Hi I am the “computer guy” of a little church in italy (50 people), for almost 3 months we have been live streaming but we are willing to upgrade the audio equipment because now we are using my phone and the webcam as microphones.
now the problem is:
i want the drum and the guitar to go into the mixer and be sent to the back speakers so that people in the back can hear the music too and sing at the right beat.
i would plug the mixer in my pc too to use it as surce for my live stream but at this poin the people connected would only hear the instruments because we do not have a singer, instead all the church sings along.
my idea was to buy a cheap chorus microphone to be positioned on the cieling, facing the audience so that it could send the voice signal to the live stream but doing this the singing would be heard from the speakers too creating a bad effect.
i do not know how to solve this problem, if someone of you would help i would be very gratefoul.
also sorry if i wrote something wrong but the i do not know evry “technical” word in english, feel free to correct me and ask for more explenations
I would usually contract someone for audio as it’s different from IT and, because they live and breath XLR, speakers, and mixers, they can help a ton with picking the right equipment and configuration for your budget and your room.
The most dead-simple way to get audio to a live stream from a mixer is to use the headphone preview on a mixer… we usually supply that output to wedding videographers and whatnot because it’s the least prone to issues. If it has some form of selectable PFL that is pre-slider that might work but it’s dependent on getting the gain right and won’t be fantastic per se but it’s relatively simple. This is also our backup if our video switcher were to go down we feed a mobile device over a Rhode Wireless Go II (Tx on headphone preview and Rx on the mobile device… often need an adapter for that too).
I’ve always had a bad time with ambient and probably would avoid doing an ambient mic for 50 people if possible… but if you really want to do it, make sure that ambient isn’t coming out the mains… as you’ve surmised, you’ll have a really bad day with feedback loops if ambient is coming out your mains. In digital mixers you can usually select the routing, but it isn’t simple per se. Allen & Heath SQ mixers have grown on me and they have a USB audio out… but they are definitely for pros and I wouldn’t ever call them simple.
Going from no audio system to a multi-mix multi-bus multi-mic solution is a pretty huge leap. I’d suggest going back to the start and refining the problem you want to solve before you start picking out specific gear to do it. We all love our gear, but the important thing is actually the objective.
Topic One - Live Stream Audio
How much of a problem is the current audio for the stream? How much cost or effort is it worth to improve it by 10%, 30%, 50%? If the room audio is good, then chances are you could make a lot more noticeable difference by upgrading to a standalone professional camera with higher quality, larger microphones. For streaming, something off the used market that does 1080p would be a great value option combined with a quality capture card.
If the room audio isn’t good, then let’s talk about that separately.
Topic Two - In-Room Audio
We really can’t get into specifics for solving room audio issue without a lot more details about, well, the room and the audio. Typically, someone who specializes in AV will have the appropriate measurement equipment and experience to discover what problems the room is causing and what different technologies can improve upon.
Topic Three - Using one system for two mediums
Most mixers have a concept of multiple mix busses. The technical implementation of this is relatively straightforward, but the implications aren’t. Mixes are never “set and forget” and having two different outputs on one board is quite cumbersome from a monitoring and management perspective. For a small audience it’s unlikely staffing two mix engineers is worthwhile, so often mic-ing the room is a lot better option, combined with fixing the in-room audio.
