Setup Reaper+Ninjam for online jamming

Azazzell · April 2020

Ninjam is a free plugin within the Reaper DAW used for latency free online jamming.

Works in 2 modes:

Normal NINJAM - a very strange beast in which one hears the previous interval that other players played. No latency issues. Takes getting used to.
Voice Chat - regular voice chat, might have latency issues. These can be mitigated by installing your own private server.

Download the Reaper DAW: https://www.reaper.fm/download.php
Start Reaper (free for 60 days)
On first run Reaper should prompt you to set up your input and output devices. But if it doesn't go to Options -> Preferences -> Device and set up your microphone as the input and your headphones as the output.
Create a new track (Ctrl+T or Track->Insert New Track)
Click the Record Armed button on the track (little round red button)
Click the Record button (Ctrl+R) (medium round red button)
Make some noise
You should see the waveform of your recording moving
Stop and play it back. Congratulations, you have recording and playback capabilities. Start recording again. Monitoring must be enabled (is by default).
Find the little FX master button and click it.
Select All Plugins and find ReaNINJAM
A new small window will appear and click "Show RealNINJAM Console"
Click Connect
You will see a list of public servers to which you can connect anonymously
OR for best results install a private server and use with local friends. Maybe even Voice Chat mode will work decently. https://www.cockos.com/ninjam/server-guide.php
Tip: Protect your hearing from Ninjam noise spammers by adding a limiter to your FX.