What tech do I need for quality FB Live

[JackB1]

I'd love to join in if you can send me the meeting address via private message

Originally Posted by martingitdave

Zoom can work. I’ve already hosted 3 open mic sessions with Zoom and I’m hosting another one tomorrow night. There are a number of tricks and tweaks that can help. Most of our attendees are in the same larger metro location, so that helps. It’s not ideal, but adequate. I assume you know only one person can have their mic active at a time. The key to hosting is to be quick with the mouse and the participant’s mute buttons. Knowing how to secure the meeting helps too.

[slewis]

Originally Posted by DavidE

I did one last week. I plugged into my Bose S1 which was off camera to the side of an iPad. Several musician friends said it was the best sounding audio they’ve heard and they’ve watched a bunch. I did have the reverb too high on the vocal though. I’m doing another show on FB Monday. iPad was a recent 5th generation regular iPad. Nothing fancy.

That's exactly what I was thinking of doing, too, with my S1 and a guitar & vocal, into an iPad. Were you using the iPad mics? I'd think that would work pretty well as long as you don't overdrive the mic, and that shouldn't be too hard. Was also considering a mid-value mic like a Snowball....

[Methos1979]

Originally Posted by Chriscom

Responded to a new thread about this, and thought I'd copy my reply here:

I'm now trying this, which means I ordered it but who knows when it will get here

https://www.guitarcenter.com/IK-Mult...#productDetail

Looking forward to see if this works for you. Assuming you ever get it. I ordered something from Amazon Prime yesterday and got a delivery date of the end of April. Yikes.

[El Conquistador]

Originally Posted by JackB1

How did you capture vocals and guitar with the one mic?

I simply plugged in the mic, set it in from of me on my desk and played. That mic, along with the Zoom tweaks worked very well.

Steve

[martingitdave]

Originally Posted by El Conquistador

I simply plugged in the mic, set it in from of me on my desk and played. That mic, along with the Zoom tweaks worked very well.



Steve

Bingo. Same for me.

[Rudy4]

Tons of folks getting into streaming now...

Don't miss reading Doug Young's "A Guitarist's Guide To Live Streaming:

https://acousticguitar.com/a-guitari...ive-streaming/

[JackB1]

Unfortunately I have a slow laptop and need to connect with my iphone

Originally Posted by El Conquistador

I simply plugged in the mic, set it in from of me on my desk and played. That mic, along with the Zoom tweaks worked very well.

Steve

[Chriscom]

Originally Posted by Methos1979

Looking forward to see if this works for you. Assuming you ever get it. I ordered something from Amazon Prime yesterday and got a delivery date of the end of April. Yikes.

Yeah, I had to hunt around for a source with a faster estimated shipping time and that store now says the iRig2 is backordered with expected availability in mid-May. It's B&H Photo. They're based in NYC and while I didn't know if they were shipping from there, I didn't touch the package for three days.

I was lucky--ordered it March 23, shipped the next day, got it within a week if not less.

[Methos1979]

Originally Posted by Chriscom

Yeah, I had to hunt around for a source with a faster estimated shipping time and that store now says the iRig2 is backordered with expected availability in mid-May. It's B&H Photo. They're based in NYC and while I didn't know if they were shipping from there, I didn't touch the package for three days.

I was lucky--ordered it March 23, shipped the next day, got it within a week if not less.

Sweetwater said they are expecting them in this week so I ordered from them. Maybe I'll have it by next week. Keep me posted on yours.

[Chriscom]

Originally Posted by Methos1979

Sweetwater said they are expecting them in this week so I ordered from them. Maybe I'll have it by next week. Keep me posted on yours.

We have so many threads on this now I forget where I posted this info--probably in this thread since I started it--but long story short it works as advertised, in my case sending mic and guitar pickup into my VE-8 and sending that into the iRig2 and then into my Samsung Galaxy S10e, and from there into FB Live. I switched from my gigging Sonitone equipped Martin to my GPC-28E where the higher-end pickup made a big difference. More testing to come, I still don't have the levels where I want them. The audio is not audiophile quality partly because Lord knows what FB does to it, but it's not bad either. As stated after I do a FB event for my friends this weekend I'll post an excerpt here.

[Methos1979]

Originally Posted by Chriscom

We have so many threads on this now I forget where I posted this info--probably in this thread since I started it--but long story short it works as advertised, in my case sending mic and guitar pickup into my VE-8 and sending that into the iRig2 and then into my Samsung Galaxy S10e, and from there into FB Live. I switched from my gigging Sonitone equipped Martin to my GPC-28E where the higher-end pickup made a big difference. More testing to come, I still don't have the levels where I want them. The audio is not audiophile quality partly because Lord knows what FB does to it, but it's not bad either. As stated after I do a FB event for my friends this weekend I'll post an excerpt here.

I know what you mean. I've been bouncing around between this thread and mine, so just keeping it to those two to limit the confusion - mine and everyone else trying to follow this.

I'd seen a few posts and got a few tips from others that while the iRig2 was okay, the iRig Pro was much better. Of course it's also nearly 4 times the price at $150. But I found one used in mint condition on Reverb and made an offer that was accepted so I'll get that one and cancel the order for the new iRig2 since it wasn't coming in anytime soon. I'll hopefully have the iRig Pro sometime next week to test then. In the meantime I'm going to try a few more live stream tests on Thursday as well. I'll post my results to my own thread. If the quality is good enough on the streams and shows the differences I might even put some links to the streams.

[Chriscom]

So I did my FB gig, and it worked, with some adventure.

Now that I've played it back, I judge the sound acceptable and will be looking to improve. I got some super compliments on the technical side of it, I think aided by the fact that lots of folks are using their smartphone mics which can't compete with the Rode NT1-A I planted in front of me--which was not my original plan. One of my friends played it through his very nice living room sound system and he thought the reverb had a nice, pleasing light touch, which is what I was going for.

The chain was Rode>Boss VE-8>iRig2>Samsung Galaxy S10e>FB Live. The Rode was my input for both voice and guitar. My original plan was to have a separate mic (a nice EV) for voice and then using my Martin GPC-28E's very fine VT Aura Enhance or whatever it's called. In that setup, the guitar and voice sounded fine separately, but when I sang while playing, the guitar volume went way down. I wonder if it's some Facebook compression algorithm. Regardless, running out of time I had to toss plan A and go with the Rode.

Which was fine. But more wrinkles: I was monitoring with headphones out of the VE-8, and that lush sound was nothing like the thinner result on FB. I expected that to some degree, but also the reason I was monitoring out of the VE-8 is, I couldn't get a signal out of the monitor on the iRig2 itself. This made if hard to judge balance, but not a deal killer. Operator error or some other glitch.

I'm going to experiment with my T1 Tonematch and see if that eliminates the guitar-quashing I had with separate mic/guitar inputs through the VE-8. It also has better tone-shaping ability, though over FB the difference may not be noticeable.

I'll try to post an excerpt and if I can't I'll just post a link to the FB stream, which I left open to the public.

Update: Here's a excerpt. The video quality is a little worse than what it was on FB, but the audio is the same. I cut it out of the FB download in NCH Videopad and it looks fine there, so who knows.

https://vimeo.com/406998487

[Methos1979]

Great update, Chris. Your experience and results pretty much mirror mine with the iRig2. I haven't updated on my thread yet as I'm still waiting on a few more pieces of gear but I'll share what I've done/found so far. I received my iRig2 from Sweetwater in just a few days. The iRig Pro coming all the way from Hawaii was delayed and is due today. So I did a bunch of testing on Friday and Saturday with just the iRig2. I was initially planning on taking the signal straight out of the EAE mixer but then realized I could also take it straight out of the Bose S1 Pro line out and it should be the same. I've got the iRig2 going straight into my Samsung Galaxy Note 8 mobile phone.

I didn't have a set of headphones to listen via the headphone out of the iRig2 because everything I have here is bluetooth so I had to do a few quick tests (record a few seconds and play back) to set the level. We had the S1 in front of us in the monitor position set to a decent but not overly loud level and with that volume I found that setting the iRig2 gain to just under half worked well. I'm looking forward to the iRig Pro which has a gain led that will take the guesswork out of that. We then recorded several test videos to both Facebook Live and also just to my cell phone camera's video record. Audio sound was pretty good but a little sterile sounding, which I admit I expected to be the case.

I think the problem with recording direct off of the mixer or amp line out signal is that you lose that ambient room noise and so while you certainly hear a good, clean sound of the guitar and two vocals it just seems to lack that natural live sound that quite frankly is what we're going for in a Facebook Live performance, right? So the test we'd done previously with just the Bose S1 Pro placed directly in front and below pointing up at the phone mic sounded a little better from that perspective. I found your iRig2 video clip to be a little better than our iRig2 test probably because you recorded both your guitar and voice into the nice mic but then into the VE8 and then directly into your Samsung via the iRig2. So while you did get a little of the room ambiance, you didn't get a lot. Hence, better than mine but still lacking just that certain something.

This leads me to my next test. I got to thinking that the iRig Pro will not be all that much better if I set it up the same way - taking the line out signal straight into the Samsung. But what if instead I get a really good live sound from the Bose and then record that with a really nice mic to try to get the sound we're hearing in the room? Now, I don't want to spend any more money for what will essentially be the occasional FB Live or video recording but there seem to be a few options out there that don't break the bank. Then it occurred to me that I have a son who is a professional soundman so I texted him. Long story short he's going to hook me up with an AKG c414 which is like a $900 mic and I guess quite the recording mic!

The iRig Pro is due today and I'll get the AKG today or tomorrow so I'll plan on messing around a bit on Wednesday or Thursday and update after I test my theories out. I'll do a quick blurb here and then a more full A/B review either on my thread or I might also do a whole new thread so the title is more searchable for the iRig2 and iRig Pro. Stay tuned.

[Brent Hahn]

Originally Posted by Methos1979

I think the problem with recording direct off of the mixer or amp line out signal is that you lose that ambient room noise and so while you certainly hear a good, clean sound of the guitar and two vocals it just seems to lack that natural live sound that quite frankly is what we're going for in a Facebook Live performance, right?

Maybe sorta right. I think home-brew folks in general have a bit too much of that "natural live sound," and would benefit from working in more acoustically dead spaces. I say this to my friends and it's, "but I love the natural reverb in my kitchen." Which, I think, translates to "I want the sound of my voice disguised as much as possible."

[Chriscom]

Originally Posted by Methos1979

Then it occurred to me that I have a son who is a professional soundman so I texted him

Now he tells us, hah!

No seriously, thanks for the responses. My sense is there's a rate of diminishing returns when improving the front end before the signal gets sent into FB, but no question there are better results with devices like the iRig2 and at least a decent-quality signal chain in front of it.

My Pittsburgh friend who liked the light reverb at first thought it was my room ambience. The more I listen to the show, the more I'm likely to keep doing it this way even though I'll experiment as noted above. Although the quality of the guitar tone varies, there are moments when it's wonderfully woody and airy like that little bass-note climb-down I do (like five notes), much of which I would lose if I were drawing signal from my guitar pickup. And my voice/guitar balance is better than I thought, naturally. It helps that the Rode NT1-A is a high-quality condenser, used in some pro recordings even if it's not top of the line.

Anyway keep us updated as things develop.

I think home-brew folks in general have a bit too much of that "natural live sound," and would benefit from working in more acoustically dead spaces. I say this to my friends and it's, "but I love the natural reverb in my kitchen." Which, I think, translates to "I want the sound of my voice disguised as much as possible."


No doubt lol!