With the changes in the world due to Covid-19, musicians and producers like yourself have had to alter the way they reach their audiences. Here at Pyramind evolving is at the core of our methodology so in this post we breakdown how to stream or broadcast high quality audio to every streaming platform.
There are multiple ways to do this and many platforms to take into consideration so let’s get started. Be sure to use the index to find the platform you are specifically interested in.
If this article is helpful please share it with your friends, bookmark it in your browser, and make sure you’re on our email list so that you can receive more relevant information like this in the future. We will continue to update this as technology changes in order to keep you sounding great on every platform. Let’s get started.
How To Stream High Quality Audio Overview
In general, there are a few ways you can send audio over the internet. At the most basic level, you can open your streaming platform, use the built-in microphone and start playing a song live and it will reach the other end but in a very poor state.
In order to make the audio actually pleasing to the ear there’s a few ways to improve your sound.
1. Use a better microphone and audio interface.
If you’re a producer in any shape of the word, then you most likely have some type of external microphone and USB interface. You can easily assign that microphone and device to send audio to your platform (platform specific instructions below). Some platforms have a setting that will send higher quality audio like zoom.
2. Send the audio through your daw and out to a plugin or platform
This method might require a plugin, changing program settings or “hacking” something else together.
In order to best help you figure out the setup that is going to work for you, we’ve broken it up between desktop and mobile operating systems.
We’ll start with desktop.
Desktop
High Quality Audio on Zoom
In the most recent update (version 4.6.12) Zoom has added a functionality under settings > audio > advanced > called “Original Sound.”
By checking the box that says “Show in-meeting option to “Enable Original Sound” from microphone,” you’ll see a new option in the top of your video window in a meeting.
By enabling Original Sound it bypasses the audio codec designed for speech. This is useful because the computer will not manipulate your signal thinking the sound needs to sound like a person talking.
In addition to utilizing Original Sound, ideally you would be using a high quality audio interface and microphone to give attendees an un-tampered with clean audio chain.
Broadcasting DAW audio over Zoom
The above method works great for anybody playing acoustic music or singing acapela but what if you want to send your DAW audio straight to your zoom guests? There’s a sneaky little feature you can utilize by sharing your screen with attendees.
First go to your web browser and log in to zoom, then visit your account settings and make sure that stereo is enabled. There’s a lot of settings to dig through so just search for “stereo” and it should bring you to that section. Once you find it, make sure stereo is enabled. This is an option for both paid and un-paid accounts.
Second go into your zoom desktop app’s settings > audio and select the box that says “Enable Stereo.”
Third you want to go to your daw and choose settings > audio > output to Zoom Audio Device.
Finally you’ll click “share your screen” in Zoom and click the box in the bottom of the share dialogue box that says “share computer sound“
Using Audiomovers LISTENTO
Audiomovers.com have an easy to use plug in you can put on the master fader of your DAW. Designed to stream audio signal from DAW to web-browser session or to a Listento Receiver. Listento allows real-time streaming of several lossless and compressed formats. The Plug-in is available in VST, VST3, AU and AAX formats. To start using the Listento plugin just select the track (Audio or Instrumental) and put the Listento into an empty insert slot.
- Log-in using your account settings;
- Set session name;
- Copy Link of your session and send it to your client;
- Click Start Transmission button to begin streaming.
High Quality Audio on YouTube & Facebook Live
In order to send DAW audio through Facebook Live and YouTube Live on your desktop computer, the best thing you can do is learn a tool called OBS.
What is OBS?
Open Broadcaster Software, more commonly known as OBS is essentially, just that. Software for broadcasting. However, the whys, whats, and hows are a little more complex.
Essentially what the software is doing, is aggregating multiple sources inside of separate scenes that can be transitioned between to mimic traditional broadcasting. Let’s start with an example: In my case, when streaming alone, my OBS will have a few sources that are found in most scenes: my webcam, my microphone, and my logo.
In this scene, you see me (through the webcam), you hear me (through the mic) and you see my logo (imported from my computer). OBS then aggregates all of these assets into one item and then uses RTMP (real-time messaging protocol) to transmit that stream to an ingest platform (something like Twitch, Mixer, YouTube Live, etc).
If you’re interested in improving your live streaming audio as well as visual, then you should get to know OBS. Click HERE to download and learn more about this open source project.
Mobile and Tablet
High Quality Audio on Instagram Live
The number one way we’ve found to send audio from a computer or audio interface into Instagram to broadcast live is by using an iRig2 from IK Multimedia.
This little device allows you to send a line level input into your phone’s 1/8″ jack or lightning port with the lightning adapter dongle. At the time of this writing this device is currently sold out at most online retailers but you can still get one within a week when you purchase directly from IK Multimedia above. Check out the videos below for more information on how this works.
If you like to hack things together a little, we found another creative way to send HQ audio to Instagram live using an interesting app called YellowDuck. This tool may be against Instagram’s API so use this at your own risk, but essentially it allows you to stream from your desktop computer to Instagram. It does this by routing your signal through YellowDuck’s server, essentially making Instagram think your desktop is a mobile phone.
This trick allows you to send an OBS feed from your computer to Instagram which would really set you apart on IGTV in a sea of low quality streams.
Conclusion
Obviously technology is always changing so we will be updating this post as we discover new and creative ways to stream HQ audio. If you’ve discovered any other ways to pull this off that we’ve missed, please email news@pyramind.com and we’ll update the post. Now go make some new fans!
iRig2 Streaming Video Tutorial
OBS & YellowDuck.TV Tutorial
