Help for new live entertainer.

I have a friend who's a professional entertainer in RL. She can sing very well and has all her own equipment because generally she says club equipment sucks. She also has a dedicated laptop with mixing software, mic, etc.

I don't know anything about how entertainers in SL connect to a stream. I've used winamp and shoutcast to play music on my stream but not sure how she can connect her mixing software to shoutcast or does she need something else?

Just need ShoutCast to "hear" her software based mixer is all ya need.

I just can't say how.

I thought shoutcast was a plugin for winamp?

You need a Shoutcast server. That is, a server that will take the incoming stream from Shoutcast and then broadcast it out to everyone who wants to listen. It's easy enough to Google a list of Shoutcast servers (I use Serverroom.us).

Someone with good enough computer hardware, and technically unafraid, can probably use their own computer as the server without needing to purchase an outside service. I've never done that though; you'll have to read up on some Shoutcast documentation or faqs, or go to a forum for online djs (I'm pretty sure that you could find such forums at the WinAmp web site).

Edit: When it comes to running one's own server, I suppose that bandwidth is probably more of an issue than computer hardware.

I don't know if this is legal...but..

The Second Life Music Community has a forum with a lot of good "getting started" information on it.

http://slmc.myfastforum.org/

Are there groups that live performers normally join?

Are there groups that accept announcements when we have live performances?

There are groups dedicated to live performers, and your friend can certainly join those groups to send out notices for her gigs. Most importantly, she will want to start her own group and work like mad to get people in it. She can use the regular SL groups, or a Subscribe-o-matic (http://www.subscribeomatic.com/) which does not take up group space, or she can use both.

As far as equipment, what she needs is similar to what a DJ uses, although a better mic is probably a good idea. She would need a mic, a mixer, winamp (with the Shoutcast DSP plugin) and a streaming server. She will have to rent a stream, which are very cheap in SL, because if you try and stream to SL from a computer, you'll likely only be able to serve a few listeners. Get a streaming server with a limit of at least 50, preferably 100 listeners. 128 kbps is optimal. You can go higher, but SL music streams at 128, so there is not point of streaming higher than that.

I helped a good friend of mine get set up in SL singing with the tools listed above. She's been doing it for a year now and she is fabulous! If your friend, or you, have any questions, look me up online. I would be happy to help. If she sings jazz or blues, definitely look me up.

Can you tell me what those groups you mentioned are?

Off hand I don't remember the name of the big one. I would have to search for it and I can't right now. I'll look later. Search groups for Live Music or Live Musicians.

Live Music Enthusiasts has over 4000 members. That is the main one I was thinking about.

Thanks I joined that and 3 others. I talked to a few other entertainers and it seems that one good thing to do at this point it talk to venue owners and ask if they would like her to come audition for them to sing for tips only to get started.

It was very entertaining last night trying to get the stream sorted out but once it did she sounded amazing.

@Rick,

I just sent you a PM note.

I was hoping someone could help with streaming issues, especially the stream cutting out. We've tried going from 192kbps to 80kbps and it is still happening. I'm using a Neo stream and wondering if that could be the issue? What would be a better choice?