Livestream announcements from Forum members

General Music Discussion
#41

That’s an interesting idea! I think at the moment we’re all trying to figure out the technicalities of how to do this :slight_smile:

There’s also the question of the value of these videos when viewed “out of sync”: there’s usually a bit of a “conversational / in the moment” aspect due to the interaction with the live chat.

Just as a test / to review my presentation/diction skills (spoiler: both need work :-D) I rewatched some bits of my stream today and there way too many pauses / unfocused moments corresponding to me checking the chat, trying to fix audio issues, not remembering what to say /play etc. So I’m not sure it works very well as an actual video. Usually people cut out the best bits from these things but that’s extra work.

I think maybe youtube is a bit clunky for this sort of thing, I wonder if there are better platforms to do this? I heard that people use twitch and/or discord (I use the latter but not for video stuff)

#42

I think the conversational bit is important here so maybe we should announce if someone’s streaming in advance so people are aware of it.

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#43

I started thinking about this too, because generally narration is discouraged in CtC technique critique videos, and makes sense ofc. But those are meant to be quick and concise clips.

These livestreams would be a totally different approach. They wouldn’t exactly be “presentation” type of videos that people are supposed to watch later in their entirety. More like long, relaxed live hangouts with picking technique as topic. That would enable conversation with the chat and immediate sharing of ideas and feedback to try out. If we use Twitch, people watching could use Clips to save interesting bits and share them here for example.

Of course you could do 15 or 20 minute concise streams, but the time is so short that I wonder if people will tune in before it’s over, even if they are announced beforehand.

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#44

Hehe, dunno how relaxed I can be but this can be good training for my future work here at CTC, beating the red light syndrome and so on :slight_smile:

I’ll have a look at twitch and the SLOBS streaming software, and probably do another attempt soon.

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#45

Haha, don’t get me wrong, I will be mortified while streaming technique… :joy: But I’m excited about the idea and probably will stream every once in a while. Lemme know if I can help test something.

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#46

I think the concise approach is a solid idea. I appreciate that the live chat aspect is a fun idea, but it would also be great if there is enough notice for ppl to get a question in ahead of time, so that if you miss the stream, you can catch the upload. This also makes sure that the streams stay on point. If you want these streams to be used as a reference of some sort, they need to be easy to search for. This sort of thing could just end up as a sea of practice sessions that nobody will get round to watching. Speaking selfishly as someone that is unlikely to catch a live stream, I would like to be selective about which ones I watch and get the most out of them.

Does the player have to do the moderating too? Maybe someone else can support the player in dealing with the chat and facilitating questions/conversations in an order fashion. I know that you guys aren’t expecting the world to show up to these, but you might be surprised at how these might gain momentum.

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#47

I think the strength of streams is in the immediate responsiveness and keeping it a bit informal. Getting questions in ahead of time is a great idea, and on top of that, there should be some Q&A going on-air. If people see something interesting happening they didn’t think of before, they can just pop in and ask.

I’d like the streams to be really simple, more like “Oh somebody is streaming topic X right now, I’m gonna jump in and ask about that”.

There could be both time limited show-and-tell types and longer, “I’m gonna stream some DSX experimentation, got any tips?” type streams and they could be labeled so. The latter types wouldn’t get archived except by the streamer themselves, if they choose.

If the streams are only supposed to become archiveable reference material with a presentation-like focus, then it gets more complex and strict of course. Moderators will likely be needed and the content needs to be well planned out, which raises the bar. It’s not inherently a bad thing, just more involved.

I’d love if we had both types of streams, because I think it would be valuable if you had a very low bar to just put on a humble stream, let people hop in, ask for comments and critique, answer questions, not worry about a short time limit etc.

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#48

I’m glad the idea has picked up steam!

Turning on the live chat playback definitely helps follow along. I was thinking about commenting in the chat what I’m doing as a timestamp for people to go to if they don’t catch it live.

I like the idea of shorter ones like @PickingApprentice brought up, but at the same time, I’ve been picking up the guitar “cold”, and it normally takes me at least 10-15 minutes before I can play anything more challenging. Part of my idea for this is a few topics and questions I’ve seen about warming up and how to structure practice sessions or whatnot, so just posting the entire session felt fitting.

@tommo definitely nailed it about it helping playing anxiety, I haven’t done much live playing in at least ten years, so this is a good way to get in the headspace again. Also since you hear me warm up, it’s humbling for people to hear it all, not just the highlight reels on the insta lol.

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#49

Well if I’m not shattered tonight I may try another short stream starting around 9:30 or 9:45pm UK time. I want to at least try to sort out the audio problems. I think OBS or SLOBS might do the job - but I’d have to allow them to access /edit /delete content on my (YT) Google account, which is kind of scary.

I will confirm or deny this “event” later tonight :smiley:

The topic could be pentatonics and / or “Simple” 3np scale shapes for Gibertian picking patterns.

I opened a Twitch account and instantly felt like an old man: that website is like sensory overload, colourful stuff moving in every direction! I might use that or youtube, depending on which one allows me to sort out the audio issues

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#50

Discord could be a really good choice for “group” streams – say, five folks with guitars who wanted to trade licks rather than four folks watching one person play. I’ve done this with a friend who’s pretty heavily isolated these days, it can be quite fun. The only trick would be to make sure people aren’t playing over each other :smiley:

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#51

I’d say Twitch. Youtube’s UI is maybe a bit more responsive, but you shouldn’t have worries like that with Twitch.

Routing any other audio than OS or game audio in streams is notoriously hard in my experience. Voicemeeter Banana is a program that lets you route pretty much anything and it does work, but the software feels sketchy and it’s not very intuitive.

Streaming DAW audio on Discord (probably other platforms too) is easy by using DirectSound instead of ASIO, but that means there’s a bit too much latency to play anything in realtime.

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#52

Twitch is a nightmare! Also people would have to make accounts to comment on streams.

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#53

I use Voicemeeter and Voxengo Recorder (a DAW plugin) to stream audio to Discord. It works quite well for me.

Voicemeeter Banana allows you to mix different inputs and stream them as a single output, which means that once you’ve got it set up all you have to do is select the “input device” that Voicemeeter provides and folks can hear both your voice and your guitar “amp.” Tommo, this might be an easy way to sort out your audio issues?

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#54

Thanks both! I just tried again a short private YT stream using Loopback (same principle as Banana by the sound of it), and when I played it back the amp sound was there.

So I’m not sure what happened yesterday! I may have selected the wrong capture device at the beginning. Once the stream starts I have the impression you can’t change input devices anymore - which is pretty annoying!

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#55

Thanks for the tip, hadn’t heard of Recorder.

Yeah, I used to stream for my work’s Twitch account and that’s how Banana basically works. I had some invisible routing reset issues that occured every time the computer was restarted, and at first I had difficulties wrapping my head around how it wants you to do the routing. But it can get the work done.

#56

The nice thing about using OBS is that pretty much every single configuration you can think of is supported and probably already figured out.

Using my focusrite 2i2 and OBS I was able to get my guitar > amp > focusrite > OBS and mic > focusrite > OBS setup in a few clicks.

This obviously is assuming you’ve got some sort of single device that supplies at least 2 inputs. However there are plenty of options if you’ve only got your amp hooked up to your PC and would need to communicate via headset or webcam mic. You can stream multiple audio sources.

And yeah I’d second the Twitch thing, with the only caveat being that music play during broadcasts is… ‘in a delicate state of affairs’ right now due to copyright litigation etc etc so, your/our mileage may vary with that using Twitch as the platform. Just something to keep in mind. I’m not sure how sensitive they’d be to me playing 10 second snippets of whatever (poorly) for 30mins lol

#57

I’ll be on in 30 minutes I think (must shower first). I’ll be warming up, 3nps scales, Erotomania, maybe Shawn Lane stuff.

#58

I’ll be typing in what I’m doing so future people (lol) can jump to those sections, so make sure you turn on the live chat feature.

Questions on how to practice using chunking
#59

Tuned in now

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#60

I’ve pondered this a bit. Streams are good for their flexibility, but as ref material they’re blah. If the presenter were willing to do a bit more work, perhaps he/she could film a short summary when the stream is done to cherry-pick and demonstrate the “best” bits, and then post that as a separate thing referencing the original stream.

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