encounter sound

OK, so you’ve gone through the steps in securing a “gig” in Second Life.  How exactly does your voice in real-life get broadcast through your avatar in Second Life?

Well, technically speaking, it doesn’t.  Your performance won’t actually come out of your avatar, rather, it will be broadcast through the venue that you’re playing in.  Every section of land in SL has the ability to broadcast a “Shoutcast Stream” to everyone and anyone that comes around.  Usually this means an internet radio station that plays whatever genre of music the owner likes, but in the case of a live performance, you basically are the live radio broadcast.  The venue owner will give you a “Note” that has the following information:  Server IP, Port, and Password.  These will be important down the line.  Here’s the process:

Note:  This is for a Windows machine.  Someone with a Mac will hopefully create one of these to make it easier for you crazy Mac users out there.  Or hey, you could always just dual-boot on those fancy new MacBooks!

Prerequisites:

• A sound card with a quality input.  You can use a crappy soundcard, but you’ll produce crappy quality. That’s the nature of the game in audio, you should know that by now.  I have an Echo Digital Audio Layla 3G.  I’m not sure they make these anymore, but I got one for super cheap when I played a show attended by one of their employees.  It’s an incredible device, has 8 inputs and outputs and two great sounding mic preamps.  If, like most people, you don’t actually have a high-end recording soundcard, just make sure you have something with a good stereo input.
• A small mixing board.  (Unless you have a high-end input device, you can skip this part and use the software mixing console that comes with it).  It needs to have at least one input for each instrument you plan to use and one for the microphone.  You can get an inexpensive 4 channel mixer for like $50.  Just something that gives you control over the levels, because you don’t want to create a situation where either your instrument or your voice can’t be heard.  I’m sure that it’s possible to position a single microphone to pick up your guitar and voice together, but it’s more trouble than it’s worth and it just plain won’t sound as good.
• A microphone.  This should be a “duh”, but maybe it’s not.
• An instrument. Again.  Duh.
• Whatever cables you need to get your mic and instrument into the mixer, and the mixer’s main output into the sound card.  This may include a Direct Input box for your guitar or keyboard.
• Software:  Oddcast Standalone Version
• Software: LAME (unzip and put the .dll in the Oddcast program folder)

Setup:

1. Open Oddcast.
2. Click “Add Encoder”
3. Double-click the new entry in the list below that button.  It could be called pretty much anything.
4. For “Encoder Type” choose “MP3 Lame”.  If it’s not available, you haven’t put the lame.dll file into the Oddcast program folder.  Shut the program down, put the file in it’s place, and start go back to step 1.
5. For “Server Type” choose “Shoutcast”.
6. For “Server IP”, “Server Port”, and “Server Password”, use the information the venue gave you.
7. For “Bitrate” choose 96.
8. For “Samplerate” choose 44100
9. For “Channels” choose 1 (unless the server you’re playing on has a lot of bandwidth available and you’re actually micing in stereo, then choose 2.  Otherwise you’re sending two identical channels so it may as well be Mono.  You’ll get better quality at less bandwidth with a Mono channel).

   IF YOU DON’T WANT TO SAVE YOUR PERFORMANCES TO DISK, SKIP STEPS 10-15
   
   

10. Go to the “YP Settings” tab.
11. Change “This is my server description” to “Second Life Performance”
12. Uncheck “Public Server”
13. Go to “Advanced Settings” tab.
14. Click “Save Archive of Stream”
15. For “Archive Directory” choose a path on your computer that you want to save the performance mp3 to.  It’s nice to have to check your levels and performance later, just make sure there’s space enough (300+ MB).
16. Click “OK”
17. Back in the main program screen, choose your input device from the list.  Mine has a ton of offerings, a simpler soundcard will have only one or two.
18. Click within the Meter Bridge (big black box) to turn it on.
19. Test your microphone by speaking into it.  You should see action in the Meter Bridge.  If not, check all of your connections and make sure you have the right input device selected.  If there’s still problems, check all of your sound card settings to make sure that the input isn’t muted.
20. Highlight the “MP3: 96kbps/44100Hz/Mono” that you just created and click “Connect”
21. You should be live in-world.  Provided there’s someone there that knows their stuff, they should be able to troubleshoot any problems that arise, as well as help you get your levels up.
22. Play your heart out, you rock and roll stallion master.  The only problem is that they’ll never know how good looking you are in real life.