Problems with Qu and presonus doing livestream

[volounteer]

Today there was a problem at church with audio during the livestream.
We feed a PC audio from a mix5 out of the Qu to a presonus interface.
The setup has changed again but I think the video goes directly into the PC;
and then is mixed with the audio via the presonus in a software program,
which I think is now Livestream Producer.

It sounds like a chirping or stuttering of an echoey sound which is new to my ears.
Sort of like a cat trying to meow while it is purring/

I strongly suspect it is NOT a Qu problem but I am asking in case anyone has had similar issues.
And unless it was operator error I suspect it was the software/driver combination in the PC.

All suggestions are welcomed.

[garyh]

Do you have any other sound source feeding into Livestream Studio, such as from cameras? Remove/mute all sound sources at the PC except from the QU.

[volounteer]

@garyh

good tip. thanks.
I forgot about the camera mike.

I will have to see the entire set up next week. This was my first time back and I was watching at FOH as they had made a number of changes and bringing me up to speed for Weds night.

I had considered the pc mike, but the camera also has a mike and that had caused problems on video for uploads so in the past we merged the cd recording onto the video, replacing the cameras sound , for static upload to replay later.

The asst pastor seems to have been drafted during the shutdown to come up with a solution for livestreaming. I am not sure if he really had any background other than ‘kids’ these days seem to know electronics a lot. Earlier when outside the sound was good except for some mikes being weak. That was a limitation with how they had to set it up on a truck bed and not be able to mix on the truck bed used as a stage but had to set and forget the levels.

Inside using the Qu the first week was good except again for some low mikes. Looks like they made a new scene and set all the faders to suit the livestream separately by feeding from a new output on on mix 4. They made other changes to accomodate the streaming too. Had to use the RF lapel mike for livestream, and use the pulpit mike for audience to hear. For some reason [and I suspect a standing wave] exactly where the pastor is speaking (and he is tall) the RF mike has terrible feedback problems. I saw that same problem when an outside group had a show with kids changing mike heights for them as they took turns and one tall kid at the pulpit location raised that mike and instant squeal broke out.

Last week I was in the audience but this week I was learning the changes they had made at FOH and it was this week that they had that funny noise problem.

One clue: I went back and listened to the replay of the livestream and it sounded good when they had put up a technical difficulties placeholder. Continued good for a moment when they switched live to the pastor but then the sound went bad the same chirpy way again.

I do not recall the FOH guy doing anything that could affect it. I did see the asst pastor draftee doing all sorts of stuff on his pc trying to fix things. I thought they had fixed it earlier with the new scene being used. But who changed what to cause the problem is unclear. I suspect the user on the PC is accidentally changing the wrong thing instead of leaving it locked down when the scene had been saved.

[SteffenR]

a good practice would be to listen to the signal after all… I mean stream it back to your position and listen to it
it saves from surprises… (I guess this is poor grammar…)

and you have to make shure that all your times are corrected
that means if video is involved often the devices use more time to process the video signal
and the audio needs to be delayed to match the video again
and since internal mics from video cameras are processed in sync with the video
sometimes the summation of all audio sources leads to strange effects

in some situations you have to add 120ms and sometimes more
@50Hz progressive a frame is 20ms

and to turn off internal camera mics could be agood idea as well

[volounteer]

@SteffenR

Thanks for your ideas on the problem.

I agree , but the video op is the asst pastor and does not have all the skills of most of the sound folks. But he has learned a lot real fast and does almost everything else quite well except for this one problem. I would trust him to run the Qu if we gave him a brief training first so as to show him how we have it set up.

It would take some special effort to stream the video to the balcony where we are.
He did listen to something on his earphones so he should have an idea of what he was sending to the stream. I am guessing he did the best he could as the service was starting and did not want to omit any of the livestream at all.

I considered possible time delays interfering but not sure why it happened this week as previous weeks were okay just low volume. That still needs to be checked and verified.

Good point that our FOH should have had earphones to ensure what he was sending on the mix was good to start with. I had wondered if there was some f/x being added unintentionally but had dismissed that. Would be good to verify that is not occurring.

I had told them long ago to turn off the internal mike on the video camera. But so many people have used that camera at various times it could be changed again.

Your grammar is fine. And I would not correct it on a forum anyway.
Even native English speakers use terrible grammar at times. More so on forums when they don’t take time to review and edit.
There was a time when Russians knew perfect English grammar.
Now they tend to make mistakes, just like the Americans do, only more often. Not sure why that is now the case.
Ask if you ever do want a PM about spelling or grammar privately.

[SteffenR]

can we participate on a live stream?
to have a listen…

or did you have a recording?

[volounteer]

@SteffenR

If I can find a way to cut out a small enough sample I will post it.

Turns out the camera mike was on. Don’t know how/why as it had always been off before.
Nor is it clear why the camera mike is being added to the audio from the Qu unless livestream uses it no matter what.
Not sure if the fiddling did it once, or if it always needs to be disabled again from the livestream program.

Anyway turning off the camera mike IN the livestream program stops it from interfering with the sound from the mixer.

[SteffenR]

if the camera mike was on then it probably was embedded in the video stream from the camera
and mixed together with the audio signal from your mixer

[volounteer]

@SteffenR

That seems to be the case.
We had problems with the camera’s built in mike when we recorded and then uploaded, before any live usage.
I thought they had turned the gain down to zero on the LCD screen options and got past the problem with the camera mike.

So I have no idea how/why the asst pastor had it turned on after he took over the livestreaming job.

It had not been on when they went live on the parking lot. They moved inside a few weeks ago and the first time was fine too.
Then the last two weeks we had big problems.
Last night he decided to turn it off in his livestream software and only use the feed from the Qu, which worked then.

Will the problem come back Sunday with the other FOH operators?
Does it need to be turned off every time you use the livestream software instead of just one time option to do that?
Why didn’t they get that all figured out weeks ago and lock it down and document it in detail before they went live??

[SteffenR]

many cameras hav auto gain activated by default
that means that after a power cycle the mic is on again
you have to deactivate the embedding of the audio into the SDI/HDMI out
or you have to tell your viedo mixer that he should replace all incoming embedded audio with that you are providing

[garyh]

Somewhere in the Livestream Studio software you should be able to block the audio coming from the cameras. We use a Mevo camera for Vimeo live streaming so haven’t used the Livestream Studio software yet. If our church decides to continue live streaming after this COVID mess, I might suggest to them to use it.

[volounteer]

@garyh

thanks

yes, it can, but why they had apparently had it blocked then it got unblocked , and now needed to be blocked again to make it work is a mystery.

I would recommend OBS if you could use it.
livestream does seems to work now that he figured out to shut off the bleeping camera mike.
But watching him use it and the screens he had up make me question the quality of the design especially the UI UX

I tend to think this is operator error but may never find out for sure.

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