trackpad to play the keyboard, or you can your computer keyboard to play the notes on the interactive piano by pressing the corresponding keys seen on the keys of the piano. When participants are playing the interactive piano, the keys will turn blue. To close the piano and return to the webcam, press the “X” in the upper right corner of the piano window.
Whiteboard
The interactive whiteboard allows all users to collaborate. Enter shapes, musical notes, scribble, arrow, media, text, and zones, by selecting that particular item from the drop-down menu.
After making a selection the whiteboard will populate. You can move the item, and change the size of it by clicking and holding the corner of the item and moving your mouse to make the item larger or smaller. If you want to change styles, click the hamburger menu (three lines) on the right corner of the whiteboard.
You can delete an item by selecting it and pressing the delete button on your keyboard or you can click the “More” button from the hamburger menu on the right side, and select delete.
If you want to save your whiteboard you can select "Screenshot" from the menu on the left, then click "Take Screenshot". An image will be downloaded to your computer.
Close the whiteboard and return to the webcam by clicking on the “X” in the upper right corner.
RealTime Audio Webcam Best Practices and Troubleshooting Guide
TABLE OF CONTENTS (Click the link to go to the topic)
Best Practices
Use An Audio Interface
Use A Nice (non-USB) Microphone
Use Headphones
Use A Nice Camera
Consider Your Lighting
Use Ethernet connection when possible
Troubleshooting
Refresh The Browser Page
Camera And Microphone Not Allowed
Enable and select microphone, speakers, and camera on the computer (Mac):
MAC only: Allow computer permission to access the microphone, camera, and screen recording:
“Allow” access to the microphone and camera on the browser
Adjust Video Quality
Turn Off Anti-Virus Programs (especially Avast)
Turn Off Ad Blocking Extensions
PC:
Mac:
Turn off Firewalls
Screen Sharing Issue on Mac
Best Practices
- RealTime Audio will work with almost any computer or phone with an embedded or external webcam but the better your audio and video equipment, the better your experience will be.
Use An Audio Interface
- The RealTime Audio Webcam is built to provide the highest quality audio. However, if using the audio interface built into the computer or phone, you will be limited to the quality of the inferior sound card that comes with your device. Even the cheapest $50 interface from Behringer is far superior to the audio interface embedded in any computer or phone.
Use A Nice (non-USB) Microphone
- Condenser microphones are best but any non-USB microphone will greatly enhance your sent audio. Here’s a condenser mic from Audio Technica and a dynamic microphone from Shure.
Use Headphones
- There are many features embedded in RealTime Audio that make it great for typical web conferencing and non-musical meetings. These include low pass filters, echo cancellation, dominant speaker mode, noise reduction, automatic volume adjustments, etc. However, many of these features that make typical web conferencing great, make music-making problematic. To manage this issue, we’ve created “Music Mode” as a way to toggle between these two use cases. Turning on music mode turns off all the features intended to make most calls easier and creates an accurate stereo sound of the highest quality. However, because echo cancellation will be turned off, you’ll need to wear headphones to prevent feedback.
Use A Nice Camera
- For those planning on using the RealTime Audio Webcam often, we recommend investing in a quality camera if your computer does not have a great one built-in. These can be relatively cheap and easy to install as most are USB and plug-and-play. Again, the RealTime Audio Webcam tool is built for optimal video quality and it’s only as good as the quality of the video captured by the hardware. Most 1080p cameras will work just fine.
Consider Your Lighting
- You don’t need to be Orson Welles to light your scene but the RealTime Audio Webcam image will respond significantly better if well lit. Aside from being easier to see against the background, your camera will be able to focus on you and sharpen your image. There’s nothing wrong with investing in a common ring light but it’s not always necessary. The most important thing is to make sure that the light is coming from in front of your face instead of from behind you, otherwise, you’ll likely appear as a shadow. So turn on the lamp or lights in front of you and move your back away from any open window.
Use Ethernet connection when possible
- Webcam communication moves a lot of data quickly. The best way to do this is by connecting your computer to your router via ethernet cable. Regardless of the computer or your wifi speed, you’ll always have a better connection and lower latency this way. However, RealTime Audio will work fine using Wi-Fi or your mobile phone’s cellular network if this is not an option. When using wifi be sure to move closer to the wifi router if you can. If you must be far from your router, it’s better to use the 2.4Ghz network rather than the 5Ghz network. If you are very close to your router, it is OK to use the 5Ghz network.
Troubleshooting
- Most troubleshooting tricks are about adjusting your settings to allow for access to your microphone and camera. Your browser, operating system, computer, and router all need to be checked to make sure none are set to prevent access to these.
Refresh The Browser Page
- As with most tech, the first step is to turn it off and on again.
Use Chrome Or Firefox - Microsoft Edge, Safari, and Brave will work with some features (i.e. live speech translation, echo cancellation) and can have trouble on these browsers. If possible, we suggest using Chrome or Firefox instead.
Camera And Microphone Not Allowed
- Often the issue is that the user’s camera and/or microphone are not plugged in, enabled on the computer, “allowed” by the browser, or selected as the chosen inputs on the RealTime Audio Webcam.
Enable and select microphone, speakers, and camera on the computer (PC):
MAC: Enable and select the microphone, speakers, and camera on the computer
MAC only: Allow computer permission to access the microphone, camera, and screen recording:
“Allow” access to the microphone and camera on the browser
Unmute and select microphone, speaker, and camera option on RealTime Audio Webcam
Close Any Other App Using The Camera
- Computers often don’t allow multiple apps to have camera control at the same time. You’ll need to completely close Zoom and Skype for instance to use the RealTime Audio Webcam.
Close Other Tabs And Programs
- If a computer is outdated, underpowered, or has virus issues, resource availability may be an issue. Closing other tabs and programs will free these up and allow the program to run more smoothly.
Adjust Video Quality
- If the internet connection is a problem, users can click on the icon with the three dots in the bottom center console and then select “Performance Settings”. Move the green ball to make adjustments. First, try "Low Definition". Next, try "Low bandwidth". Be aware though that “Low bandwidth” mode will mute the camera, you can still share your screen with a user.
Turn Off Anti-Virus Programs (especially Avast)
- The biggest culprit we’ve found here is Avast antivirus software running on a MAC. Often users don’t even know this is running in the background. This can prevent the browser from getting camera access.
“Click Preferences"
Disable “Web Shield”
Enter your username and password
Turn Off Ad Blocking Extensions
- The biggest culprit here is the Ad Blocker extension but others can also prevent camera access. Users will need to switch off these extensions in their browser settings.
PC:
Mac:
Turn off Firewalls
- In rare cases, usually when someone in the user's house has manually adjusted their router settings or when users are connecting from corporate or institutional locations (i.e. hotels or dorm rooms), there may be overprotective firewalls preventing connections requiring camera access. To test this, have the user download the app to their mobile device, turn ON cellular data, and join the room that way. If they can access the room using cellular data but not using the wifi on their computer or phone, there is a router firewall blocking the wifi.
If this is the case, follow these directions to access your router and disable the firewall.
Screen Sharing Issue on Mac
On your Mac, choose Apple menu > System Preferences,
Click Security & Privacy
then click Privacy
Select “Screen Recording” from the left menu
You may need to unlock the lock at the bottom of the left-hand corner with your computer login password.
Remove Google chrome (you have to select Google Chrome, then click the "-" button below to remove it from the list.
Save (by locking the lock at the bottom of the screen, and then unlock it)
Then add Screen Recording permission (by clicking the "+" under the list of apps)
This will open your applications folder where you can select Google Chrome by pressing the blue "open" button.
Quit and reopen Google chrome again and you should be good to go.
For more support information, please visit https://realtimeaudio.com/support/
If you have questions or comments, please feel free to email support@realtimeaudio.com.
Play together from anywhere.
https://realtimeaudio.com/support
Comments
0 comments
Please sign in to leave a comment.