With most of the world locked up at home due to the Covid-19 outbreak, more and more people are looking to live stream on all the popular social networks. But, not everyone is a seasoned techie when it comes to sound and video. We have compiled 10 tips to get you started and easily improve your live streams from home! Whether that is a live gig for your followers, a book club for your friends, or a work conference call, these tips will help you improve your setup for you and your viewers.
Author: James
James is a freelance Sound Engineer in the East of England. He works for a variety of companies specialising in different sectors of the industry. james-cook.me
QLab – 02 – Preparing a Mac
Background Tasks
A Mac, like every other computer, has things going on in the background. Even when you are scrolling through facebook, the Mac OS will be busy in the background checking for updates, syncing to iCloud etc. If you are using your Mac to play back audio cues that need to be played back flawlessly on time, you don’t want your Mac to be thinking about doing something else. Luckily, there are a few things you can do to minimise this happening.
QLab – 01 – Introduction
What is QLab?
Qlab is an application that runs on Apple Macs. It is a playback engine designed for the entertainment industry. This series will go through Qlab being used in a theatrical settings, but it can just as easily be used in other live event and broadcast situations. QLab is designed to be highly customisable and programable, enabling you to run complex shows from a simple push of a ‘go’ button. This tutorial series will be using QLab 4.
Speaker Systems
Introduction to Speaker Systems
Most speaker systems will use a simple “Stereo” system. A speaker on the left, and on the right of the performance area. This has the effect of making the sound come from between the two sources. Sounds like a good plan? Well, only when you are the same distance from each speaker. If you are off to the side, sound will arrive at different times from each speaker. This coupled with being closer to one making it sound louder means the stereo effect is lost on most positions apart from directly between them. Sometimes the fact that there is one on each side is for coverage purposes. If you have a stereo audio track with instruments or voices panned hard left and right, you may not hear the intended track if you are not in the firing line of both speakers.
Microphone Pickup Patterns
Where to point the microphone?
Different microphones have different pickup patterns. These patterns are 3D but can be represented on a type of graph called a polar plot. This type of graph lets you see a slice of the pickup pattern from different angles to give you an idea of what the pattern looks like. The other issue is that the pickup pattern often varies with frequency – so there will be multiple traces on the polar plots to show you what shape its pickup pattern will be at different frequencies. Why have different pickup patterns? Because different microphones can be used for different things. You might want to only pickup sound from a certain direction, and reject sound form others. You might want to put the microphone further away from a sound source and still pickup a good level from the source.
Number 1’s 2’s 3’s and beyond
Sound Team in a Theatre setting
It takes a lot of people working together to successfully put on a large show. On a musical where the majority of the cast are mic’d and there is a band of some sort, you would expect to find at least 2 people working on the show day to day; Sometimes a third on a busy show.
Midi Time Code (MTC), Qlab, ETC Ion
The Aim
So, the aim of this little project is to run Midi Time Code on a Qlab machine, in time with a music track, and have cues fire on the lighting desk at set points in the music track. Read More
Midi, Qlab & ETC Eos
Overview
Recently I have been working on a show at a theatre that is basically a game installation. There is a game that has been developed that runs in the space. The audience generate data and at the end of the game it gets displayed on the screens. This part of the show uses OSC commands to communicate between various macs dotted around.
Fault Finding
Fault finding is a brilliant skill to have. The best at it are those who take a step back and think outside the box – so as not to waste time on something that is less likely to have a fault. Oh and btw, it’s always the jack lead. (that the guitarist has bought with him) Read More
Microphones
How does a microphone work?
A microphone is a type of transducer. It converts sound pressure waves into electrical signals that can then be manipulated and amplified. Different technologies are used in different types of microphone to pickup the sound pressure wave. Some are better at picking up different frequencies compared to others and are therefore more suited to particular jobs.
