Mix Minus Audio in Livestreams Explained

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Let's talk Mix Minus Audio when it comes to live streaming. In this video I'll show you how we set up our livestreams to mix virtual guest speakers and in person guest speakers so that everyone has a flawless audio experience.
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[@jeffrey.a.hanson]

It’s 2023, yet a ‘whiteboard’ explainer is still the best way of laying out a concept.

[@zephanmoses]

I just wish my drawings were better

[@claytonmoore2091]

Outstanding! It also demonstrates how a vender needs to come up with a more consolidated solution (example) combine the capabilities of (hardware and software) of Blackmagic and RODE and whoever else, into ONE solution. All the technology exists to do this. Compact, scalable easy for anyone to use, period! Oh and of course get Zoom involved to.

[@BY-nc2br]

Thank you so much for this. It finally makes sense to me!

[@blakecheatham2868]

I have an thought that I have been working on implementing in my studio. I will give more details when I get home this evening.

[@blakecheatham2868]

But yes thanks for the info. I know this will be something that I will use in my business soon.

[@zephanmoses]

@@blakecheatham2868 Thanks for watching!

[@generalsamuk]

Moving this - cheers for the effort!

[@zephanmoses]

Thanks for watching!

[@jarsec]

Great explanation

[@zephanmoses]

Thanks for watching!

[@gwillacey]

Can you actually do this video again but more hands on with equipment. Like a step by step setup showing you setting this up with the equipment?

[@zephanmoses]

I have other videos showing how we do this (with gear) 😉

[@gwillacey]

@@zephanmoses thank you so much. Is there a specific playlist on your channel that I should look for those videos

[@zephanmoses]

@@gwillacey kzbin.info/www/bejne/Z5jCqomff5t6o9U

[@firecracker888]

Great video. Can you please explain how you would set up the rode as the capture device.

[@zephanmoses]

There’s no setting up necessary. It’s a capture device so it’s plug and play. You just connect an XLR cable for audio and hdmi for video feed.

[@firecracker888]

@@zephanmoses Many thanks

[@kbcitv2316]

@@zephanmoses Which Rode device?

[@zephanmoses]

@@kbcitv2316 they now have the rode streamer x which captures video and audio.

[@TheSeanBampton]

Or you get an audio board with a 2 in/2 out (or 4 out) USB connection and the board does the mx-minus for you automatically.

[@zephanmoses]

Not that easy on bigger productions. Last week we had 18 mics to mix live plus a zoom mix minus.

[@kbcitv2316]

Good basic explanation, but not good enough. Are you suggesting a second Atem (or Capture Device) for the Zoom Mtg (Mix Minus + Program Feed) ?

[@kbcitv2316]

I think you addressed this below from another question.

[@zephanmoses]

The zoom return feed can come from any capture device. We sometimes use a second atem but if you look at my mix minus bts video you might see us using the original Blackmagic web presenter which is a capture device and allows us to inject xlr audio.

[@brianoriang9120]

6:57 the HDMI carries Bothe the sound and the image and makes the jack cable useless.

[@AVIDpros]

Have you ever done this with NDI?

[@zephanmoses]

I don’t have an NDI workflow at the moment but I know that MADI or Dante are favored in the audio communities. As mentioned in the video I focus on the stream. I hire audio teams to do what they do best.

[@thecommsguy.]

Great explainer Zephan. At 9:20 you say you could use another ATEM as a capture device to bring the mix minus back in to the Zoom PC. Is this possible without an audio mixer?

[@zephanmoses]

You’d still want to use an audio mixer depending on your setup. We needed to mix audio for PA speakers in the room so that’s one mix, then we needed to mix audio for the livestream audience watching at home, that’s another mix and then we still needed to route mix minus into the remote guest speaker so that’s another mix. You can’t do that with an atem.

[@thecommsguy.]

@@zephanmoses thanks for the reply, makes sense! We’re outputting HDMI to a large TV for in room audio and visual so was wondering if there was a workaround

[@zephanmoses]

@@thecommsguy. There's definitely ways to make it work but it's less than ideal. You'll want to consider the following: 1) Who has to hear sound: In the room attendees, virtual attendees watching the livestream and the virtual guest presenter all have to hear different things. 2) Will the audio of the people in the room speaking be sent over HDMI to the TV? If so, it could come out of the TV at a half second or slight delay and that could seriously mess up the people speaking in the room. Additionally if the TV is solely showing the virtual guest speaker and playing their audio, how are you making sure the program audio from your ATEM switcher isn't also routed into that feed? 3) If the virtual guest speaker is playing through the TV, someone needs to ride the levels of the microphones in the room to make sure there's no feedback otherwise the virtual guest speaker will hear themselves speaking out of the tv being picked up by microphones in the room. So if i had to set it up this way, I'd take the feed of the virtual presenter and send it into a splitter or a decimator md-hx. The splitter would send that feed to the tv in the room so people in the room see and hear the virtual guest and then the other split would go off to my atem so that they're seen and heard on the livestream. BUT you still have to make sure any time the virtual guest is speaking that all of the microphones in the room are turned down so they don't cause feedback/echo AND you still would need to set up audio follows video so that when you cut to that virtual guest speaking, their audio is enabled in the atem for your livestream audience to hear them. In an ideal world, you would have a professional audio engineer running this and manually riding the mic levels on everyone throughout the event.

[@thecommsguy.]

@@zephanmoses thank you for taking the time to work it through, Zephan. Yes, although possible it makes it very difficult if I want the in-room audience to see the programme feed on the TV too. I think we will have to invest in an audio mixer to run the three separate outputs for the mix minus. One question I have that confuses me though is when trying to get the mix minus back into the Zoom laptop but only have one 3.5mm jack on the PC which is already being used to get the audio out, how do you get the audio back in?

[@zephanmoses]

@@thecommsguy. the zoom computer needs a capture device to get the audio and video feed back into it. So we’ve used in the past a second atem, we’ve also used the original model of web presenter because it was a capture device, we’ve also used Elgato camlinks with a motu m2. But you have to capture both audio and a video return feed for the zoom person as seen in my video.

[@adamjohnson3702]

If using one of the small ATEM minis as the zoom capture device, do you plug the mix minus into its mic/line with XLR adapters? A lot of people say the ATEM is really bad at taking audio from mixers because of the unbalanced input. Is the new Rode better because of the proper XLR plug?

[@zephanmoses]

Yes you can do that with an atem. It’s not that it’s really bad. It’s that most don’t know what they’re doing 😂

[@adamjohnson3702]

@@zephanmoses Haha, good to know. What do you think most people get wrong? Not setting the right line levels on the mixer/ATEM or using the wrong cables? I don’t know if you’ve covered it already in one of your videos

[@zephanmoses]

@@adamjohnson3702 that could be part of it. There’s too many ingredients to the recipe to list. Some people do their own audio, others don’t but then it could be a horrible audio company supplying the feed and it needs a ground lift to remove hum. There’s soooo many things.

[@petermcginty3636]

Thank you for the video, but you did not explain how to physically set up the mix minus.

[@zephanmoses]

It’s going to be different on every audio mixer so I couldn’t possibly explain it beyond what I’ve done in this video. You’d need to check with the user manual for the audio mixer you own to determine how to physically do it. It’s not going to be the same from a Behringer mixer to a Zoom mixer to any other manufacturer.

[@petermcginty3636]

@@zephanmoses thank you