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Setup USB Mixer on a Mac

It’s very easy to use a USB Mixer with StreetJelly.com. Anna Laube shows how it’s done in the video with her Behringer XENYX Q802 USB mixer on her Mac.

  1. Plug in the USB
  2. Click on the “Settings” icon
  3. Choose “Sound”
  4. Click on the “Input” tab and choose the USB device

That’s it. The StreetJelly player will see the mixer as the default sound device and use it when broadcasting.


USB Mixer Setup on Mac

Many thanks to Anna Laube for making the video. Check out her music, it’s fantastic! www.AnnaLaube.com

Record your Performance while Streaming

Special guest blog by Tom Rule from Macon, GA.
Tom Rule

Tom Rule

StreetJelly is, of course, all about live performances. The user agreement even has a requirement to never use a recorded performance when streaming. But it says nothing about performing live AND recording the live performance! […….and even Frankie said it was OK!]

After getting a few StreetJelly performances under my belt, I began wondering if I could do just that – record a performance at the same time it’s being streamed on StreetJelly. I have a website of my own over at http://www.tomrule.info where things are for sale, and I thought a video might make a useful marketing tool [youtube, anyone?].

My parents would probably like a copy as well! They did pay for all those piano lessons……

This is one of those things that might be useful to know that (A) it CAN be done, and (B) HOW it can be done….at least on a Mac. [If you run Windows, see below!]

So the idea is to have ONE webcam streaming live out to StreetJelly AND have the computer taking the SAME audio and video streams and saving it to a movie on the computer – which you can then ship up to youtube, burn to a disk, email to distant relatives, or use the video to scare off small rodents and annoy your neighbors.

QUICK NOTE ON MY SETUP

I’m a keyboardist AND an audio guy, so it really doesn’t work for me to put up a mic when streaming – I get MUCH better audio running the keyboard into the computer. I’ll use a mic to talk to the audience – it and the keyboard audio feed into a little Mackie mixer, which plugs into the audio interface [an old M-audio Firewire Audiophile]. I’m using an iMac that is a couple of years old…..so it is NOT the “latest greatest”.

I’m using a Logitech webcam, although this would also work with the builtin iSight camera.

HERE’S HOW

You’re going to use your web browser and Quicktime Player.

1. Surf over to StreetJelly and setup your broadcast as normal. You can go ahead and start broadcasting, or just keep it on the test screen for now – it doesn’t matter.

2. Fire up Quicktime Player – it’s in the Applications folder.

3. in QT Player, select File–>New Movie Recording.

4. In my case it automatically selected the webcam. If it doesn’t, then click the triangle in the bottom area of the window and select the correct video and audio sources.

There are some other settings there as well … quality levels, where to save the file, etc. If you don’t know what something does do a test and see what happens.

5. Click record.

That’s it!

6. When done, click the record button again to stop recording, and then stop the broadcast. My version of QT Player will actually upload to youtube from within the application – so the performance can be on Youtube pretty quickly after it is completed!

WINDOWS?

From some cursory research it appears that there are a couple of programs that will allow this same thing to occur on Windows. You can either get a program [ManyCam is one] that creates a “virtual camera”….i.e. you select the “virtual camera” in the settings in Flash and whatever program you are using to record [your webcam probably came with some recording software].

In this scenario Camera talks to Cam Software [i.e. ManyCam] which then splits the video/audio out to StreetJelly AND your recording software.

It is also possible that you have an app like Quicktime Player that will work in a similar fashion as on the Mac – where you just fire it up, select the camera, and it works.

There are waaaaaay too many variations of Windows to even begin writing about it – my suggestion is to try something and see if it works. Just another piece of technology magic that allows us to create in our living rooms/studios/barns/wherever!

Thanks Tom!  Do forget, everyone, put your YouTube channel in your StreetJelly artist profile so we can all get a link to your videos.  ~frankie

How to Video – Simple USB Mic and Cam Setup

StreetJelly musicians Merv and Amanda from ImageAndFamily demonstrate the Samson Meteor Mic USB Studio Microphone and a Microsoft Life Cam for use on StreetJelly. It’s very simple to get a clean sound and clear video with these easy to use products. You don’t have to be a computer geek or sound engineer to get up and running quickly on StreetJelly.

 


Got any questions? We’d be happen to answer them. Add them below…

Ideas to Increase Your Profits On StreetJelly

Special guest blog by Amanda Crann from “ImageAndFamily”

Online Busking Tip MoneyI think that every artist who joins StreetJelly has one thing in common, the love of music. We all love playing and performing the tunes that move or inspire us and we all want an audience to watch and enjoy our music. Luckily we have all found a wonderfully encouraging community of artists and music lovers here.

My family and I have been fortunate enough to find a measure of success on this site and we wanted to share some of the tips and tricks that have worked for us. There are a lot of do’s to be successful here and just a few don’ts:

Do’s

Be Creative – You don’t have to be the most talented musician/singer around to make money, but you have to let the passion you feel for your music show in everything you do – every time you’re on.

Be Entertaining And Engaging – Talk to your audience, get them involved in conversation and remember that you are performing for their entertainment.

Practice, Practice, Practice – If you want to be good, you’ve got to invest your time in your craft.

Promote Yourself – Use Facebook (your personal page and StreetJelly’s page), Twitter, free printable StreetJelly flyers (available here) and word of mouth to let people know when you’re performing.

Promote Other Artists – If you would like other people to talk about your shows, make sure you talk about theirs.

Have A Good Audio/Video Setup – Fuzzy images and poor sound detracts from the performance and will make attracting and keeping an audience harder. (You can find StreetJelly how to blog posts and videos to improve your sound and video) If you’re not sure how your broadcast is coming across, don’t be afraid to ask your audience.

Be Courteous To Performers – If you don’t like what someone’s playing or saying, just leave the room.  If you think someone is being inappropriate, let StreetJelly know so they can handle it (contact page).

Be Family Friendly – Remember, there are viewers and artists of all ages, so try to keep your language clean.  F-bombs and other such language will definitely lose you viewers.

Be Supportive – Tip the artists that you enjoy watching, and if you are unable to tip support them with applause and positive comments.

Get To Know The Other Artists – There are some awesome people on StreetJelly.  Get to know them, watch their shows and join in the conversations while they’re playing. Artists love to know who’s watching them.  If viewers are enjoying the music, and the more active you are on the site, the more people will want to check out what you are doing.

Read The Blogs – The StreetJelly blog offers great information for new and experienced performers and is a great way to keep up to date on the craziness that is StreetJelly.

Don’ts

Play Just a Few Riffs – Learn whole songs, the audience will get bored of hearing only bits and pieces.

Miss Scheduled Performance – If you schedule a show, try to stick to it.  If for some reason you can’t make the scheduled time, post a message on StreetJelly’s Facebook page to let people know that you aren’t going to be able to go on.

Drive-by (Steal other Performer’s Audience) – Popping into another performer’s show just to say you’re going on is rude and disrespectful. If you want to mention that you’re going on, wait until the performer is wrapping up their show.

Steal Another Performer’s Thunder – Use your discretion when scheduling your shows, you will find that you can attract more viewers by following another act or opening for another performer (just be courteous to the other artists).

Have more Do’s and Don’ts?  Add them below in the comments.  ~frankie

No, You Can’t Upload a Video

Can I upload videos and mp3s to my profile?
No, you may not!

Did we just break the cardinal rule and say “no” to our customers?  I guess so.  But I’m not really the type to do what everyone tells me to do, anyway.

We’ve been asked a few times at Street Jelly if an artist can upload their videos and mp3s to their profile.  When an artist is not performing live, understandably, they would like their repertoire of songs and videos to be easily accessible.  We can totally agree with this.

But at the same time, Street Jelly is about LIVE performances.  We don’t allow musicians to broadcast recordings, presumably over and over, to put up some kind of tip jar filling machine.  There is a craft to entertaining the public for tips.  The great performers do it for the love, and the tips come naturally.

We thought long and hard about adding the ability to upload files to a Street Jelly profile.  Our decision was to stick to our guns about LIVE music and not allow uploads.  After all, there are plenty of websites out there for uploading videos and songs.  The last thing we want to be is yet another place on the web where musicians feel obligated to put up their “store front.”

We also believe that the delivery of music will fundamentally change again in the near future.  Digital downloading, piracy, copyright infringement, etc. has made one big unsustainable mess of things.  But one fact hasn’t changed – we humans love our silly love songs.  And we will be seeking that love by any means practical.  (Note I said “practical,” not free.)  It’s our guess that people will seek live music more and more for its true entertainment value.

So Street Jelly is not a digital uploading / downloading site.  Hurray!  We do what we can, however, to help promote our artists.  We made it easy for them to place links to their YouTube channel, ReverbNation, etc. right on their Street Jelly profile.  In fact, we encourage it.  This week, we released a feature that now embeds YouTube videos directly in the artist’s profile page.  Now music lovers can watch artist videos on Street Jelly without having to pop over to another browser window.  This should make life easier for musicians.

Tips for Performing by Webcam

Webcam ManPerforming online in front of a webcam is something probably new to most musicians.  It’s certainly new for us, too.  We noticed some things that will help your performance be visually more appealing.

  1. Sit or Step Back away from your webcam. This is probably the best advice.  Most performers are sitting too close to their webcam and basically it’s just their head filling up the screen.  Being at least 6 to 10 feet away from the cam frames a nice image of the artist, especially when playing an instrument.  Which leads to tip #2.
  2. Show us that you are playing an instrument.  Don’t worry about your fancy finger work, when we can visually see you playing the guitar or whatever – it adds to the experience.  So if you are in tight quarters and can not sit too far back, point your cam down at your instrument.
  3. Don’t over power your computer’s microphone.  If you are performing through your pc’s or laptop’s built in mic, chances are your voice and music will over power the mic at some point causing distortion.  Again, sitting further back will help even out the sound.  Just remember to speak loudly in between songs so the mic can pick up your normal voice.  For a better sound, you can make huge improvements with a just a simple sound-leveling, noise-cancelling pc mic.  These are basically called USB “conference call” mics you find in computer stores (not music stores).  For around $60-$75, these mics make a big difference.
  4. Last, don’t forget the room around you.  You don’t need to be performing on a stage, but make sure the background is not distracting to the performance, i.e. messy, cluttered, dirty laundry, etc.  Remember, you are performing for tips, make every bit count.

Do you have any more ideas?  We’d love to hear them.

Busking Online has Arrived

First Performer Street Jelly

teo_doro from Guam is our first live performer on StreetJelly.com

Busking, playing music in a public forum for gratuities, has now officially arrived on the internet. Last night, August 17th, 2012, all the way from Guam, we had our first musician perform live from his webcam. Teo_doro was awesome!

StreetJelly.com had only been live for about a day. Somehow, word-of-mouth from Nashville and Knoxville TN had reached Teo.  The Nashville transplant found the site, signed up, and just started playing.  That is as spontaneous as it gets.

Things went well, all systems checked out.  Actually, we were amazed that the sound and video quality was quite well from Teo’s stock Gateway laptop with built-in webcam and built-in mic.

We can’t say enough how pleased we were of the outcome.  Our vision of bringing real LIVE entertainment for everyone – and helping musicians earn money for their craft – is still alive and well!