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Use External Mixer for Use of Mics

I am wanting to run my external mixer with Play It Live. However, I have no clue how to do it. The instruction sheets did not cover running a mixer into playit live for the use of several mics at the same time!
Could someone please give me directions on how & what to do to be able to run a mixer into it?


At its most basic, this is relatively simple.


Assume you use some method of producing the PlayIt Live output in a form suitable for use with a mixer (for example a USB sound card with phono plug outputs or a 3.5mm jack plug to phono lead) and feed that into a line level channel on the mixer.


At it's simplest that does the job.


If you then want to record the mixed output on the computer you need to feed the mixer output  back into the computer. This could use a phono to 3.5mm jack lead (depending on the connections to the computer) then use the feed from the mixer to stream (using PlayIt Live or another piece of software) or record (say using Audacity or possibly PlayIt Recorder).


I wrote up a more complex version of what you want to do at:


http://support.playitsoftware.com/support/discussions/topics/5000061271


I would say this approach (the multi channel sound card) is the best approach if you want to make more complex productions.


If I were buying a sound card this is one of the better examples I've found:


http://support.playitsoftware.com/support/discussions/topics/5000081440


If you have a mixer with USB connections then this might be helpful:


http://support.playitsoftware.com/support/discussions/topics/5000089090



this is great however, the PC i am using is directly broadcasting to the Shoutcast server. 
for example
i have loaded all of my playlists, clocks, clock schedules, etc. 

i put the rotation in place & turned on the automation option. 
If i were to go to a "Live" show in the studio with multiple mics, how would i get my mics to broadcast onto the shoutcast output? 


There isn't a perfect answer to this as changing the source on PlayIt Live from requires you to stop streaming (hopefully your streaming server has some kind of backup file that covers stream interruptions !)


Your encoder will currently look like this:


image


To select a PC sound card input you can change it to something like this:


image


but you need to stop the stream to do it.


One way round this would be to use a streaming client capable of taking two inputs and selecting between them (for example Rocket Broadcaster) and making the "other application" source PlayIt Live (via your sound card out) and the "Microphone" source your mixer.


It's not very flexible but would do what you want.


image


The other alternative is to always leave your mixer in circuit (probably also not ideal).


The ability to change streaming sources without stopping the stream would make a good feature request for PlayIt Live.


Ok, I don't mind stopping the stream to do this at all. It is just a few buttons and I am back up & running. Here is my other thought process. can i run play it live on one PC tied into my mixer, and then from the mixer into another PC that will be my "on air" PC that broadcasts to the streaming server Caster.Fm - Is this possible with my configuration? - Will I lose my clocks if I change from one PC to another in order to complete this task? - would it be simpler to leave it all as it is & only use the mixer for the mics & use the mic input on Play it live?

I'm not sure stopping the stream is a good idea as you may find that the listeners go elsewhere.

 

A second PC would be a good approach. 


If one PC has an input from your mixer it can be scheduled as an Aux input. A second PC with PlayIt Live can feed one or more channels on your mixer.


image


You can click on Aux Input and drag it into the live schedule or pit it into a clock.


image


In the example above I created an "Aux Input " event with a duration of an hour, gave it a name of "Studio Mixer" and put it in the schedule. A hard fixed time marker would start the Aux input event at, say, the start of the hour would start your live segment.


The two systems would have separate clocks and each system would not know what the other had done but if the majority of your material is recorded and you intend to have a small amount of live input this may not be a big issue.


Taking the mixer as a "mic input" on PlayIt Live (or even as an aux input but only as mics) is another approach. How good that will sound depends on what you intend to achieve and (obviously) monitoring the resulting programme is more difficult as the mixer output doesn't contain any of the PlayIt Live material.


Try some of the approaches, perhaps starting with the mixer with mics only as an aux input and see how you get on.