Using A Second Life Stream To VJ Live On YouTube

Using A Second Life Stream To VJ Live On YouTube

By   08:47:00

Setting up as a DJ in Second Life is something many residents have done, but what is less common is using a Second Life stream to VJ on YouTube. For those that may not be aware VJ means visual jockey and refers to someone who in one way or another creates imagery to match the music they play. In spite of the lack of Second Life residents who VJ it is something worth learning and maybe bringing in world.

VJ Software

In order to VJ some software is needed. Firstly there is the stream that can easily be rented in Second Life, then there is the software to play the music. All DJs will be aware of these two items but to VJ add to the list music visualisation software and something to broadcast live to YouTube. 

One last thing you'll need is a verified YouTube account that is registered for live broadcasting, which usually takes about 48 hours to set up. To start go to your YouTube account and click on the movie camera icon and select Go Live, then follow the instructions.

Plane9 

There are many music visualisers available, some free and some commercial, but a good starting point for a new VJ is the free Plane9, and for that reason we'll be using it for this tutorial. Plane9 is intended as a music visualiser for music played on a PC but when used with broadcasting software its possible to connect it with YouTube Live. Also, Plane9 can act as a screensaver for those that like such things.

OBS Studio

OBS Studio, or Open Broadcaster Software connects to the music visualiser then streams the imagery to YouTube. As with all software mentioned here, there are alternatives to OBS Studio, but since its free and works very well, this is what we'll be using for this tutorial.

You may have noticed that there are two streams involved here, one for the music and another for the imagery. OBS Studio could be used to stream both but in order to stay within YouTube terms of service music should not be streamed to its platform. Instead we're going to add a link to a Second Life music stream, which will be explained later.

Using The Second Life Stream To VJ Live On YouTube

Assuming you've downloaded and installed the software already mentioned, and your YouTube account is verified you can now begin to VJ. First, start up your music streaming software then follow the instructions below.

Starting Plane9

1/ Start up Plane9. Under the list of software installed on your PC there will be three choices for Plane9. Select Configure Plane9.

2/ When Plane9 is running it will look something like the image above.

3/ To the right of the window will be a list of playlists. Hit New Playlist tab.

4/ In the main window area there are different kind sof visualisations. Some are Foreground visualisations....

Some are background visualisations....

And some are transitions. A visualisation in Plane9 will be a random combination of foreground and background imagery and a transition will determine how Plane9 moves from one visualisation to another. Therefore a playlist should consisit of as many foreground and background visualisations as you like, plus a number of transitions.

To add any of the above to a playlist click on them in turn so a tick to the lower left of each thumbnail is circled in green.

5/ Once you've finished selecting, double click on the playlist name to rename it.

6/ To run a playlist, hover the cursor over its tab and click the screen icon that will appear.

7/ A new window will open showing the visualisations, which will randomly change. They should respond to music playing on your PC. This window can be quite large so you may want to resize it by dragging its edges. Since there is no option to stop it being always on top of other windows it can be useful to drag it to the corner of the screen.

Starting OBS Studio

1/ When OBS Studio starts it will look similar to the image above. We want the Plane9 image window to appear in the main area of OBS Studio so it can be broadcast. To do this click on the + icon, highlighted in red, lower left.

2/ A window as above will open where you can name the source. In this case Plane9 will be the source. Click OK when done.

3/ There will now be three drop down menus to make selections from. In the first select Capture Specific window. From the second menu select the Plane9.exe window, (which may also show the name of the visualisation that is running). In the third menu, Match title, otherwise find window of same executable has been chosen. Hit OK. The Plane9 visualisation window should now be visible from within OBS Studio.

4/ If the visualisation doesn't take up the entire viewing area click on it so a red border appears then drag it until the whole window is filled.

5/ The above image shows how the visualisation should appear once dragged to fill the viewing area.

6/ To be sure OBS Studio does not broadcast any music to YouTube click on Settings to the lower right of the main window then in the window that appears select the Audio tab. Now make sure all audio options are disabled, as in the image above Click OK when you're done.

Connecting OBS Studio To YouTube

Now that OBS Studio is up and running all we need to do is connect it to YouTube so that what appears in the OBS viewing area will be broadcast live.

1/ Go to your YouTube channel and click on the movie camera icon.

2/ Now hit Go Live.

3/ Since we're not using a camera you should see a message like this, but don't hit Exit.

4/ Towards the lower right of the same screen should be the above button. Click this.

5/ The above information will now be visible. Drag the cursor over the Server URL space and copy it.

6/ Back in OBS Studio, hit the Settings button to the lower right of the main window. In the new window that opens select the Stream tab. Make sure Custom Streaming Server is selected in the very top drop down menu.

Now paste the Server URL we copied from YouTube into the URL space. Keep this OBS Studio window open.

7/ Back in YouTube, reveal the Stream name/key and copy it. Hide it again so no one can see it, since anyone with that key can broadcast on your channel.

8/ Back in OBS Studio, paste the stream key in the Stream key space. Now hit Apply then OK.

9/ Towards the lower right of OBS Studio is the Start Streaming button. Hit it when you're ready.

10/ In YouTube you should now see something like the above with a green live streaming button to the top left. The stream may not show immediatelly on YouTube, so refresh the page if you need to.

Linking To A Second Life Stream 

Since its not wise to broadcast music on YouTube, a work around is to paste a link to your Second Life stream on the YouTube live broadcast page.

1/ Paste the URL of your stream into your browser so you see something like the image above. Right click on the Listen tab and select Copy Link Location (the wording of this may change depending on your browser) from the drop down list. 

2/ Add some info about the live stream to the appropriate area on YouTube and paste the link to your music stream. Now when anyone clicks the link a window similar to the above will open allowing them to listen to your music whilst watching you VJ live.

Thats essentially the basics to getting started VJ-ing with a Second Life stream on YouTube, and although there is more that can be done whilst VJ-ing, this will be covered in later tutorials. 

As a final note to those concerned that VJ-ing on YouTube during a Second Life DJ set may cause lag, the above image shows my frame rate during a recent VJ test. In fact streaming to YouTube at least in this instance didn't seem to affect Second Life at all.

Below is a vid showing a recording of a test VJ session of YouTube, sadly with no sound, but it gives an idea of what can be done.

Good luck with your own VJ sessions and come back for more tutorials soon.

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How To Add A Radionomy Station In Second Life

How To Add A Radionomy Station In Second Life

By   11:20:00

Usually when a Second Life club has closed for the day the last DJ will add an internet radio station to the land setting or select one from a Shoutcast board for visitors to enjoy. With Radionomy it is possible for either club owners or DJs to run their very own free and legal internet radio station and have that play instead.

What would the advantages of this be? Well, firstly it looks professional to visitors and helps to raise the status of the club. Secondly you can add jingles for the club, the station will help raise the profiles of the club and its DJs, and a player for the station can be added to the club website. Also, Radionomy will add the radio station to many directories including iTunes, Shoutcast, Sonos and AppleTV, so your club and radio station have the potential to reach a much wider audience.

How To Add A Radionomy Station In Second Life

Before playing their own Radionomy station in Second Life a DJ or club owner will need to set this up, and whilst describing how to do this is beyond the remit of this tutorial Radionomy has plenty of information on how to do this. There is also a pdf manual that can be viewed and downloaded here. In the meantime any of the Radionomy stations can be added to the club, and here is what you need to do.

1/ Select the Listen link to the top of the Radionomy home page. To the left of the page that opens will be a list of music genres for you to choose from. The image above shows a small selection.

2/ After a genre has been selected a list of available radio stations will appear. Click on a station to select it.

3/ A page will open for the station. To the top left will appear something similar to the above. The image on the Radionomy page can be clicked on to listen to the station.

4/ To the top right are more options. Because Radionomy doesn't display the url of its radio stations we'll need to find it for ourselves, which is quite simple. You may be lucky however and find that if you click on 'Listen to this station in your media player' a new browser window will open from which you can copy the radio station url. Usually however you'll need to follow the steps below.

5/ As indicated above the first thing to do is click on 'Listen to this station in your media player'. The above window will open. Make sure Save File is selected then hit OK.

6/ The file will now need to be opened in Windows Media Player since this will make it easy to grab the stations' url. Open the media player then select the library view by clicking the group of four squares towards the top right of the player.

 7/ Under Playlists to the left of the player you should see the name of the Radionomy station. If not close the media player then navigate to where you downloaded the file from Radionaomy then double click on it. It should now be added to the media player.

Click on the name of the radio station and to the right you should see a list something like  the image in step six. Right click on one of the items in the list then select Properties from the drop down list.

Under the Files tab drag your cursor over the part of the url that includes the name of the radio station (underlined in red, above). Everything after and including the question mark can be ignored. Right click on the highlighted text and select Copy.

Playing the Radionomy Station In Second Life

1/ Now that we have the radio station url, playing it in Second Life is the same process as getting any radio station to play in world. You will of course need land permissions to add a station to a Second Life location. Firstly click on the i to the left of the land SLurl at the top of the viewer.

2/ The Place Profile window will open. Scroll down using the scroll bar to see the About Land button, then click it.

3/ In the About Land window that has opened select the Sound tab and paste the Radionomy station url in the space provided. The station should now play in Second Life. Keep in mind however that not all radio stations play 24 hours each day, so if you don't hear anything check the station's times on the Radionomy website.

Thats all there is to playing your own (or any) Radionomy station in Second Life. Enjoy your new Radionomy station and sharing it with friends and club patrons.

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How To Improve The Quality Of Sound From Your Mic

How To Improve The Quality Of Sound From Your Mic

By   09:33:00

Almost anyone who has been to a club in Second Life would have experienced a DJ or live performer who could hardly be heard on mic, or their mic quality was just generally poor. As this can be very off putting for listeners, this tutorial will offer a few tips on how to improve the quality of sound from a mic.

So long as you have a reasonable mic (not necassarily a high quality one), this tutorial should have something useful for you.

Although this tutorial is primarily aimed at Second Life DJs there is something here for anyone who uses a mic, including all online DJs, Skype users and anyone doing video voice overs.

There is also a video version of this tutorial on our new YouTube channel, or you can view the video at the bottom of this page.

Windows Settings

 The first thing to do is check Windows mic settings. To do this follow these simple steps.

1/ In the systems tray to the lower right of the screen is the sound icon. Left click on it and a small window similar to the above will appear. Select Recording Devices.

2/ The above window will now appear where you should see the active mic under the Recording tab, (assuming its connected to your PC). The blue bar to the right of the window shows its active. Double click on the mic icon.

3/ In the new window that opens select the Levels tab.

The first sliding setting adjusts the microphone volume. Here its set to 100%.

The second slider will boost the output of the mic. Here its set to 10dB, but the other two options are 20dB and 30dB. To find out what is the best setting for your mic, you'll have to experiement a little.

When you're ready click OK and the settings will be saved.

VoiceMeeter

 VoiceMeeter is a great little application that is pay what you want (or free if you don't want to donate), that is easy to install and set up, and can make a big difference to the quality of sound from your mic. Once its downloaded and installed on your PC, reboot to complete the set up. Now open VoicMeeter to configure it for your mic.

1/ Under Hardware Out to the top right of VoiceMeeter select the A1 tab and a drop down window will appear, similar to the above. Select the audio output you use for your PC, with the MME option. In the above image MME: Speakers (Realtek High Definition) has been selected since its the default on my PC.

2/ Under Hardware Input to the top left, select the microphone settings. Two microphones can be connected but we're just going to add one, so click the first drop down tab, (highlighted in red, above), then select the default microphone input for your PC.

Unlike the output settings, here we'll select the WDM option, so my microphone setting becomes WDM: Microphone (Realtek High Definition).

3/ Now that the mic is connected to VoiceMeeter, the sound output can be configured. Towards the lower left (highlighted in blue), M is mute so make sure you uncheck that.

Uncheck A (highlighted in yellow) so you can't hear yourself on mic immediately through your speakers or headphones, and leave B checked. You will now only hear what is said on mic when it has been streamed (i.e, you'll hear what you say on mic when others hears it).

The area highlighted in red is where the sound output of the mic can be manipulated. Grab the orange square and drag it to different parts of the darker area to see how it affects the mic output. The two most useful areas will likely be the lower right and the lower left.

The position of the orange square shows the setting I chose for my mic. To help demonstrate what VoiceMeeter can do, the first audio clip below shows what my mic usually sounds like, and the second is what my mic sounds like with VoiceMeeter.

Mic without VoiceMeeter


Mic with VoiceMeeter

Connecting VoiceMeeter to Streaming Software

All streaming software will configure VoiceMeeter differently, but the basics will be the same. Essentially you'll need to find where your mic connects to the software and replace it with VoiceMeeter.

The above image shows VoiceMeeter connected to Mixxx. Here is how it was added:

1/ Under Options > Preferences select Sound Hardware.

2/ Towards the bottom of the window click the Input tab.

3/ Under Microphone 1 select VoiceMeeter from the drop down list, then click OK.

After setting it up with your DJ software don't forget to start up VoiceMeeter before you start streaming.

If you need to improve the sound quality of your mic, checking the Window settings will be a good first step. Following that, installing VoiceMeeter should also give your mic a boost, and should help to make using your mic a much better experience for both you and your listeners.

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