As I've said in previous blog posts, I'm helping produce a live podcast. Today I spent several hours looking into a good platform to live stream the podcast to. Usually when I stream gaming I use Streamlabs. But since this will be a live podcast with more than 2 people on screen at once, that won't be as easy. I need a way to show several people on screen, and I considered using Discord or Zoom, then sharing the screen to Streamlabs. I need Streamlabs to add overlays and transitions for the livestream, but then another platform to host the call on. Then I stumbled on Streamyard, which lets you call people with video just like Zoom, but you can also livestream it to Twitch, Youtube, Facebook, and other big platforms. 

I tested Streamyard with my brother and we both went on a call together. I then cropped the 2 little boxes with out cameras out in Streamlabs, then added a background and moved the facecams a bit to make a nice looking layout. 

So far everything is working great, I'll be writing more blog posts on the process!

In one of my recent blog posts I talked about working for a new podcaster, Gideon McManus. I recently went on a call with him to talk about how the show will be run. 

The podcast will be livestreamed daily to Twitch.tv, and including video. There's about 10 people on the staff/team to help with the podcast, all editors or co hosts working on their own segments such as interviews and news. Some days will be different segments with different hosts, and other days with other segments and hosts. I'm a backup host in case someone can't make it to their segment (and I might get a segment to host with another guy, but that's not certain yet.

Once the livestream is finished, it's my job to convert it to audio and run it through leveling, compression, de-essers, etc. After that I will upload it to all the podcast locations like Spotify, Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, etc.

Yesterday I went to a church to meetup with the ensemble to record them. I brought a laptop, cords, 2 microphones (Rode NT1-A and an Audio-Technica AT-2020), and my audio interface, Behringer UM2. 

I started by creating a multitrack, then turning on recording for the first track. I can enable recording on all of the tracks if I want, which means when I press record it'll record onto all of them. For now I only want it on 1 track. The lead singer, a bass, started first. I plugged the headphones into the interface so he could hear himself back, as well as the instrumental music while he was singing. After he finished singing, it already had him recorded in sync with the music. Then after that we recorded each other singer, then lined them all up.

I sent the files to the lead singer, and he's gonna edit them since some parts the singers were a bit off beat. Once he's finished he'll send them back to me and I'll edit them with de-essers, compression, leveling, etc.

Tomorrow I'm going to a church to record a small ensemble of singers. Some of them are in the same choir I'm in, so I've been friends with 2 of the leaders for a while. They know I have recording equipment and software, and for a while they've wanted to record themselves to post it to Youtube. They invited me to where they meet up to practice to record them. I'll be there for around 2-3 hours, and we've decided to record either each singer separately, then combine/mix them. I did a tiny bit of research about producing vocals, and it's a lot harder than I expected. Once I get the recordings, I'm gonna be in for a lot of learning how to edit with leveling, compression, de-essers, and so many other effects for voices. Editing vocal music is very different than the other type of editing I do. 

Many streamers and youtubers create discord servers for their fans. With discord servers, you can create as many channels as you'd like for different things. One could be just for chatting, another one for chat debates, or another for video games. You can control who can speak in which channel, so sometimes for a channel that might be for announcements, you'd only want the owner or admins to talk there. You can also add voice channels where people can use their microphones to talk with their voices. You can join with your voice at any time, whether there's only 2 other people there or 20 other people in it.

I created my own server for my viewers that can join from my stream by using a command in my chat. The command gives a link to the server, which sends an invite to join the server to their discord account. Anyone can join, unless they're banned by me or an admin or moderator. I have about 7 roles, and the main ones are the "mod" role, "VIP" role, and "subscriber" role. I have a channel for chatting, a voice chat for talking, another voice chat for minecraft chat, a rules channel where no one can talk in, but I have a lists of rules for the server in, and even a channel for alerting the members when I live stream.