Setting Up a Professional Multi-cam Live Music or Creative Broadcast on a Budget [TwitchCon 2016 Panel]

Setting up a professional multicam broadcast TwitchCon 2016

For the complete list of panels, check out the main TwitchCon 2016 panel recap post.
VoD link: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/93384608
Moderator: SceneOfActionMusic
Participants: VisualJamie, MissCookiez

(parts at the start are missing, got cut from the vod)

Music:

  • Streaming music gives you a direct connection to your audience. You can answer questions, people give you feedback, buy your music, etc.
  • It creates momentum, you have an idea for a song in the morning and you will be performing it by the end of the day. Within a couple of weeks, you will have something new so you won’t be playing the same song endlessly.
  • There is no middleman. You promote yourself, do sales, decide your own direction.
  • You don’t get a job in the music industry by just having an education. You need to get yourself in the situation where you meet people that are going to help you. By doing music-related things on Twitch, you get more experience every day.
  • One of the panelists explains how he has made a ‘box’ in his garage. This is his stage. He makes music in this box and also performs there. Reason for this is that he can make as much noise as he wants without receiving noise complaints. He has it set up so that he can run this by himself without help from anyone else.
      • What he uses to do this is a 2 pc setup containing the following:

PC 1: Audio and lights

PC 2: Video and OBS studio

        • I7 4790k
        • GTX Titan X
        • 16GB RAM
        • 1 TB SAMSUNG EVO SSD
        • 2x 250GB SAMSUNG EVO SSD RAID 0
        • ASUS G97
        • 4 PORT ORICLE USB3.0 PCI-E CARD (used to plugin 4 cam’s)
        • SOUNDBLASTER Z SOUND CARD
      • What is connected to what?
      • The audio PC has connected:
        • Microphone
        • Guitar
        • Audio keyboard
        • Alphasphere
        • 2 monitors
      • Video PC:
        • 8x Logitech C920
        • 12x USB hotkey foot switch
        • USB 13 port hub
        • 1 monitor
      • The video PC takes care of the actual streaming part, the audio PC sends the audio to the video PC.
      • The AVID HD omni is connected to the audio PC with a HDX card, it is connected to the video PC via a main left and right audio output on the AVID HD OMNI that gets converted into a line-in that goes into the video PC.
      • Microphone, headphones, and guitar are connected to the AVID HD OMNI.
      • All this gets connected to a mixer, the Mackie Big Knob.
      • The pro tools HDX allows video tracks. Lights videos are being made in adobe premiere.
      • All the different footswitches are used to switch between cameras and scenes.
      • Issues with this setup:
        • With all the camera switching you can’t use guitar pedals, a solution for this is to use mute automation. This makes it so you always send a clean track and a distorted track to the pc and you can mute one of them based on what you want to use for different parts of the song.
        • There’s a delay on the C920’s video feed compared to the audiofeed. You need to add a 125ms delay to make sure they sync.
        • The Logitech C920 was not designed to work together with other C920’s. They don’t want to be plugged in at the same time. You need to plug them in one by one and go through to each cam’s settings. You need to make sure you don’t plug in too many cams on one USB bus or it is going to crash your PC.
      • As you grow your community you need to try and find a way to give back to them. A good way to do is to make albums for them or encourage them to participate by voting on lyrics or submitting audio.

Creative:

  • Streaming the making of art related to gaming is what led to the creation of Twitch creative, it technically wasn’t allowed so it needed its own place.
  • If you’re painting, it’s wise to get a wireless headset so you don’t get tangled up in cables and it won’t get painted.
  • If you want to make sure your art looks good on stream you can’t just use a webcam. It’s better to use a DSLR camera because it’s a higher resolution and shows the true colors. This used to be not possible but you can now use your camera as a webcam by using a program called SparkoCam.
  • Adobe is active on Twitch and supports creative broadcasters in many ways. They create awareness, help with software etc. They also have their own channel.
  • There is a lot of collaboration between the different creative streamers on Twitch, no matter what type of art is made.

Disclaimer: Post contains affiliate links.

About the Author

Lowco

I'm a full time streamer and CEO of StreamerSquare! You can find me on Twitter and Twitch.


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