Live Streaming Basics - Prep for Cosmic Streamfest 2020

shivasongster

First draft of the technical specs for streamers who are participating in Cosmic Streamfest 2020

https://www.jeremydeprisco.net/blog/cosmic-stream-fest

This document will be periodically updated *on the site* not here.

mosc · Posted: Mon Apr 27, 2020 3:48 pm Post subject:

This is great information - thanks.

I haven't gotten beyond getting JamKazam to work, but I'm still working on it. Video looks too complicated to me. I've seen many streams that have good music but the video is pretty boring and even distracting. I just hope that streaming events which require people to stream video don't act as a filter for musicians that want to participate.

Asside from that, I know there are large audience potential on YouTube, but live streams there seem to have poor audio quality - mostly sound mono to me. Maybe this is because the musicians haven't got it set up correctly for stereo. How do the other streaming services sound?

It would be neat if there was some way to link up with our video artists to do streams, unless musicians are getting satisfaction with doing their own real-time videos.

Anyhow, I'm very interested in watching the Cosmic Streamfest 2020 event. Please post an announcement so we all get a chance to tune in.

shivasongster · Posted: Mon Apr 27, 2020 5:17 pm Post subject: Streaming in 2020

A few things:

The trend right now with social distancing is toward video/audio. And there is a lot of excitement in the community for doing video, both from the creator perspective and the audience. What we're planning was supposed to replace a physical event, as opposed to other streams that might be more regular audio-only happenings.

JamKazam is really a different animal, and not the majority of what we're doing for this event. As far as I know, only one act will be using JK, and they are experts. JK and streaming to Twitch via OBS are not the same thing.

When the roster is finalized, we'll send it out. I am helping on the tech side right now, but there are still some logistics to work out by some others, and I'm not sure who is wearing which hats right now!

mosc · Posted: Fri May 01, 2020 7:07 pm Post subject:

I read your post about video streaming and it was excellent. Unfortunately, Jamkazam is not working out for me. I have been really frustrated with it.

So, I tried Ninjam which is builtin for Reaper. I need somebody to test this out with.

With unwise disregard for security, I have set up a ninjam server for people to play with. People can jump in with no login. I'll fix that after it appears that things are working in a usable fashion.

Ninjam works on a fixed measure long latency. It's default use is for conventional tempo based music. However, you can change your channel from "Normal NINJAM" mode to "Vocal Chat" and it doesn't enforce any fixed delay or tempo matching.

The ninjam server is electro-music.com:9098

If this works out, we can setup many of these ninjam servers so people can have their own private jam rooms, and we can of course have public ones.

I find OBS pretty straightforward. It seems that one could run OBS and pipe Reaper's audio into the video stream. Jeremy's blog post explains that pretty well.

I don't want to push anybody one way or another. People are free to do whatever suits them. I'm just sharing my experience.

shivasongster · Posted: Sat May 02, 2020 1:36 pm Post subject: Streaming vs Jamming

Thanks for looking into the Ninjam stuff Howard.

I'd like everyone to be clear that streaming for solo performance and remote jamming via simultaneous connection are really two separate topics. Yes, they can be combined in extreme cases, but the tech required to combine those two concepts - and get it right - was beyond my initial concern.

My focus has been - and continues to be - setting people on a path to stream live for solo performance via their "stage" of choice, be that YouTube, Facebook, Twitch or somewhere else (there are hundreds of destinations) or via RTMP.

When it comes to collabs, Tom and Karl have done a great job on the JamKazam front, so that's why I link out to them in my notes.

While of intellectual interest, the idea of jamming online is less of a "need" for me right now. It's just not part of my creative direction given everything else I am learning and putting time into (expanding knowledge of the Digitakt, creating new visuals, creating new material in VCV Rack, etc). I'm also wary of installing anything else on my machine right now.

I've found that basic streaming from a single location is quite enough to keep me busy! I highly recommend - for those looking to get their feet wet - that single-artist streaming is the way to go for one's first forays into any of this. Once you have *that* down, adding the collab piece is less daunting.