How to do and live-stream a remote music performance with a band
Self Introduction
I’m Nobuyuki Takeda, guitarist of the instrumental rock band LITE, founded in 2003. While performing at various major festivals in Japan and going on tours about 5 times a year with my band, I also work at the company INQ as a consultant of debt financing for startups. You could say that these are two parallel activities for me.
This “note” will be a talk concerning the music side.
The impossibility of doing shows starting with the coronavirus outbreak
The Covid-19 outbreak has forced music venues In Japan to exercise self-restraint from March 2020, and with the recent announce of the extension of the State of Emergency, we can’t expect to have music shows hosted in a normal way before at least the end of May.
LITE is no exception and all our shows, including the ones abroad, have been suspended or cancelled.
We can’t do shows, we can’t do studio rehearsals.
We are currently in a situation where we can’t even get together at a venue to do a live streaming.
We don’t know when exactly we’ll be able to do shows in a normal way again.
In this context, many artists are looking for a way to express themselves while staying at home, and some started to do live streaming performance alone, or to add in a video taken by an other member a movie of them performing.
However, I noticed that there wasn’t any video yet that was broadcasting several people playing live together, simultaneously, from their own home.
That’s when I thought that it would be really great to be able to perform together with the other band members while each of us stay at home, and I decided to commit to the challenge that would answer the equation “video of a band playing at the same time remotely + live streaming”.
As a consequence, no matter that the trigger was half forced, we made it happen.
The video below shows a performance of LITE that was publicly broadcasted on YouTube in real time.
There is some latency in the image, but I think we can say that the sound quality is quite solid.
From what I know, this is an unprecedented live streaming video figuring a band playing together remotely.
The fact that we managed to do that made me wonder about all the possibilities that streaming can open, and I thought it could be of some help to share them with artists and venues. That’s the reason I decided to write this note.
By the way, I need to say first that even if I’m a musician, I’m not that much into technical equipment, so some people who have more knowledge about that might think “Why are they using this method?” or “It’s obviously better to do it this way.” In that case, they are more than welcome to reach out and teach me better methods, in order to help producing live streaming videos of an even better quality.
The choice of tools for “remote band performance video + live streaming”
Well, we’re know getting to the crux of the matter. First, I will introduce two tools for a remote but simultaneous band performance that I have studied..
■ Tools to perform together from different places :
・NETDUETTO（YAMAHA）
That’s the service that we used this time. It exists since 2010.
Thanks to a technology that limits the latency to the maximum, the performance sound is tight enough and the software runs relatively smoothly.
However, as there is no video camera function, this system is not enough to broadcast live images.
・jamkazam（Foreign start-up）
Since this one has a camera function, I decided to try it out. However with that one an audio routing like “Sound Flower” is necessary on your computer to play the guitar through the DAW, and the settings are a little bit laborious. In addition to that, the software is very heavy and freezes a lot, so I deemed that it was not suitable for the purpose this time.
■ Tool for the video :
Since all the members were already familiar with ZOOM, we settled on this one without too much hesitation, but there’s probably no problem using Google Hangouts or any other video conferencing system.
The problems that occured after trying out!
There might be some people thinking : “What if all the members just use ZOOM and perform through it ?”. Of course, that’s the first thing I tried too. But I found out that even with 2 members only, the latency is too high and it’s impossible to have a normal sound performance. You can try that out by using ZOOM on your PC and your smartphone at the same time : you’ll hear your voice with a delay. That’s when I understood that it was necessary to use different software programs for the image and the audio.
The next step was to try using NETDUETTO and ZOOM simultaneously on a computing device. The specs of my Mac didn’t catch up, and a delay showed up both in the image and the sound, making it impossible to play normally. And this is regardless of the fact that the specs of my Mac (Core i7, memory 16GB) are not that low. That’s how heavy the charge is to have both image and sound coexist on the same device.
From the test above, I assumed that a dispersion of the load between devices was necessary. I experimented and finally settled on a system consisting of two computing devices and two audio interfaces.
I prefer to tell you first that it might be possible to have both software run on only one device if you owns one with high specs , at least equivalent to a Mac pro. But most people probably don’t have that at home, so I will continue talking on the assumption that you use two devices. (Though there might not be that many people owning two computers either…).
The hardware, software and connection used for the remote synchronous performance and the livestream
Below are the tools and material that were used this time by me, the host, for the streaming.
Hardware
・Mac Book Pro (Core i7,16GB)
・Windows PC（Core-i7,8GB）（PC or Mac doesn’t matter at all.）
・Audio interface x 2（1 for each device, so 2 in total ）
・Smartphone（as a mic for ZOOM ）
Software
・NETDUETTO（sound performance）
・ZOOM（video camera for the image performance）
・OBS（streaming）
・You Tube（streaming）
・Logic（if necessary）
※ This time, we used GuitarRig on Logic.
Internet environment
・All members : Fiber Optic Internet, LAN connection.
The connection procedure on the host side
The illustration below shows how to connect the system on the host side.
It can look complicated, but it’s basically just about sending the sound from one device to the other device.
(I will leave out here the instructions on how to operate each tool).
① As mentioned before, because the load would be too heavy on one device, we’ll split it between two separate computing devices.
Let’s start from the right of the picture, with the set-up for the Mac. On this device, we need only NETDUETTO and Logic (GuitarRig) to run. Then, we can connect the instrument to the audio interface. Up to this step, it’s the same setting for all members, so at that point everyone can login on NETDUETTO, and we can complete the sync of the instruments through the Mac only.
② Then it’s time to connect the second device by installing the following system : the audio interface connected to the Mac needs to be linked by line to the audio interface that has been previously connected to the Windows PC.
After that, it’s time for the set-up of the PC. We will need to launch ZOOM, OBS and YouTube (as a browser) on this one.
③ First, let’s launch ZOOM normally. It will be used only for video and voice conversation. During the performance, all members will listen to the sound from NETDUETTO, so the mic function has to be cut off at that time. (If not, it will pick up the sound of the instruments and interfere with the quality of the play).
④ Secondly, launch OBS, turn the settings of the video on “Video capture” and have it stream the desktop screen. For the sound, select the audio interface connected to the PC, and confirm that the sound from NETDUETTO playing on the Mac is recognized.
If we leave it like that, the voice conversation won’t be broadcasted, so on top of that, put the desktop mic of OBS on “default” and have the sound from ZOOM recognized. That way, both the sound of NETDUETTO from the Mac and the sound of ZOOM on the PC should be now recognized by OBS.
⑤ Finally, launch YouTube on the PC. It should be possible now to start the streaming on OBS and YouTube !
But as for me, I run into a problem at that point for some reason : as the ZOOM host, my voice only was not recognized by OBS as part of the PC sound, and as a result it couldn’t be heard in the broadcast. So for me, it was necessary to also separately log in to ZOOM from a smartphone, in order to use only its mic. With this method, OBS was able to recognize my voice.
You can see on the picture below the details of the PC set-up.
⑥ The host of the streaming will monitor the sound through the interface connected to the PC.
The connection procedure for the members other than the host
Hardware
・Device x1
・Audio Interface x1
・Smartphone （for ZOOM）
Software
・NETDUETTO
・ZOOM
※DAW（if necessary）
Members other than the host have to launch NETDUETTO on their main device, and join the ZOOM meeting on their smartphone. (ZOOM can be used on the main device instead of on a smartphone, but I think the load is lighter if we split it between a software that works on WIFI and a software that works on 4G).
You can find below an illustration of the set-up for the band members other than the host.
The problems that still have to be solved
・Latency in the music performance
The latency in the sound performance through NETDUETTO depends on the Internet connection of each of the members. A crowded Internet line of an apartment building, for example, could cause some delay that you can’t really do anything about.
・Latency in the synchronization between the sound and the image
A lag in the image in particularwill most probably happen, so the synchronization between the sound from NETDUETTO and the video from ZOOM might not be perfect. To me, it’s within the tolerable range, but you can watch the video at the beginning of this note and make your own opinion about the discomfort or not that you may feel.
・Specs of the hardware
In my case, I didn’t have a computing device with high specs like a Mac Pro, but I had a Mac book and a Windows PC at home, as well as two audio interfaces, so I could try right away. But I’m sure there are some people who only have a device with low specs, or that don’t have an audio interface at all. There are some audio interface with reasonable price, so I think it’s worth buying one and trying it out.
The possibilities that emerge from the remote sync performance system
With the set-up explained above, a band with several members should be able to perform together remotely in sync, and to broadcast it. Once we achieved that, it got me to think about all the other things apart from live streaming that become possible too.
・An alternative to studio rehearsal
Once we succeeded in having the configuration works smoothly, we were able to gather and rehearse on the net 5 days a week to prepare for the live streaming, no matter the corona outbreak situation. It can become an alternative, even if not as good, to the studio rehearsal.
・Writing songs by sharing the screen of a DAW
With ZOOM and its screen-sharing function, we can use Logic or Pro Tools and compose songs together even without being in the same room.
・Streaming sessions with other artists
Without the problem of physical distance, it opens new possibilities to play with artists not only from all over Japan, but from other countries, and to broadcast it.
New ideas for monetization
I’m sure there are many artists that think that just because we can do live streaming, it doesn’t mean we should offer to perform for free. So let’s consider how we can monetize this kind of live-broadcasted performance.
・Ticketing through the platform ZAIKO
No need to introduce the ticketing platform ZAIKO. You can sell tickets for the live-streaming remote performance through this service.
・Utilization of the Super Chat function of YouTube
If you have access to the Super Chat function with your YouTube band account, you can stream your home performance through your channel and monetize it via Super Chat.
If you don’t, you can ask a music venue that has a Youtube account with the Super Chat function if you can do the live-streaming through their channel and share the profits.
・”Online Livehouse”
By participating to the concept of “Online Livehouse” that Mr. Yanai from the company HIP LAND MUSIC has created, you can have a music venue organize a live-streaming where you will perform from home using the Webinar function of ZOOM, and sell tickets via Pia or Lawson, with the sale profits being shared with the venue.
・Limited live-streaming for the subscription fan community
The first time we broadcasted a live performance was actually on LITE’s subscription-based official application “The Room”.
We created “The Room” in September 2019, as a place to offer the close fan community a look into our activities other than shows and music releases. We upload on the app on a regular basis various contents that we think could have some value for our audience, like unreleased demo songs, broadcasts of shows abroad, special performances for the app-viewers, etc.
If we had not created this application, I’m pretty sure we would never have started to do live broadcast.
It’s fair to say that starting “stay home” live-streaming performances is one of the answers that we came up with when we were trying to find a way to keep connected to LITE’s fan community amid the coronavirus situation. We have so much gratitude to all the fans for the power they give us.
Conclusion
We realized with the experiment explained before that it was possible to do a live broadcast at home with a rather simple installation, by using an innovative technology like NETDUETTO and a little ingenuity. And with that, we achieved the demonstration of what probably was, in Japan, the first live-stream of a band remote performance.
I decided to write this note because I thought that, with this quite easy method of band performance broadcast, it could give some new opportunities for bands to perform in spite of the interdiction of shows outside of home during the corona outbreak, and thus, be of some support to music venues’ activities too.
And not only to them, maybe also to the audience that is eager to see the artists they love perform.
It’s just me sharing some little information, but I hope it could be an opener for band remote live-streaming performances to become something common, and for music fans to have a better time thanks to that.
If this note can be helpful to some band members in the world, even just a little bit, I would be more than satisfied.