Musical Gear for Live Performances

I'm a singer / songwriter and I'm interested in trying my hand at doing some live performances in some of SL's coffee shops and little country dives. What kind of gear do I need to get my vocals and my guitar and/or keyboard heard by the SL audiences? Am I limited to just a "dry" feed or are there options in terms of effects such as reverb, echo, etc...?

Any advice, practical experience, etc... that anyone is willing to share with me would be greatly appreciated.

Also, what's the going rate for a gig like the kind I'm interested in doing?

Thanks again,
Ford

i would at least get a cheap mixing board, other than that and the software to broadcast it seems like everything else is preference

You've got two functionality areas to consider. The first is getting audio from your instruments, mics, etc., into the computer. The second is broadcasting that captured audio from your computer, across the Internet. I can offer you some good advice on the former, since I do some recording and engineering, but you'll need advice from some other people on the best options for the latter. Broadcasting is not an area I have much expertise in.

To get audio into the computer, you've basically got two options. Arguably, the simplest thing to do is what Osgeld suggested. Get yourself a mixing board, if you don't already have one, and plug its output into your computer's sound card line input. You'll likely need a stereo Y connector (available at Radio Shack) with two 1/4 male mono plugs on one end, going to a single 1/8" male stereo RTS plug on the other end, as most mixers will have dual 1/4" mono outputs, and most soundcards will have 1/8" stereo inputs.

Some relatively new mixing boards these days actually feature USB output, which of course would make the Y connector unnecessary. Behringer, for example, makes some pretty decent sounding, relatively inexpensive, boards with USB out.

The other way to go is to use a DAW (digital audio workstation) interface, which will connect to your computer via USB or Firewire. I use a Tascam FW-1082, which I love. It's an 8-channel mixing board, DAW interface, and recording control surface, all in one.

The advantage of a DAW interface over just a plain mixing board is the DAW interface sends each channel to your computer as a separate track, whereas a regular mixing board would just send the whole mix as a single track. Needless to say, the separation of tracks allows for all kinds of flexibility in routing and processing that dealing with just the whole mix does not. For live broadcast, it's not that big a deal either way, but if you're planning on doing any recording, a DAW interface is a must-have.

As for effects, again you've got two main options. One is to use external effects (pedals, rack units, built-in board effects, etc.), the same way you're probably used to doing already when performing. Just send the effected sound straight into the computer, and call it a day. The other is to send a raw audio feed into the computer, and then use the computer itself to do the effects processing. Each method has pluses and minuses.

The main advantage of using external effects is that your computer doesn't have to process them, so they won't slow it down in any way. Also, if you're like most musicians, you're probably already used to using external effects, so there's no learning curve. Just about every guitarist, for example has his/her own "trademark" distortion, chorus, delay settings, etc., which he/she would sooner die than not use. If you've got certain effects you use a lot, there's no reason not just to keep right on using them. Some people swear that external effects, especially analog ones, sound better than computerized effects, anyway. Emulation technology has come so far in the last few years, though, I don't personally feel that that's true anymore.

The main advantages of using effects inside the computer are automation and scalability. An example of where automation might come into play could be if you want a heavy echo on your voice on certain parts of a song, and then you want it to back off during other parts, or if you want the chorus to be before the EQ in one song, and then after the EQ in another. The possibilities for making instant changes are endless. You CAN conceivably do that sort of thing with pedals if you're a good enough dancer, or with midi-controlled rack effects if you've got the right equipment. But in most cases, your performance will be a heck of a lot easier if you've programmed all the changes in advance, so you don't need to worry about it on the fly.

What I mean by scalability is your computer can pretty easily emulate equipment you don't actually have. Instead of a giant bank of a hundred different rack units and a floor covered in pedals, you can just have a folder full of VST plugins and convolution samplings that will emulate the whole kit & caboodle very convincingly.

The downside of in-computer effects is the more you're making the computer do, the more bogged down your CPU will get. Real-time audio effects processing can be very resource intensive. Don't even bother trying unless you've got a powerful machine. (And definitely don't do it on the same machine on which you're running SL.) For best results, I recommend using external effects as much as possible, and only using in-computer effects where you absolutely need them, like if you need to automate something, or if you need to emulate an effect you don't have.

I hope this information proves helpful for you. As I said, I'm sure others can chime in with advice for the actual broadcasting.

GREAT advice! Thank you so very much!