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Using the Audio Processing plugin with Internet Broadcasting plugin

We are running a configuration where the main mixer is fed into the computer via a Focusrite Scarlett USB interface. We then pick that up with the Internet Broadcast plugin by selecting it as the input.


We need to apply compression/limiting to the signal on its way to the encoder, and the Audio Processing plugin seems to offer all we need. The paragraph about it on the plugins page suggests that it works with the Internet Broadcasting plugin.


Will the Audio Processing plugin do what we need? Is there any documentation on it? (The page does not scroll properly here so I can only see the top part of the page).


Thanks!

Richard E


Hello again Richard,


It comes down to where in the traditional broadcast chain the PlayIt Live system and associated mixer is and also how "aggressive" the processing needs to be.


To record "longform" material for later broadcast (or upload to Mixcloud etc.) then a mic processor and the PlayIt Live processing should (in my view) be quite good enough.


It will "tame" the audio levels and make music more suitable for a "non-optimum" or background listening environment. 


What you won't have with that approach is a final "station sound" processing. That really needs to happen just before (or arguably at) encoding.


In my view, PlayIt Live is great at playout and the stream encoder is fine for contribution (remote studio to main studio) but additional facilities are needed for "emission encoding" and that's where the paid version of Rocket Broadcaster (and the free VST processor plug in) scores.


The one drawback to Rocket I've found is that on my setup Rocket (and associated processes) runs at a similar CPU load to PlayIt Live, hence my preference for separate hardware.  


Hi, Mark, and thanks for the extremely useful comments!

So basically it looks like the processing plugin is tied to PlayItLive itself and not to the internet broadcast encoder. What I'm after here is to be able to do the traditional level of processing you would expect to do on the feed to a transmitter in terrestrial radio, ie multiband compression and a limiter.

Indeed a hardware solution is one course (and it's what I use on my own system) but that isn't possible for my colleague who is running this configuration - both for space and cost reasons.

Certainly a streaming encoder that allows plugins would solve the problem at a stroke. Your solution using the Now Playing plugin and a streamer that can read its output file AND run VST plugins is certainly interesting, if a little indirect, and that will be worthy of examination.


Another thing we can try is simply to run the Audio Processing plugin on the main PlayItLive feed to the mixer and rely on the mic channel/processor (a dbx 286s) to keep the voice under control.


Thanks again.

Hello Richard,


Jason may give a "proper" answer but, from observation, I think the processing is applied to "player" (and possibly other) outputs.


If your streaming source is PlayIt Live main mix the whole thing works very nicely and while it is (seemingly) each track as played processed and the resulting mix streamed I've found it's OK.


When you have the players fed into mixer channels and the mixer output (plus local sources) selected to the PlayIt Live encoder (as far I I can tell) there isn't any overall processing applied.


I've got a Behringer 9024 (the poor man's Optimod !) processing my test setup but I've also found the paid version of Rocket Broadcaster (which allows VST plug ins - I used the JB Broadcast compressor) works well.


The other attraction of Rocket Broadcaster is that it can run on a second PC providing some form of resilience in the system. 


With clever use of fail over in the streaming server it should be possible to use a PlayIt Live generated stream as a reserve and Rocket's PC as the main.

 

To get now playing info, I make PlayIt Live save the metadata as a text file (via the "Now Playing" plugin) and make the location available to the streaming PC.


At the risk of telling you something you know, it is well worth getting the source files to similar subjective loudness as well as any later processing.


The AGC function on the audio processing plug in is quite handy (and doesn't seem to fight badly with separate subsequent processing) but that's after I've made everything a similar loudness.


I wrote up the setup in "The Rich(er) Mans's Radio Setup" shich has a few screenshots.


https://support.playitsoftware.com/support/discussions/topics/5000094065




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