Livestream audio

Master Front of House and Livestream Sound

Difference between Front of House and Livestream Sound

FoH 

• You’re mixing for one Speaker system.
• Your room has a natural reverb.
• You’re listening at 88-90 dBA.
• People only listen to your mix once.

Livestream

• You’re mixing for an almost infinite amount of Sound systems.
• You have no reverb, it’s completely dry.  (Headphones)
• You’re listening at 70 dBA.
• Every mistake is audible 

Problems you’ll encounter in Livestream sound

• It’s too quiet, especially while driving.
• It feels lifeless. 
• Just sounds off.
• No consistency. 
• It doesn’t closely sound like FoH.

How to improve FoH and Livestream sound.

1. Get the source right (60% of improvements can be made here)

Improve mics, keys, drums, New guitar strings, better timing, vocal training, etc

2. Improve your Mixing (20-30%)

Hi pass and Lo pass filters

Gate 

Compression

Eq

Stereo Panning (very important) 

Add Reverb and Delay

3. Get your sound to 2.0 the last 10-20% 

• Vocal tuning 
• de-essing
• Digital audio is clean but not musical.

Start using analog emulation plugins.

For FoH use LiveProfessor 2 or Waves SoundGrid

If the mixer doesn’t have vst’s integrated. 

Livestream use a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation)

4. “Master” your mix 

“Glue” Compress the master bus

Use multi band compressor

Lastly add a limiter to normalize your mix. (The clear coat on your paint)

Tips and tricks

Place your PA system correctly for even coverage and stereo setup. 

Add acoustic treatment to your Room if needed.

Eq your room for a “flat” response. 

Walk Around the Room while mixing

Make Space for Every Element

Keep Your Focus on the Big Picture

Connect Your Audience to the Mix

Use Your Ears, Not Your Eyes

Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance

Trust your Sound Check, Don’t ride the faders, only fix what needs fixing (Like a solo).

Requirements for a DAW live stream.

FoH console or a Analog Digital converter with

• USB (extenders not recommended)
• Dante (cat 6) 
• AVB (cat 6)
• Waves SoundGrid (cat 6)
• AES50 to USB (cat 6 to receiver)

Studio Monitor or Studio Headphones

Acoustically treated room (Not really required for headphone mixing)

PC or Mac with 

• 3.0Ghz quad core CPU minimum (you need a high clock speed)
• 16 GB RAM minimum
• SSD for Multitrack recording,

Tip – always keep your CPU Ram and Internal storage under 50% of use. Or you will experience problems.

DAW with a Mixing template

• Logic Pro, Pro Tools, Reaper, Studio One

Plugins (Built in, Free or Paid):

• Gain
• Drum replacement 
• Auto tune
• Compression 
• Eq
• Reverb and delay 
• Limiting, etc