Live Streaming!

April 8, 2020

Well, here is a new little piece of tech to learn for me… live streaming!  Let me say this right off the bat, this is going to be a longer post that covers a longer time-frame, as it’s not that kind of project that can be easily implemented in an hour or two… we’re talking weeks, possibly a month, but not because it’s that demanding, but I have a lot happening and many projects in the air. (FUTURE JERRY speaking… apparently, it ends up I finally nail it down in 2 years in 2022… haha!)

Part 1

How did this happen?  Well, I had been watching this YouTube persona doing a lot of live streaming and I would often sit down and watch them in action.  The kind of interaction that a live stream results in is different from the connection of making a video and uploading it… there is a kind of perceived connection there, knowing that almost right that very instant, somewhere on the other side of the province, country or even the world is this person standing in front of a camera and sharing something of themselves. 

A few weeks later, the discussion came up in the Roland FR-8X FB “club” and oddly, at that moment, I thought it would be very interesting to do myself… but how?  I knew nothing about streaming and heck, even if I did share, what would I share?  Well, it turned out that the “what” was the easier part (note I said easier, but certainly not easy overall), but I had to learn the “how”.

Part 2

Saturday March 28/2020 – 4:30pm:
And so the research begins!  Where does one start?  That is easy… YouTube university (haha!).  Within 2 hours I had enough information to make an at least somewhat informed decision in terms of a direction to go, what parts I was missing and what kind of software to use.

I went online and placed an order for the Elgato HD60S.  Within 5 minutes I had the confirmation and by 2:01am Sunday morning, I received an email that the parcel was shipped out by Purolator and should be here before the end of the day.  I mean… come on… this is Canada, we don’t deliver on Sunday, do we?  I fully expect the get the package sometime Monday afternoon. 

Part 3

Sunday afternoon at 4:20pm the white Purolator truck pulls up, drops off a small package, rings the door bell and before I can get to the door, he is in his truck closing the door and 5 seconds later, the truck is roaring off!

I ordered the parts, received the confirmation and toko possession of the package in my hands all in less than 24 hours and paid standard shipping… amazing!

Part 4

Monday March 30, 2020 – Well, I have the hardware parts, I’ve downloaded the 2 pieces of software, off to more video tutorials and do some basic learning and testing.  How to create a very basic setup… what works, what doesn’t… what lags, what doesn’t.

Part 5

Tuesday March 31 – I’ve spent a few minutes straightening the green screen in preparation for the process of setting up the hardware.  Here is the list of hardware that I plan on using:

Roland FR-8X V-Accordion
BK-7m arranger
QSC Touchmix 8 digital mixer
Roland Jazz Chorus JC-160 amplifier
A cheap microphone stand
A Neewer NW-410 condenser microphone
MSI GT-70 laptop computer
OBS software
Elgato HD60S capture device
Panasonic GH5s mirrorless camera
Sigma 18-50mm  F/2.8 v.2 lens w/Viltrox adapter
Cabling for all of the above
Stable internet connection

Part 6

That’s where the project stops… for now.  🙂