Doing online performances with S1 or L1

Portable PA
1

I’m seeing several folks mention here about doing online performances. This is new to me and I would love to “hear” (no pun intended) what medium is being used, how did you set it up, what’s involved etc. I’m not looking for super professional setups, something more casual.

I’d like to do some performances for some of the retire communities we have played for in the past as they are so quarantined now for their own safety.

I hope this topic is not too far off from the purpose of this community, but given the dire circumstances we are in, hopefully we have some latitude. 

2

Hi, Pete.

Most if not all of us are performers. A conversation on how we bring our music to our audiences is completely appropriate here.

ST

3

Since it really isn’t totally Bose related, I wanted to be sensitive to that. But I think others would benefit as I’m not a full time professional by any means and this topic is intriguing. Thanks for your reply.

4

You can use Facebook Live. 

 https://www.facebook.com/faceb...utions/facebook-live

5

Those using Facebook live, are you just using camera audio or are you creating a mix for it? 

6

You can do either, depends on the situation. I see many that are just using the phone mics.

7

If you know the Canadian band Blue Rodeo, you may of Jim Cuddy.

He is doing a concert on Facebook live in 20 minutes.

It's not my intent to promote the show, but I think it's timely and relevant to our discussion.

Edit: Link to the Facebook Live broadcast

ST

8

The S1 or L1 might be useful if you are playing an electric instrument or using a looper (which you'll need to monitor) but a  decent mic or two (maybe plus a DI for the guitar) is probably a better option combined with an USB audio interface and, obviously, a camera. 

YouTube mangles your audio but the better you put in the better it'll sound when it reaches your audience.

One huge thing is the acoustics in the space in which you record or stream your videos. A typical living room will sound a little better than something like a conservatory or other mostly empty space but most domestic settings sound really bad (as evinced on 99% of YT videos). Hanging a few duvets on mic stands just off camera can make a useful difference, close miking will help too but to get decent sound in an untreated (acoustically speaking) space is pretty much impossible.

I'm happy to link to more specific advice should anybody want to pursue the matter further.

9

I'm watching the end of a very humble Facebook live broadcast. It's the gal (with the grumpy neighbours) I mentioned yesterday.

It's just her with her guitar, a mic, an amp off-camera in the clearly untreated room and a little too much reverb for my taste. But she's singing her heart out, and it's Good enough for live music

She's getting lots of comments. Someone just asked her about her gear.

She's using her phone, an S1 Pro, Shure SM58, Martin D13. That's not a plug for Bose. She just gave us gear rundown.

She's got a clear grasp of Perfection is the enemy of good.

Her music, sincerity, character, are coming through clear as a bell.

ST

10

Well that was interesting. (Jim Cuddy)

Last night all alone in a barroom, I met a girl with a pint in her purse, ....... I used to sing that one a little different.

O..

11

No argument with that ST, a great performance of a great song will always shine through. But few people can constantly deliver such and no one can all the time.

When recording audio, for public consumption or just for your own and friend amusement treating the space you record in is an absolute no brainer.  It needn't cost much (my 'studio' acoustic treatment cost significantly less than an S1 Pro).

Video presents an additional problem in that any acoustic treatment must either be off camera or look good in shot but I think it is still well worth experimenting.

12

Thanks Sam, we have been looking at doing the same thing. We thought about a open jam to boost spirits if nothing else. Any info would be great as these are difficult times for all. Be safe and play on.

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14

One of our favorite Open Mics in Annapolis started doing a Virtual Open Mic on Facebook this week. What they did was create a public group page that everyone who wants to play joins. This gives them the ability to Go Live to the page for everyone watching to see, which worked out better than the initial idea of skipping around to each band's FB page. So, they made a schedule of performers (15 min each) and the host went Live first to open things up, then introduced the next group. The next group then went live on the group page and everyone watched their performance. Then they introduced the next performer, who then went Live. Rinse, Repeat. Worked out pretty good and since each performer went live themselves on the Group Page, they added verbiage to their Go Live post like their band website, Venmo and Paypal links, so anyone who wanted to donate could do so, as many of these folks support themselves in part or in full through their music, etc.

There was a variety of ways that people got sound into FB Live; some were just a solo or duet group with a guitar and a laptop webcam/mic, others were a full band with PA. Some of the bands used a phone or webcam (which we've done on occasion and works relatively well), while others plugged their mixer output into the laptop/PC and used that for FB audio with either a webcam or separate video camera. We're going to participate in the open mic on Monday and will probably just use our phone again to stream us playing through our PA (L1 compacts with analog mixer), but I may experiment with running our mixer's USB output into my webcam-enabled netbook and see how that does. 

Mic plug: our Pastors and some of the Band have been livestreaming short webisodes from our church during the week and Wednesdays are a musical webisode. I have to say I'm pretty impressed with the Blue Yeti USB Mic that the Pastor got for his Macbook (running Wirecast to YouTube and FB). It's a multi-pattern mic that we set for stereo mode and put it between a guy singing with an acoustic and a girl singing with piano and it did pretty darn well. Even in the big empty 350 seat Sanctuary it didn't pick up a lot of room noise, but what it did pick up lent some light reverb to the mix which actually worked well. It'd be a mic worth checking out if you want something simple to use to stream a solo or duo act.

Jeff

15

Bonjour!

I found this after posting in the "What are you doing with the spare time".

I tried Facebook Live with the laptop camera and microphone; I was paying my usual busking rig: mic, guitar, VoiceLive 3 and Bose S1. The sound was horrible! I did the show and deleted the video...

The video image was also very poor but that's not very important.

I tried a second time this Wednesday. Here is the set-up:

  • I have also tried a 60-minute Facebook Live show called "14 songs for 14 days" on Wednesday (Video "14 songs for 14 days"). Some small glitches, but overall "good fun was had by all".
  • Technical stuff:
    • Taylor 310CE guitar
    • Blue EnCore300 microphone
    • Both connected into a TC Helicon VoiceLive 3
    • Porchboard Bass
    • All connected to T1 Tonematch
      • Input 1 - Microphone.
      • Input 2 - Guitar.
      • Input 4/5 - Porchboard Bass
    • T1 connected to Laptop through USB
      • USB -> PC = AUX
      • The reverb is provided by the VoiceLive 3 since the T1 does not transfer its reverb through the USB connection.
    • L1 Model II used as local monitor
    • OnSong sheet music App on iPad, placed just under the laptop camera
    • Airturn BT-105 pedal to "Start/Stop" and "Page Down" on OnSong.
  • Planning a second 14-song live show in 14 days...

I hope this can be of some help.

Cheers,

JFd

Keep on strumming

16

I used an S1 in this video from the other night. The S1 is about 10 feet from my iPhone- the sound came out very good ... not as good as a direct line in, but very acceptable

https://www.facebook.com/tomda...688762316396/?type=3

 

 

17

tips

18

Has anyone tried Twitch? There is also Twitch Studio.

I haven't tried it for broadcasting, but I have seen some live streams that incorporated live video with background music with reasonable fidelity.

ST

19

I played around last weekend with all kinds of different setups.  My wife and I were toying with the idea of an online concert.

I started with my T8S USB into my webcasting laptop (which has one of those "all-in-one" TRRS jacks for audio input/output, and I didn't have a proper cable/jack combo handy.)  It has an acceptable internal webcam (not great, but then I have a face for radio  ... my wife, however, deserves better video quality.)  We stood about 6 - 7 feet back from the laptop to frame the picture correctly.

I have 6 inputs: Two Shure Beta 58a's in 1 & 2; Squier Telecaster in 5; Taylor 424ce in 6; and stereo backing tracks into 7 & 8 (I normally run the tracks into USB, but couldn't since the T8S's USB out was being used for the webcasting system.)  We monitored with an L1 Compact connected to the T8S headphone jack -- very handy for independent volume control!

I struggled getting acceptable volume and mix into the laptop.  The mixes in my test broadcasts were never quite what I thought i was hearing from the Compact.  Also, since I didn't have a long USB cable handy, I found myself frequently walking back and forth from mic to music laptop to mixer to webcasting laptop to start/stop recordings and to change settings, and getting tired of it.

I also tried a T1, and I perceived that it pumped more volume into the USB (not sure if that was really true, but I was running out of time to research all the options before going live.)  I then hit upon an idea -- connect the webcasting system to the T1 via USB, then connect the T8S L/R main outs via TRS cables to the T1 channels 4/5, set the trim and master volume on the T1 ... what a difference!

While it looked like a Rube Goldberg setup, it fit what we were doing:  I had the T8S and music laptop next to me to choose tracks, adjust levels, mute channels & FX, and adjust the monitoring level; the T1 was next to the webcasting laptop and was pretty much left alone.  Reverb settings on the mics from the T8S were passed through the T1 to the webcast.  Although we lost stereo by going through the T1, the majority of our audience (mostly seniors) doesn't use earbuds anyway and wouldn't notice the difference.

The live webcast far exceeded our expectations in terms of sound quality as well as audience numbers.  As often happens, when we played it back later, we found out how out of practice we were!  The overall volume, while acceptable, was lower than other similar webcasts.  We did find later while the T1 trim was properly gain-staged, we could have pushed the channel and master volumes much more.

I'm going to get a long USB cable and test the T8S alone again the next couple of days.  Overall, we're very pleased with results!

Fish

20

Hi Fish,

Thanks for the detailed report. Did I miss it? What webcasting platform did you use? (YouTube Live, Facebook, Zoom, or ...)

ST