SLMC

Tabitha_Oxide · Joined: 24 Nov 2007 Posts: 167 Location: Southeast Michigan

I have officially given up now after I have in fact successfully fixed several issues.. at least... I think.

MikeTodd Nitely a new musician to the SL Scene but a long time RL friend of mine i drug into here got started not long ago. He comes to my home and we push him through to Second Life with the hopes of a good quality performance.

We have been plagued with bad grounds, blown sound cards and trying to get feedback and a mess of other things including levels sorted.
Two shows have been done and both had their issues. Lets fill ya in on what happened and where we are at currently. Grab some coffee.....

THE STORY:

First night.. Used the sims stream which was controlled by the sim owner.
On and off it sounded ok. Periodically got feedback and staticy sound. Amplifier started smoking and we discovered that the ground plug on the extension cord was snapped off. Replaced the cord and smoke stopped.
Amp survived the trauma. Show went on however intermittent static and fadeout became regular. Checked all cord connections and on Computer we were plugged into relized the input was loose and had to be "twisted" in the socket regularly to keep a solid connection. After several times of this the sound card fried and we quickly patched into another computer we had with onboard sound card.

We were plugging into the Mic Input by the way which i guess is not good.
Heres the equipment and the line of connection we were using....

Winamp With Shoutcast Plugin.
Input: 44100hz Stereo
Encoder: 128kbps /44100hz Stereo
Mixer settings: Mic ticked - 1/8th from bottom

Guitar line out 1/4" into a "California Blonde" Acoustic Instrument Amp.
Patch Chord is Mono not Stereo (1 black ring on male ends)
Microphone: SHURE SM58 into Amp "Mic Balanced" input.
Amplifier output: 1/4" Headphone Jack - Patch Chord (mono) to a gold reducer to 1/8" Stereo into the Mic Input on the sound card.

*That WAS the way we were hooked up*
*Now on Show 2*:

Show 2: (last weekend)
Same hook up accept we had our own stream. And we ran it on a separate computer than what was used to log in Avatars.
(cable internet)
Same settings on the stream, same connections however it never
came in clear in world to the point where we ran dry.
Unhooked the guitar and only used the Mic to pick up vocals and his playing but still sounded like staticy crap.

ZERO distortion on the amplifier and knob levels were way low.

*ADDITIONALLY*: We plugged headphones into the headphones jack to see how the sound signal was comming out of the AMP.. It was beautifully clean and how we would expect it to sound in world.

After crying for several hours after the last show I set out determined to figure out wtf.

I moved my Roland Keyboard to the computer room determined to test this on the stream in world thourally till it sounded right.

*HERES how Im setup now*:
(I tested through the amp and direct into the sound card "LINE IN" this time and not the MIC input.)

Same winamp settings.. ACCEPT not stereo using mono.
128/44100 mono
44100 mono

TWO TESTS:
1)
Roland 1/4" mono out to amp instrument input.
1/4" mono patch cord to gold adapter reducer 1/8" stereo to LINE IN on sound card.

2)
Roland 1/4" mono out to gold adapter reducer 1/8" stereo to LINE IN on sound card.

Sounds clean in world with 1 acception that is mind numbing.

I hit the A key once every second 4 times to test the stream.
Comes into world very clean BUT....
Instead of the KeyStroke being every second its double the speed.
However... the note itself is not a pitch higher like running a tape at faster speed.

After I play about 5 seconds... the stream catches up inworld and cuts out.
What the hell is that!?
I cannot figure why its speeding up the playing when it reaches in world.
Note presses are double speed, time in between notes are double speed but yet the NOTE itself remains the same.

Any suggestions from start to finish on all this?
_________________
- Tabi

Zak Claxton · Joined: 16 Oct 2007 Posts: 2008 Location: Podul/33/243/154/

Tabs, you guys are making this WAY too complicated.

Sigh... I don't have time to write this now, but (blush) I have a degree in audio engineering and have done countless studio and live sound recordings. My most basic advice: stop trying to run everything direct into the computer.

1. Mic the guitar amp cabinet. Keep it far enough away from you that you're not getting feedback.
2. Mic the voice.
3. Run both mics into a little mixer.
4. Run the mixer into the computer audio interface.
5. Monitor yourself in phones.

More later.
_________________

Pixel Frog · Joined: 26 Nov 2007 Posts: 22

Ok, you know the stretch of wall I've been beating my head on. I've been keeping everything mono and patching everything through the line-in. You really have to watch your volume, though, because I think it's easy to overload the db and that might be causing your goofy results coming out the other end. I'm also keeping the bit rate consistent all the way through, if your pipe is going to be 32kbs, you don't need 128kbs to start with do you? Are you streaming at 128kbs? EDIT: as a matter of fact try doing that, something in the readme file was saying your announcement file had to be the same bitrate as your stream in order to play right, or something like that. It might be effecting your timing.

I really think Zak is right, a mixer is a must because I could get my electric to pipe through ok, drowned out my drum loop but my acoustic just didn't have the power to drive any kind of stream that can be heard. It was only faintly heard and I had to hammer on it so hard I couldn't hear if it was coming out of the speakers. My amplifier is a 3 channel Peavy KB100 that might serve the purpose, that's next on the agenda.

Right now I have my BOSS ME-50 acting as my amp, with a line out to the line in on the sound card. I have my pocketpc running Griff sequencer patched into the line-in on the ME-50, so it's streaming a drum loop through. But I have no mixer control to speak of.

However, Zak, not everyone has a sound proof studio to do this in, I myself am struggling with how I'm going to do voice in my living room with the kids knocking around, the bird squawking for attention, etc., etc., so open mics on the equipment aren't going to work for me. I've seen others talking about the same types of things, I myself want a direct patch into the PC without open air between my instrument and SL. And that's not EVEN getting into what kind of mic you want to get to mic your equipment.

My other problem is it's difficult to assess the results in-world with my own viewer. Maybe we can get together at your club and troubleshoot together?

Tabitha_Oxide · Joined: 24 Nov 2007 Posts: 167 Location: Southeast Michigan

Thanks Zak I appreciate your advise and hope to corner you to get this sorted. I dont have a mixer. 6 computers networked, Studio Mic with that type of odd connector, Amp, keyboard, great sound system and 3 cats.

Somehow.. we have to lock this down. Smile

SOUND CHECKS:

Anytime anyone wants to do tests..
I openly offer the Hard Rock Stream,
as its commonly vacant unless we have
musicians on stage. So...

With that being said..
Im always around so anyone come
on by for sound checks as desired.
And feel free to pinch me to your friends lists.

ON MY END:

I have several computers on the network and most are connected via KVM switch so its easy for me to test streaming on one computer rig and hearing the results moments later on my main computer.

But still.. I cant figure out why im having this sped up thing with my keyboard playing!?
_________________
- Tabi

Pixel Frog · Joined: 26 Nov 2007 Posts: 22

Yeah Tab, I have 2 computers networked but I still can't get the media stream on the other PC so I'm relying on my tester friends to tell me what they hear.

I'm still thinking that speedup thing is you have your encoder bit rate set too high, knock it down to your stream bit rate and see if that helps.

Norris Shepherd · Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2007 5:18 pm Post subject:

Hi Tabitha

.. please see Zak's comments. Smile

I'm NOT a sound engineer, but i suspect that if you ask any SL musician who has a sound that you enjoy, they use a mixer of some sort. I've asked a bunch already (want to know what mixer Max uses?)

Nothing fancy... just a basic mixer. Maybe http://www.musiciansfriend.com/pr...Compact-4Channel-Mixer?sku=630156) or something from Radio Shack.. so long as you can get a 'line out' from the mixer to the 'line in' on your computer.

Try to cut out as many variables as possible.

To test the stream.... leave ONE computer on your network, shut the others down. DO NOT open second life. Stream to the shoutcast server. Open Internet explorer and type the shoutcast servers address in the address field (http://192.0.0.2:8080 or whatever is the address for your stream). Then click on the 'listen' link on the top of that site. Make some noise on guitar/mic for 30 seconds until the stream starts to play. If the stream plays normally...... then you know the problem is probably SL related. If the stream doesn't play normally... well more troubleshooting on the stream...

Hope this helps some... Smile

Pixel Frog · Joined: 26 Nov 2007 Posts: 22

Thanks Norris that was just what I needed for testing. I saw that bit about opening up the URL in the browser in the documentation but I neglected to try it.

Zak Claxton · Joined: 16 Oct 2007 Posts: 2008 Location: Podul/33/243/154/

Tabitha_Oxide · Joined: 24 Nov 2007 Posts: 167 Location: Southeast Michigan

Ok mixer.. im on it..

BTW... got the keys to stream normally after a restart of that rig.
Some kinda hiccup with winamp im guessing.
All sounds good so far using the keyboard as a tester instrument to inworld. Thinkin we need to get on that mixer before we sound check Mike again on the guitar and Microphone.

I think all our heavy issues were trying to slam all this feed into the weenie Microphone input on the back of the sound card. Impedence anyone? I said Impedence not impotence so relax.

Thank you all very much thus far! Wink

_________________
- Tabi

KTravanti · Joined: 10 Oct 2007 Posts: 219 Location: SoCal

I have my Korg connected to a mackie DFX-6 mixer connected my computer. I have two mics.. one for my flute and one for voice. I am still tweakn the sound.

I really need to put at zapper on my mixer.. sometimes little hands tend to mess up the settings and when I do soundchecks ARGH! lol...

Its easy set up no muss no fuss.
_________________
When Words Are Not Enough
http://www.koritunes.com
http://www.myspace.com/korilinaec
http://www.ktravanti.blogspot.com