Collaborative environment for syncronizing audio from remote devices

Apparatus for interactive, collaborative, real time, playing of MIDI data by MIDI synthesizers and MIDI instruments across a an Internet network coupling remote computer systems, comprising:

• means for synchronizing all said remote computer systems to a single clock,
• means for determining a time delay of said network,
• means for creating MIDI data at at least one of the remote computer systems,
• means for time stamping said MIDI data using said clock at the at least one remote computer system,
• means for receiving the MIDI data with said time stamp from the at least one remote computer system, and
• means for applying said time delay to the received MIDI data to synchronize the received MIDI data.

A method of synchronizing MIDI data received at a computer system over an Internet network coupling the computer system to remote computer systems comprising the steps of:

• synchronizing all said computer systems to a single clock,
• time stamping MIDI data using said clock as said MIDI data is created at one of the remote computer systems,
• determining a time delay of said Internet network,
• receiving the MIDI data having said time stamp at the computer system, and applying said time delay to synchronize the received MIDI data.

Apparatus for synchronizing MIDI data received at a computer system over an Internet network coupling the computer system to remote computer systems, comprising:

• means for synchronizing all said computer systems to a single clock,
• means for time stamping MIDI data using said clock as said MIDI data is created at at least one of the remote computer systems,
• means for determining a time delay of said network,
• means for receiving the MIDI data having said time stamp at the computer system, and
• means for applying said time delay to said received MIDI data to synchronize the received MIDI data.

A networked computer system for playing MIDI data from remote computer systems and from local MIDI apparatuses, the network computer system and the remote computer systems being coupled via a an Internet network, comprising:

• means for receiving a network clock providing network time data,
• means for synchronizing said networked computer system to the network clock,
• means for incorporating the time data with the MIDI data from the local MIDI apparatuses,
• means for determining a delay time representing communication delays on said network,
• means for incorporating said delay time with said MIDI data from the remote computer systems,
• means for organizing said MIDI data from the remote computer systems and from the local MIDI apparatuses into a time ordered sequence using the time data and the delay time, and
• means for playing the organized MIDI data.

A memory, comprising:

• local MIDI data created locally;
• transfer control packets including:
• remote MIDI data received from the remote sites,
• time data including a time of creation of said local and remote MIDI data,
• network time delay data including a time delay of the remote MIDI data received from the remote sites, and
• information identifying a data structure of the local and remote MIDI data, such that the local and remote MIDI data can be extracted from the data structure for synchronized playing using the time data and the network time delay data.