Streaming Events
Audio Technique
There are a number of things you should consider when working with audio in streams. The first thing is that in 90% of all streaming situations the audio is more important than the video. If the video is corrupted in a stream then if the audio is good then the audience can follow what is going on. For this reason it is really important that you spend the time getting clear and crisp audio.
Onsite Audio
When working in conferences often (but not always) there is an audio technician with their very own sound desk etc. This person generally looks after the sound in the room, all the mics, the sound from laptops, video etc. In this situation you want to get the audio from their sound desk to your stream. However, often the volume in a room varies a great deal, and while this might be suitable for an auditorium (the audience can hear the quiet noises clearly) this is not so good for the person sitting at home listening over the stream. Ideally you want to bump these quiet signals up for the online audience. Additionally, you also need to control the really loud noises as these will create distortion in the stream. There is also a need to limit loud noises specifically for the person listening at home - if you can imagine sitting at home with headphones on and the moderator accidently drops the microphone (a common occurance). While these kind of sounds are unpleasant for the onsite audience, for the person at home wearing headphones this will be extra irritating.
So, there are two ways to deal with balancing the audio. The first is to get an audio mixer and keep an eye on the audio levels at all times. Manually jocking the input levels will better ensure that sound in the stream is more or less even. However this method is not very effective at catching sudden loud sounds.
A better way is to use a compressor/limiter. This hardware has the specific purpose of 'squashing' the sound and making it more even. It does this automatically so once set you only need to keep an eye on it and adjust periodically.
If you have a compressor it is still a good idea to have a small audio mixer. You can use this, for example, to tweak the audio signal if the sound coming from the audio technicans desk is too low or too high.
Multiple Streams
When having parallel streams from to different rooms, it is advisable to balance the audio levels of both rooms so when people that is following the event remotely wont need change their local settings everytime they switch from one stream to the other.
Questions
Remember to have a second microphone in the room, so when the session for Questions and Answers begins there is a way to have good sound quality from the audience.
Tips
- If in any case the sound quality is poor, or non existant, inform the audience of the streams via the credits. Avoid cutting the stream unless is really necesary.
- Try to be sure the presenters have the microhone well attached or near enough and that he or she is aware of using it properly. In case they talk far from it, just try to remind them in a friendly way about its use.
- If you are running out of time during a set up, remember it is more important to get good audio than good video, so spend more time on ensuring the audio is right.
- Always monitor the audio from the outgoing stream via a player which is receiving the stream from the server.
- If you need to plug in or swap audio cables make sure the audio levels for the stream are turned down otherwise your audience will hear all the scratchy nasty sounds of cables being plugged/unplugged. This is another good reason to have a separate audio desk connected to your set up.