Streamers with jobs

Oh kazar I too have a Stream Deck and love it, but I usually only use it for muting or unmuting different audio sources. It's so great. My favorite is my "Blow my Nose" button, which turns off the camera and mutes the mic when I press it, and then resumes them when I press it again. Love that damned thing.

Maclintok, this is the video I used to set up ducking with VoiceMeeter. It's made my streams a TON better. Basically it lowers the game volume when you're talking but raises it back up when you stop. It's SO GREAT.

Oh that is a GREAT idea. Thank you!

I use restream.io every day, and I use their event system also every day. I don't have any kind of bandwidth issues at all. I just put the event stream key into OBS and it's off I go. I use a single PC to do everything so maybe I have fewer points of failure.

I also am using a small program they gave me called an Amplifier that has made my streams almost error-free. Maybe ask them about that. I've been using it for over a year now and I either get no or very few seconds of instability per stream.

My Church uses the ATEM Mini but we send the video to Castr, and from Castr it goes to Facebook (unscheduled) and YouTube (scheduled). We don't schedule through Castr, though, but YouTube itself. Any issues we have are usually on YouTube's end, which typically means "pray it will fix itself because you can do nothing".

Congrats!

What is everyone using as an overlay? I'd been using one I customized on player.me for years, and the twitch integration which showed latest and recent followers, as well as instant chat, resubs and all that jazz, well... all that has died, no amount of reconnecting accounts has helped. I tried contacting support, but two days later and still no reply. So I'm looking to make a change, no matter how attached I am to my current overlay. Any opinions, strong feelings either way? On any of the options?

I reached out to an artist to custom create me elements for my overlay, which are very slight. If you want PM and let me know and I can put you in touch with her.

I assume you mean StreamElements Glad it’s working for you.

What's a good solution for HDMI capture these days?

A friend of mine is doing some streaming as a hobby and is asking me about HDMI capture devices so he can get his Switch in on the action. Unfortunately for him I'm using a 4 port mixer that's complete overkill for his needs and don't really know what's what with the simpler dedicated hardware. A quick look at the Amazon Prime Day sales are showing solutions that range from $15-$200, which is quite the spread...

I suspect the latest Windows 10 cumulative updates have completely fubar'd my Wave:1 microphone or WaveLink. The output has been throttled to a barely audible level despite no settings being touched and levels in WaveLink and OBS show normal volume. When I try increasing input or output gain for the mic in Wavelink, I can hear my voice slightly better but also get serious static/degradation.

Yeah, I guess I can try rolling back that last Win10 update but....why? Very frustrating.

An update, or completely uninstall and reinstall the software and driver for the Wave. I haven't had that kind of issue with my Wave 3, but that's what I'd try first in that scenario.

Thanks guys. I’m going to roll back those Windows updates.

I had updated Wavelink to v1.5 as well as the firmware but no dice. Granted I didn’t fully uninstall the software first.

Did a test stream last night and a crazy symptom I experienced was all game and mic audio was being piped out to the stream normally but in my monitors I couldn’t hear any dialogue. Only the dialogue! And the monitoring volume for the mic went back to zero despite working fine during a local recording. It’s all so bizarre.

RESURRECT, EMPLOYED VIDEOGAME LIVECASTERS DISCUSSION!

You know the drill, another week, another streamer
This week it's my turn, I've always been curious about streaming, even thou I may have mocked the odd streamer here and there for a quick laugh in the past, that was simply my inmature, jelous self talking, truth is playing video games for an audience sounds like the coolest hobby in the world and you should all feel really proud of yourself and flip it to the mockers like me out there.

So yeah, I want to learn the ropes and have been doing so all week, till I finally realized I needed a bit of help to save myself some time instead of banging my head against the obstacles I've been encountering on my quest for learning. I have many questions but I would love to receive advice on the best (as in, most adequate for my current begginner's status) option for microphones mainly. I´m currently using a flimsy microsoft quickcam with and while the camera part does its job the mic may be the weakest link on my performance.
Whenever I stream I start trasmitting, start the game and wait while it loads to the main screen menu while checking the actual stream page to see if it's casting properly. This means that I alt-tab from the game to the browser for this and while there I do a small intro that sounds at least audible and understandable. The moment I alt-tab back into the game my sound gets botched (mostly silence interrupted by clicks and cut-off sentences I utter that are barely comprehensible even to me) I have already tried all I've been able to find out on my own to prevent this but still can't fix it, I don't want to go out and buy some fancy microphone in order to realize that it was something other causing these issues all along.

So there, If you have any experience dealing with this type of technical annoyances please let me know, any advice will be mostly welcomed! Thanks in advance

I try to run games in either borderless windowed, or just windowed, mode, so that alt-tabbing doesn't do weird things with the video. If you're only running one monitor, I'd look into adding a second one. You can keep your streaming software, as well as twitch (or whatever service you're using), on the second monitor so it's easier to keep track of what's going on. Same for monitoring chat, since you'll want to be able to easily interact with your audience.

I assume you're using Streamlabs or OBS to stream? I would make a "Stream starting" scene that can run while your stream starts, have the game already running, then switch to a "regular" scene for showing your camera and game. You'll still be able to verify the stream is running properly with the starting scene.

I'm not sure about the specific issues you mention with your mic. Is it built in to your camera (that part wasn't clear from your description). Blue Yeti or Elgato Wave mics are pretty common for streamers who don't need anything too fancy. You can go cheaper on mics but the sound quality will likely be affected. Still, if you're just starting out you don't need to go crazy on the expenses, you just want something that works consistently. You can apply audio filters like background cancelling, noise gates, and compressors to improve what you're working with. Not something you need to do right away (unless it's important to you), but something that goes a long way in making your stream sound a bit more professional.