My Video Studio Setup

I get a lot of requests for more information on my UStream setup, specifically from other musicians and video producers just starting out. They watch my show and ask me how I get the quality that I do. To be honest, I’m making this up as I go along. For those that are just starting out, however, here’s how I’ve set up my show:

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The Video

Video starts, of course, with a camera. I started with my MacBook’s built-in camera, so all the initial shows were simply a close-up on my head. Not a great visual for a piano show! I moved up to a Sanyo Xacti that Chris Penn gave me. A short while later, I came across my current camera, the Logitech QuickCam Pro 9000. I’m happy with the quality of this cam, though the quality starts to suck at lower light levels. It’s built for web communications, not professional video production.

So to keep things well lit I’ve run two tracks of four halogen spots each across my studio ceiling. The spots are nice since halogen bulbs last a lot longer than regular light bulbs, they provide a nice warm light, and they’re dimmable (unlike CFL’s). When I’m not shooting video, I keep them dimmed down to about 20% to save electricity and set the mood for mixing music.

Once the video signal gets into my broadcast computer, I run it through Flash Media Encoder (heck, right now Adobe’s even pimping UStream on that page). It’s free, so no worries there. Unfortunately, the morons at Adobe haven’t made a Mac version yet, so I have to use Windows to run the broadcast. Hopefully they’ll fix that soon.

Because I have 2 Mb upload speed at the studio, I can crank out video at 640×480, 25 fps, and I can sustain a 500k video stream pretty easily. Unfortunately, a lot of people have trouble keeping that fat a stream alive, so I scale it down to about 350k for the video and it still looks good enough for the web.

The Audio

All of my sound comes through my MacBook and my MOTU Ultralite, both in and out. My mic audio goes in through the Ultralite to the MacBook via Firewire, but they make the Ultralite in a hybrid FW/USB version now. I haven’t tested a USB-based setup yet, but it’s good to know it exists. All of my audio is processed and mixed inside a piece of software called Mainstage, part of Logic Studio. All of my piano and instrument sounds are generated by Mainstage as well, not the keyboard. This is professional-grade music software and it’s Mac-only, but if you can get good sound from a mixer and your own keyboard, go for it. My keyboard it easy enough to spot, an M-Audio Keystation Pro 88.

Because my audio is handled by a powerful software suite, it’s difficult to lay out exactly what I’m doing. Most of my instruments and audio channels use some form of compression, all of them have EQ and panning applied, and the output channels have some mastering plugins applied (multiband compression, limiting, EQ). I’ll tell you right now I do not use pitch-correction for two reasons: it’s lame, and it introduces way too much latency to be useful. I can tell you, however, that I use UStream’s recording feature to sound-test my setup before I start broadcasting. Hit record, play through a song, then listen to it and make changes to the mix as necessary.

Since I move around a lot when I perform, I prefer a headworn mic. I’ve used a Sennheiser wireless setup for years now and it hasn’t let me down yet. I’m sure there are better-sounding mics out there, but I’m happy with what I’ve got thus far.

Once I bring that audio into the broadcast PC, it’s compressed to an MP3 stream (sorry, I can’t remember the bitrate, but this one’s not hard to figure out through a few sound tests).

That’s it. There are better ways to set this up, I’m sure, but this is what I’ve been running with for months now. Hopefully that helps some of you put on a better show, let me know if you have any questions or suggestions!

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