skidder652003 Posted July 11, 2021 Share Posted July 11, 2021 If this is in the wrong forum, apologies. I've been messing about with a few cameras, a laptop and OBS studio, managed to livestream my ugly mug on Facebook live for a few minutes with 3 different angles much to the amusement of a couple of FB pals. Now the question is, has anyone actually manged to livestream a gig on FB or YouTube or some other platform from a venue? (ie the Dog n Duck in our case). Obviously you'll need a Wi-Fi connection (from the pub I guess) . I'm just fantasising over the idea of livestreaming some gigs to all 3 of our followers and somehow monetising it. Never gonna happen right? Just interested if anyone does this and the easiest way to go about it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike257 Posted July 11, 2021 Share Posted July 11, 2021 I was production manager on this streaming festival last summer. Main stage at M&S Bank Arena (in this YouTube playlist here), and we had three other venues running across the city, all for three days across the August bank holiday weekend. First thing I'd do is forget about WiFi. If you want to do it to any reasonable standard and with any sort of reliability, a wired connection is essential. Find out where the router is in the venue, get a drum of Cat5/Cat6 and get yourself connected! OBS will feed any of the big name streaming platforms with relatively little fuss, and there's sites like Restream that can push it multiple platforms if you need it. Also need to think about audio - at a small gig, you don't always mic everything, and the mix in the PA is just filling the gaps around whatever racket is coming from stage, so you can't just take the house mix as your audio feed. You need to either take a split in to a separate mixer for broadcast, or do a broadcast mix of a spare aux on your desk. If you want to make sure the video and audio stay in sync, sending the broadcast audio mix in to the line inputs on your main camera and using that as the audio source in OBS will mean it'll be locked in with that video signal. vMix is the pro alternative to OBS and is available on a free trial (I think it's 30 days) so if you're doing anything critical it might be worth looking at that, it's a bit more stable. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skidder652003 Posted July 11, 2021 Author Share Posted July 11, 2021 Wow! Thank you for the advice. You obviously have approached this from a really pro angle. My problem is (as usual) I'll be sorting out the sound and PA, the lights and now possibly the streaming/recording angle as well as actually playing the bloody bass whilst the guitarist and singer just unwind a couple of leads and look for someone to buy them a pint (I exaggerate otherwise I'd not put up with it for 11 years). I think the best I could hope for at the moment is a couple of zoom Q2n cameras hooked up to a laptop with OBS set to auto scene change every few seconds. Hopefully the sound would be better than a mobile phone and ok for the local boozer pub venue. But you think I should connect directly to the router rather than rely on wiFi? What social media platforms would be best for broadcasting? I've heard a rumour that Facebook will mute anybody playing what they perceive to be copyright issue covers? Not sure if that's Bullsh*t but I heard it today. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DubDelay Posted July 12, 2021 Share Posted July 12, 2021 (edited) The advice above is all solid, definitely do not try it over WiFi and maybe have your phone ready to tether as a back up. I did lots of streaming of all sorts of events in my last job and it’s a pain in backside but very rewarding. People are very unforgiving of bad audio quaintly online, it’s much easier to get away with bad video quality. For a low budget gig of a choir we did I just put a zoom h4n in front of them and got them to go through a song a few to check for clipping and to see how it sounded. if possible follow the above advice on using a desk and thinking about audio capture, much more engaging content if it has a nice mix going on. In the end we settled on one of these: https://teradek.com/collections/vidiu-go-family running desk audio into a camera and into that bit of kit. Bullet proof setup for roving streaming. It’s not cheap but if the gigs went well it’s a very good investment as it takes a lot of the issues out of live streaming. In the meantime Obs to YouTube with the zoom and lots of lighting would be my recommendation for the least hassle, best quality content. YouTube is sort of setup for monetising live steams too I guess. Final word of advice would be that live streaming can be a bit of a pain as there are a lot of factors interacting. I’d do a couple of bands just focused on that without playing bass yourself until you get the software and kit all working together. It sounds like a worthwhile endeavour, all the best with it. Edit: typos Edited July 12, 2021 by DubDelay 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EBS_freak Posted July 13, 2021 Share Posted July 13, 2021 If you are taking a feed from the PA, then the likelihood is that the sound won't be great as the vocals are likely to be too loud - and it will sound very dry. To get around this, and you have a desk that support this, you can set up a matrix mix. You can have some ambient mics to bleed in a bit of the venue sound to make it sound more realistic. Otherwise, a descent stereo condenser independent of your desk may give you acceptable results. I'm typing all this being mindful that you have to set everything up... so you may find that taking the audio from one of the zoom cameras may be a quick and easy fix. Having done a number of live streams with bands, do not brush over the mixing part. The audio has to be good - better than the video - to hold people's attention. People will not tolerate poor audio - but they are more forgiving when it comes to video. But getting video right is the cherry on top. Remember to offset your audio in OBS if needs be to get good sync between audio and video. In your setup, the easiest way is probably to position the camera suitably far enough from the stage to get good audio and a wide shot of the stage... and use that audio from that zoom - and just that audio - so as your scenes in OBS change, the cameras do and the audio doesn't. If you want to stream to multiple platforms, not have any "free tier" branding on restreamed feeds, you may wish to build a raspberry pi to take care of that - https://www.okdo.com/project/streaming-server/ You can get away with using a phone network if you signal is bang on (and use a wired connection to your phone when hotspotting) - but there is risk of degradation. Remember, people go live with their phones all the time on streaming platforms - but if there are any low spots or loss of signal (worst case), be prepared for dropped frames, lower resolutions etc. Wifi is better... Wired is best. Work with what's available to you Beggars can't be choosers. Above all, don't let it take your focus away from your live performance! The biggest thing however - is lighting. Don't expect miracles out of an 8bit video source - especially in low light. Some white LED panels to help the cameras out. And remember that native HDMI has a finite transmission length. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skidder652003 Posted July 13, 2021 Author Share Posted July 13, 2021 Thank you. It will be one, maybe 2 max, zoom H2n's with the audio input from only one of the cameras positioned 30 feet centre from front of stage. I may give it a go tomorrow night at band rehearsal. We have plenty of lighting and the zooms have several settings to compensate for low level lighting. As much as I'd love to take a desk mix it's just not practical so that's why I choose the zooms as their audio mic inputs aren't too bad even if the video is nothing special. I just need to find the correct input levels on the zooms so not too quiet or distorted loud. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ambient Posted July 13, 2021 Share Posted July 13, 2021 (edited) I did one a few months ago organised by a small independent label. It worked fine. It was nice seeing the live comments left by the audience. It was just me solo with a MacBook and a bunch of midi controllers. I used my iPhone as the camera. Logic Pro makes a great performance tool, I used Soundflower to connect Logic to OBS. Edited July 13, 2021 by ambient 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stewblack Posted July 16, 2021 Share Posted July 16, 2021 To anyone lacking the gear but wanting to do this who might have been put off by the (excellent) advice above. Just to say we took part in a series of streamed gigs last year and the guy did it all with his phone. It worked just fine. Obviously it wasn't as professional, but don't think you have to do it professionally or it won't work. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EBS_freak Posted July 16, 2021 Share Posted July 16, 2021 37 minutes ago, stewblack said: To anyone lacking the gear but wanting to do this who might have been put off by the (excellent) advice above. Just to say we took part in a series of streamed gigs last year and the guy did it all with his phone. It worked just fine. Obviously it wasn't as professional, but don't think you have to do it professionally or it won't work. This is very true. A lot of people don’t realise that the smartphone is very powerful tool. Remember, you can also get mics to upgrade the sound on your phone… or get gadgets to take a feed from your mixer. It may be the case that a phone (with it without mic upgrade) on a tripod will give you everything you want. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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