Patent ID: 7297858

Claim:
A system for outputting sounds at a local location corresponding to music played at a remote location in substantially real time, comprising: a. An instrument or instrument simulator; b. A network interface operative to receive data corresponding to the music played at the remote location, the data being received with a variable delay relative to the music played, the network interface further being operative to play back music received from the remote location with dynamically adjustable delays at the local location, the dynamically adjustable delays correlating to relative time stamps of the data corresponding to the remotely played music, the network interface further operative to send data corresponding to music played locally to the remote location with relative time stamps corresponding to the locally played music; and c. A signal interface device having a first port coupled to receive data from the network interface and to transmit data to the network interface, and a second port coupled to the instrument or instrument simulator, the signal interface device including: i. A memory cache operable to store data received by the network interface; and ii. A data assembly and transmission unit, operable to retrieve the stored data and provide a substantially continuous stream of data to the instrument or instrument simulator, and further operable to transmit data generated by the instrument or instrument simulator.