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Sound Reinforcement - Forums for Live Sound Professionals - Your Displayed Name Must Be Your Real Full Name To Post In The Live Sound Forums => LAB: The Classic Live Audio Board => Topic started by: Caleb Acrey on January 15, 2019, 10:08:51 PM

Title: Live Stream Audio is Quiet
Post by: Caleb Acrey on January 15, 2019, 10:08:51 PM
Hello, my name is Caleb Acrey and I volunteer at my church on the AVL team. I am mostly self taught, however I work in the IT industry.

We use a Behringer x32 Midas. The audio flow is: x32 bus > xlr to USB (behringer u-phoria um2) > Dell PC > OBS. The bus is post fader. The input has GATE turned on some EQ (photo attached).

The issue: sound is quiet (people say they have to turn the volume to max), however I have the OBS maxed where if it is louder it peaks.

I have tested with the fader being maxed vs audio driver being maxed and the result is the same.

Any suggestions or advice is appreciated.
Email: [email protected]

Title: Re: Live Stream Audio is Quiet
Post by: Rob Spence on January 15, 2019, 10:30:51 PM
Set your display name to your real name as described when you registered and people will help.


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Title: Re: Live Stream Audio is Quiet
Post by: Caleb Acrey on January 15, 2019, 11:13:29 PM
Sorry about that . . . My name should be displayed now. Thanks!

Set your display name to your real name as described when you registered and people will help.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
Title: Re: Live Stream Audio is Quiet
Post by: Matthias McCready on January 16, 2019, 01:32:09 AM
Hello, my name is Caleb Acrey and I volunteer at my church on the AVL team. I am mostly self taught, however I work in the IT industry.

We use a Behringer x32 Midas. The audio flow is: x32 bus > xlr to USB (behringer u-phoria um2) > Dell PC > OBS. The bus is post fader. The input has GATE turned on some EQ (photo attached).

The issue: sound is quiet (people say they have to turn the volume to max), however I have the OBS maxed where if it is louder it peaks.

I have tested with the fader being maxed vs audio driver being maxed and the result is the same.

Any suggestions or advice is appreciated.
Email: [email protected]

Ideally you would have a separate individual mixing for the stream, however, this is not an option most places, as a second console is expensive as is paying another salary (or having another volunteer). So the following is what I would recommend, it will not always yield perfect results, but it will enable others to hear.  :)

I presume you are wanting your online streaming mix to follow your live mix. For a better stream I would recommend using a stereo matrix on your board.

What will be sent to that matrix? Your main mix (so that online will follow the changes you make), however, you can also send some busses at it.

I would make a speech bus, and send this hard to your streaming matrix (you can peg it!) This will allow your sermon and worship volume to be the same online. In the house, you can only get so much out of a mic (GBF) so this is critical to getting a consistent online mix.

If you have crowd mics you can put those in a bus and send that to the stream too.

Personally, I bury the vocals a little for a live mix, I like it to be dynamic. In a live environment, this is fine, with lyrics on a screen our perception of vocals is enhanced. For someone joining in on a computer though running vocals hotter is fine, especially since their speakers will probably not reproducing the kit and other instruments in the same manner as your PA.
So to fix this I have a post-fader vocal bus that I have hit the stream.

Finally, for processing on the stream, use EQ. For my stream EQ I cut the very lows (I probably don't need to be sending 30hz to laptop!), I boost 100hz (which I deeply cut out of the kick and bass guitar in the house PA due to a room node), I add around 3khz (which is what I am cutting out a lot of in my live mix). Essentially the goal for the EQ is to balance out some of your mix decisions for your room vs someone's home stereo or laptop. Remember they will be listening at a drastically different volume, in a much smaller space, and with a very different system. EQ usage here should be broad (low Q) and probably +/- 3-6db at most.

Next you will want to compress. While dynamics are great live, laptop speakers and many home systems don't have great dynamic capability. You can use the compressor as a limiter to make sure you are not going to clip (I would use a soft knee) and you can add a lot of gain at this point.

Hope that is helpful, and I know there are some better answers than mine on here. Hopefully, someone more advanced than myself will chime in, also don't be afraid to search the forums I presume this has been covered many times!  ;)


Title: Re: Live Stream Audio is Quiet
Post by: Keith Broughton on January 16, 2019, 07:05:22 AM
The previous post covers most of it but my suggestion is use a post fader aux mix instead of a matrix.
This is an easy way for setting speaking levels and band instrument levels individually.
As for EQ on the aux out to the stream, low cut of -12 db(around 100) is good and a bit of wide band 3.5k boost (+3db)will clean things up for small speakers.
Set your compressor on the aux out to a 20:1 ratio with a 10ms attack and around 100 ms release. Don't be afraid to see 10 db, or more, of compression on the mix to the stream.
Hit the computer audio input to the stream hard, as Matthias suggested.
Title: Re: Live Stream Audio is Quiet
Post by: Joe Pieternella on January 16, 2019, 10:29:53 AM
Any reason you are not using the USB interface built into the board!?

Anywho if your interface really is clipping but people are having a hard time hearing the audio the difference between your average and max levels is too high for live broadcast purposes.

 Edit I kinda missed the post right above so you can pretty much ignore the second paragraph
Title: Re: Live Stream Audio is Quiet
Post by: Caleb Acrey on January 18, 2019, 08:32:13 PM
Thanks for all the feedback! I will have to look up what has been suggested.

I know EQ is based off of a lot of factors, but how does the EQ look in the picture in my original post? Anything stand out as a nono?
Title: Re: Live Stream Audio is Quiet
Post by: Kevin Maxwell on January 18, 2019, 11:39:25 PM
Thanks for all the feedback! I will have to look up what has been suggested.

I know EQ is based off of a lot of factors, but how does the EQ look in the picture in my original post? Anything stand out as a nono?

Any time that you have that much cut so that no frequencies (on the graph) are at 0 that would indicate that if you just lowered the volume (it looks like about 4db) you would get similar results besides the cuts. I don't mean that just lowering the volume is the complete answer. But the cuts are overall adding together to about 4db too much.
Title: Re: Live Stream Audio is Quiet
Post by: Matthias McCready on January 19, 2019, 02:12:42 AM
Thanks for all the feedback! I will have to look up what has been suggested.

I know EQ is based off of a lot of factors, but how does the EQ look in the picture in my original post? Anything stand out as a nono?

That really depends on the acoustics of the room, the sound system, the mic, and tonal characteristics of the speaker.

If you want to be safer (and if you can spare the channel) simply double patch the channel and have one for the house and one for online.

For example one of the places I mix for I cut all the way to 200hz and significantly reduce up to 700ish. It sounds great in the room, very natural, however, take that to another space/system and at a different volume and it sounds thin.

If you double patch you can get what sounds good for the room (and minimizes feedback) while still getting a great feel for online.

Note the quality of the mic you use often varies the approach. For cheap wireless mics (why do they have to exist?!... ok market demand...) EQ is no more than damage control. I stopped by a church a year back that had a wireless system which cost... wait for it. $60 a channel!

While it "worked" it was certainly not pleasant, all that could be done was to minimize the discomfort. With nicer mics and a properly deployed system, EQ can focus on complementing the speaker rather than minimizing faults of the mic or avoiding feedback. Some high-end mics sound great almost as is and need very little work.

EQ for what sounds best, a great way to do this is to set up an extra channel. Double patched to the mic (or whatever else you want to look at). For this extra channel make sure it is not routed to the main bus, this way it will only go to your cans when you hit PFL. The gain and phantom would obviously be shared, however, everything is else is fair game. This is a great way to learn EQ or compression. This way you can hunt for something you don't like without distracting anyone! :-)
Title: Re: Live Stream Audio is Quiet
Post by: Mike Caldwell on January 19, 2019, 08:39:30 AM
If you have them available use a mix out to feed the live stream. Set that mix out to post fade, pre channel EQ.

That way the live stream mix will follow what you do for the main mix. Pre channel EQ will avoid sending channel EQ to the live stream that was done for room compensation like lapel or head set mics, on the other hand give post channel EQ a try as well.

To start with set all the mix levels the same on all channels and then go through and bump up any of the channels that are used for spoken word only.

With a set of headphones with good isolation listen to just the mix feed the live stream and adjust as needed. Once you find and average mix balance it will pretty much track what you do on the mains then.

Take it a step further and set some one up with an iPad, set the mix back to pre fade, put headphones on them and they can mix the live stream live using the live stream mix control. You could also put them in a separate room with a small set of monitors to mix by.

As mentioned earlier you could spit the input channels and then the person mixing the live stream would have full mix control options.

You could do split to a complete separate board.

The options could go on and on.

As for the screen shot of your EQ, if that is the EQ for the live stream feed the high pass and low pass is OK but since with live stream you do not have to worry about gain before feed back I would flatten the mid band cuts.


There was a comment earlier about burying the vocals a little in the live mix......not something I do or like to listen to during a performance!!


Title: Re: Live Stream Audio is Quiet
Post by: Kevin Maxwell on January 19, 2019, 09:57:05 AM
If you have them available use a mix out to feed the live stream. Set that mix out to post fade, pre channel EQ.

I am pretty sure that the X32/M32 don't have that capability. If it is post fader it is post EQ. If it is pre-fader there you can chose pre or post EQ.
Title: Re: Live Stream Audio is Quiet
Post by: Tim McCulloch on January 19, 2019, 01:01:48 PM
I am pretty sure that the X32/M32 don't have that capability. If it is post fader it is post EQ. If it is pre-fader there you can chose pre or post EQ.

This also points to the use of a ^system controller^ to deal with room/system acoustical interfacing.  One should not have to whack the input EQ to make the SYSTEM sound right.  Compensating for crappy microphones is useful for all outputs - PA, overflow/nursery, streaming and recording, but having to twist knobs because the speaker system is funky or the installation of them was done poorly reflects of the lack of knowledge or innate cheapness (not stewardship) of the design.
Title: Re: Live Stream Audio is Quiet
Post by: Mike Caldwell on January 19, 2019, 04:46:54 PM
This also points to the use of a ^system controller^ to deal with room/system acoustical interfacing.  One should not have to whack the input EQ to make the SYSTEM sound right.  Compensating for crappy microphones is useful for all outputs - PA, overflow/nursery, streaming and recording, but having to twist knobs because the speaker system is funky or the installation of them was done poorly reflects of the lack of knowledge or innate cheapness (not stewardship) of the design.

True but then again I don't know that I would want to set up the main system EQ just based on a lapel mic or two unless that's the only input sources.
Title: Re: Live Stream Audio is Quiet
Post by: Tim McCulloch on January 19, 2019, 05:40:43 PM
True but then again I don't know that I would want to set up the main system EQ just based on a lapel mic or two unless that's the only input sources.

Mike, when the problem is a crappy lapel mic any correction done to the input will benefit all audio destinations.  If the operator is hacking at the lapel input because there is a system-room interface issue then everyone except the proximate audience suffers.

You know that already.  Perhaps I didn't make it clear earlier.
Title: Re: Live Stream Audio is Quiet
Post by: Mike Caldwell on January 19, 2019, 06:08:35 PM
Mike, when the problem is a crappy lapel mic any correction done to the input will benefit all audio destinations.  If the operator is hacking at the lapel input because there is a system-room interface issue then everyone except the proximate audience suffers.

You know that already.  Perhaps I didn't make it clear earlier.

Even a decent lapel mic is going to need some channel EQ "love" to tighten up in cave of a room leaving a pre EQ (but post high pass filter) feed or split from that channel generally sounding better in an isolated listening space like someone at home on their computer.

Of course I'm assuming that the room falls more into the cave category than a acoustically treated concert space.
Title: Re: Live Stream Audio is Quiet
Post by: Tim McCulloch on January 20, 2019, 02:48:49 PM
Even a decent lapel mic is going to need some channel EQ "love" to tighten up in cave of a room leaving a pre EQ (but post high pass filter) feed or split from that channel generally sounding better in an isolated listening space like someone at home on their computer.

Of course I'm assuming that the room falls more into the cave category than a acoustically treated concert space.

If you're fighting "the cave" there are other problems that need to be fixed first... one of which might be to determine WHY the lav mic is picking so much room relative to the presenter's voice.

Mike, I'm not saying one can run the lav channel with flat EQ, not at all... but using the input strip EQ to fix what are generally *system tuning and interface issues* is a compromise that fucks everything down stream.  I'm advocating healing, not a band aid.
Title: Re: Live Stream Audio is Quiet
Post by: Peter Kowalczyk on January 22, 2019, 06:43:51 PM
I recently set up an X32 to live-stream performances much like you describe.  The Console has an X-live Card installed, which connects to a Mac Mini via USB.  A stereo matrix feeds the USB outs to the computer, and this stereo matrix can be driven in a number of different ways:

Simple: Send the main L/R bus to the matrix and call it good.  However, this often broadcasts a mix with no guitars or drums, 'cause those signals are very low in the house mix.

More complex / better results:  Set up a stereo Aux pair to feed the live-stream matrix, and then mix your live stream into this Aux pair.  Now you can send your loud sources to the live stream independent of the house mix.

If you're mixing in a large room where every mic on stage is in the house mix, then configuring your aux bus to be post fader makes sense.  However, In a small room where you don't need snare in the house mix (for example), you'd want to make that send to the live stream pre-fader.  (You can do this channel-by-channel in X32, or just make your live stream all pre-fader, and therefore totally separate from the house mix). 

By having separate Matrix pairs for the house mix and the live stream, any 'system EQ' feeding the house PA is NOT applied to the live stream.

Given your low-level issue, I look into the gain scaling of the external USB audio interface.  Someone else recommended using the built-in USB card; I'll second that idea.  Keeping the signal in the digital realm means that full-scale out = full-scale in.  Your current setup appears to have an un-necessary digital -> analog -> digital conversion, which might be causing the low level you're experiencing.  Can you monitor the level within the computer to see how hot a signal it's receiving?