Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with live

Where is the safety net for a low-income 53-year-old?

noelpratt2nd — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 14:33:57 -0800

Low-income housing exists, obviously, for, e.g., a mother of four children with any kind of job. But I'm a man, 53, no kids, unmarried, and work independent contractor jobs. My gross income last year was about $15K. Currently I have a situation where I pay $175 + $250 utilities, plus yardwork -- it's a shared house with my on-again, off-again girlfriend. We broke up. She pays more to the owner than I do but may sort of need me since she needs to save $ herself, plus is 54. Since the owner wants to sell (though he's a procrastinator and the house condition kinda sucks), plus we're "broken up," she may move back to her home state at some point. I'm wondering if there is any option for me to move out when the time COMES. Many unknowns with the aging owner but he'd like us here. We probably don't qualify for buying the current house. So -- me: worse comes to worse (or better?), a trailer home or something? Gov't program? I need to be in a major city like D.C. where I have work at four different places, built up over years and worth keeping, the only job I'm suited for. And, need to be near public transpo, which in this area means the $350 I could reasonably spend on rent would be laughed out of the poorhouse support club, were there such a thing... Will I have to slip thru the cracks and buy a car to live in?

Have you used a good temporary answering service?

gemmy — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 07:19:58 -0800

Asking for recommendations for an answering service, with a live person that can answer our office phones for a week. By a fluke of last-minute scheduling, my boss and I will both be out of the office during the same week. He will be overseas, and I'll be on vacation (yay!). While we could leave the answering machine on, we would prefer to have an answering service with a live person answering the ~10 calls/day that we get. Preferably one that could take messages and email them to us. I know I could easily forward calls to my cell, but I'd rather not.

I have found a few such services through some googling, but it's hard to say if they are any good. Looking for recommendations of services you have used, if possible. I found a similar question from 2007, but it didn't have much in the way of answers. Thanks!

Tips and Tricks for playing concerts?

Anonymous — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 10:08:12 -0800

I have a big important concert that I'm playing coming up sort of soon. I'm not even sure what to ask... but here goes. I have a big important concert that I'm playing coming up sort of soon. I'm not even sure what to ask... but here goes - what happens during soundcheck? Between soundcheck and playing, especially when it's hours between? Do places ever let you go over your allotted time slot if you are the headliner? Is there anything I should do with regard to the venue management or anything? What's the best practice for selling things like CDs and posters outside after the show? What's an acceptable price per song for a demo EP? What about bracelets? 8x11 posters? How can I put on the best show (I have things down musically) possible, sell things outside the best possible, make the best impression on the crowd and the venue? What should I bring that I might forget - capos, cords, wires, water, picks, what else? As my last question, what's the best way to attempt to get good video and audio of this show on one singular device - i.e. no boom mics will be happening. Like camera, videocamera, iSomething. Help please? Thank you much.

journey to the land of oriental rugs

threeants — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 20:40:14 -0800

Musicfilter: what are the best live "sessions" on Youtube? Recommend me your favorites! I love these performances because they're live, and a fresh new take from the studio version, but generally also have good sound quality and aren't recorded out of someone's tinny phone next to a shrieking audience member. I guess the gold standard for this is KEXP, but even they have such a vast back-catalog that I'd love to be directed to some favorites.

Thanks!

Where should I live and teach?

amodelcitizen — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 20:34:56 -0800

Where should I live: Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, or Utah? Or beyond? I'm teaching overseas at the moment. I'd like to return to the US and continue teaching. It seems like the most efficient, affordable route I've discovered is though the ABCTE program. (http://www.abcte.org/teach) I'm about ready to take the plunge on doing the program (although other suggestions are welcome), but I'm not sure what state to choose to live in.

ABCTE is recognized in 11 states, and out of those, I think I'm interested in Utah, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire. I've been to both PA and Utah, but not to New Hampshire, although I've been around New Hampshire and I like that area.

So, if you have experiences in these places, where should I live?

Lifestyle wise, things that are important to me are:

- Great art and theatre. I've been living remote for over five years now, and I miss going to plays and museums more than anything. I really want to be close to a good artistic center.
- Walkable. I'd prefer not to have a car.
- Affordable, safe place downtown. I guess this goes with being walkable. I'd like to live in an accessible area that's near a lot of things and public transport to get to work.
- Climate is not a huge issue. I've lived in super hot states, and I've lived in very cold states, and I can do either pretty easily. I love to ski, but I like going to the beach, and all of the things in between, basically.

Work wise, I'm not sure. I've only worked at one US elementary school. It was low-income, and a fairly small student population but with large classes. It was OK, but I didn't love it.

Thanks for any advice on this.

How or where can I make my house concerts bigger?

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 12:21:53 -0800

I host house concerts in San Diego. I need more space. Ideas? I host monthly house concerts for audiences of about 24 people in my living room in Old Town San Diego.

We rent, the landlord is totally cool with us doing this, and we've had absolutely no complaints from the neighbors (one is even a regular attendee), but the shows are really are taking off. We need space for more like 50-60 people. How do we pull this off?

- we have a big backyard and could probably host 100 people, but if anyone complains about noise for any reason, we could be shut down. I can't afford to rent portable toilets, pay a band, take donations, etc, just to be shut down 10 minutes into a gig. Plus, weather is a factor. I don't want to go on hiatus in the rainy months and potentially lose our audience.

- we want to live in our "venue," rather than rent a separate space for shows. Couldn't afford it, for one. Plus, the focus is really on exceptional sound quality - we use tube amps, restored vintage speakers, etc - but we use also all the vintage gear on a daily basis at home. We want to keep the hauling of gear, setting up and tearing down to a minimum (reducing wear and tear on the equipment, and on ourselves!) We're totally cool with living in some sort of live/work or non-traditional warehouse-y type, thing so long as it has a full kitchen and two bathrooms - but finding such a place is tough!

- we also really want to stay roughly in our current area - Old Town, Mission Hills, North Park, Downtown, etc.

- difficulty: for $2000/mo or less.

It's a lot to ask. So far searches and want ads on Craigslist have come up dry, commercial/office realtors aren't interested, and live/work lofts look at you in horror when you tell them you have live music. Hoping the hive mind has some alternative ideas.

If you want to respond privately please use listen shows at gmail dot com. And thanks!

Gear geekin

aesacus — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 00:32:05 -0800

Starting package of gear for live electronic music? I'm a keyboard player and know some classical music theory and want to try my hand at electronic music.

I want to approach this a bit differently than most others. I want to make the music with the desire to play it live from the start, meaning I want to be able to generate all the sounds on the fly without anything prerecorded. So far I have been thinking this means lots of looping and layering (ala Andrew Bird or Zoe Keating) and probably spending $500-1000 initially on hardware.

So far, what has enamored me (and is in my price range) is the Microkorg, the Kaoss pad, the Kaossilator, and the Maschine. I would be able to buy two of these things (with cables and such), three at the most. My minimum requirements are a keyboard, since that is my skill, with synth/effects, a loop station, and sampler pads or some kind of percussive input. The Kaoss Pad seems to have pretty good looping capabilities, and I'm thinking that the Microkorg + KP3 could be a really good minimal starting route. Paying 200+ for a separate small looping pedal seems kind of ridiculous. I'm really attracted to the Maschine for playing out beats and samples, so maybe that'd be good with the KP3/Microkorg. I'm not sure how dependent on software the maschine is though. Also, Daedelus' Monome is pretty awesome (or the Novation Launchpad, for my budget), but probably not necessary for me now.

I would like to avoid using a laptop, although I do have both Ableton and Reason. I'm thinking this would take away from my whole live playing goal, and it just seems less genuine. This could just be my own irrational hangup though. I'm a programmer by trade and can pick up the software pretty quick. If I were to go the software route, I could probably just get a Maschine and use the midi keyboard I already have and save quite a lot of money. That way I could loop on the computer, get synth and effects on the computer (eg. audiomulch), and not need the hardware. Maybe I could get a touchscreen monitor or something to make it better to use live. This route does not interest me as much as the KP3/Microkorg route though.

I really appreciate any suggestions.

FL Studio: How to perform live?

dunkadunc — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 21:33:30 -0800

DAW/ConcertFilter: Help me take music I've written in FL Studio and perform it live. I'd really like to avoid walking onstage and pressing "Play". I'd like to be able to take the songs I've written in FL Studio and perform them live as a set. Has anybody else done this, and if so what was the workflow?

My music is largely electronic rock, and I've found the FL live mode to be a major drag to work with using my existing keyboard controller, what with all the drum loop switchups, et cetera: For example, this track looks like this in the DAW.
Honestly, it's one of my simpler tracks, and it's a real headache to trigger each damn loop and stop it looping at the right time using FL's Live Mode. This approach might work for progressive trance, but what I'm doing here it gets in the way.

The other problem with FL Studio (besides getting the loop sequencing to play nice while performing a set) is that it doesn't work well switching between project files when time is of the essence. In the performing world, how do people deal with this problem?

I'm getting the feeling that sticking with FL is not the best way, but my sound is so effects- and synth- based that just lifting my notation from FL and dropping it into another DAW wouldn't really give satisfactory results. What's the best way to do this?

Finally, what should I have for basic audio output hardware, if any? Any other suggestions about stuff I might not be aware of?

Ableton Live and Synced Video for Concert

M83 — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 15:55:08 -0800

The band uses Ableton Live for backing tracks (drummer uses a click track - metronome). From the arrangement view (Live's VSTs are used also) is there a way to place video in a track and have it stream from a Macbook while the audio streams to a soundcard? If not, what is the easiest way to play videos in sync with the backing tracks? Using one Macbook is preferable.

What will I need to display the video hardware wise?

In Berlin for the month, looking for great live outdoor music! What's going on?

chasing — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 12:51:16 -0800

In Berlin for the month, looking for great live outdoor music! What's going on? My Google skills are failing me, but essentially I'm looking for good summer music events in Berlin this month. For example: Live music in the park (symphony, bands, whatever). Classical music works. Good indie rock. Electronica (although, y'know, not crappy). Whatever. But outdoors is key, something that involves an evening sitting in the grass with a beer or wine would be great. Otherwise: Let your imagination run wild. :-)

Thanks!

Video streaming from a small club

Chuckles — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 17:14:06 -0800

My friend would like to stream video from a small club he volunteers in. It is purely not for profit stuff, the Celebrity Club in Performing Arts Lodge Toronto. We have a pretty nice audio system, but now he'd like to allow residents to view what's happening in the club in real time. It doesn't have to be secure, but it is intended only for the residents.

I'm looking for camera recommendations, but I'm also looking for any how to information at all. While I'm very technical, I haven't done anything in this area at all. What about software or hardware? Considering upload speeds in Toronto, we might need a streaming host for this?

Budget is something less than $2000, hopefully considerably less. I'm good at scrounging the little things though, so that adds some flexibility. I'm very technical, he is a little technical, and the residents are not at all technical.

How to turn Skydrive off in Windows Live Mail

sandyp — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 17:45:07 -0800

Using Windows 7, use Windows Live Mail for my email program. I use an all-in-one printer to scan documents and send as attachments in emails. Now Live Mail automatically uses Skydrive for all attachments, I would like to just have normal jpg attachments without Skydrive. I read on Windows website how to set it not to use Skydrive in Hotmail but I need to know how to set it to not use it in Live Mail. Can anyone help me??

A content filter that warns and reports instead of blocking?

eschatfische — Fri, 25 May 2012 12:55:37 -0800

The Windows Live Family Safety content filter has a neat optional feature: instead of completely blocking a web page that might be inappropriate, it can display a warning that the user can then click through to visit the site if they really need to, and then a notification is sent to the parent or admin that they clicked through the warning to get to the site. Is there a similar system available for Mac OS? Specifically, I'm looking for something that will initially prevent content inappropriate for a school or work environment from loading, but allow the user to make their own decision to view it if they believe that the filter is blocking materials incorrectly - and then only get notifications as an administrator of what users have gone ahead and loaded despite the warning.

What can I not miss in the world of electronica?

TheNewWazoo — Tue, 15 May 2012 23:21:26 -0800

I've spent years focused on studio electronica albums and am realizing that was a mistake. Having recently discovered Daft Punk's 2006 set from Coachella and deadmau5' 2009 set from The Roundhouse and been utterly, totally, completely blown away by both of them, I've decided that I need more live-recorded big beat in my life. What high-quality live recordings are considered "essential listening" for someone who wants to hear a legendary artist along these lines at their best? My tastes trend toward modern big beat, inasmuch as that can be defined, with acid house, drum and bass, and yes, even dubstep included. I tend to prefer artists who draft/assemble/create their own music; e.g. Daft Punk, Pretty Lights, The Crystal Method, etc. as opposed to DJs. Tiesto at Innercity was amazing, yes, but he was spinning other peoples' work. My main goal, though, is to learn about sets where the artist just nails the apex of their skill and sound. As a counterexample, Daft Punk's 1997 BBC Radio One session where, in my exceedingly humble opinion, they are limited by the technology of the day. I want the equivalent of Abbey Road, not Rubber Soul... if that makes sense.

Verbally accepted a job offer, but now a dream offer has come along...

tda101 — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 04:39:12 -0800

Verbally accepted a job offer, but now a dream offer has come along... What should I do? Okay, so I decided to quit my current dead end job and look for a new position. I'm in the video games industry and I'm pretty experienced, so tend to get interviews whenever I put my CV forward.

A few months back, I went for an interview at a small start up company which really interested me, they make social games and the company seems really relaxed and the guys I've met seem to be okay. (Not too manager-y and they said all the right things about how they treat staff - of course they did!, they all do!)

Eventually they offered me the job, but as I was asking for more money than they were advertising for, they couldn't offer me much more than my current salary. I thought about this for a LONG time and decided that I wanted a change and would take the "risk" of joining a start up - they offer a "minimal" bonus package and their working hours are strictly 9-5. (I have a small child, and another one on the way, I don't really want to work 24/7 any more)

I've verbally accepted the job offer, but I've still got reservations, (the commute isn't great, the projects don't inspire me, it's not a sector that interests me particularly, and in the long run it's not THAT much more money after you take out travel expenditure.)

THEN, a mega corporation advertised a position that is my dream job. I simply saw the advert and thought "I'll put my CV forward- there's no way on earth I'll get an interview" - I did... and it went really well, and then I had a second interview that didn't go very well at all. I thought I'd blown it and was really really upset with myself for letting the opportunity slip.

Unfortunately the Mega corporation have a very cut-throat attitude to their employees, they won't think twice about getting rid if you're not 100% good enough. (I *think* I am but I'm not 100% sure) - they have a 3 month probation period and REGULARLY let people go at the end of those three months if they don't stack up.

BUT... they pay a fortune, they have profit related royalties, they have "kudos" in the industry and having their name on my CV will basically ensure I get an interview for evermore. (It's like a rubber stamp of quality on my CV) - the job entails a lot of travel, a lot of work, and will probably have a big impact on my family life, but it's just an amazing opportunity and could lead my career to amazing heights. (Not to mention i'll be on megabucks)

I've just finished a third interview with them (which I'm really surprised I got after the second interview!) - I raised my concerns that the second interview didn't go well, and they explained it was a psychological test to see how I handle awkward people under pressure. And apparently I passed. They've just confirmed they are going to offer me a position. (Financial package TBC, although it will probably be a lot more)

and now I'm a bit stuck between REALLY wanting to take the high risk/high reward opportunity, or taking the safe option. I know it's a decision only I can make, but I'd really like to hear peoples thoughts about how to handle the following outcomes?

1. I turn down little start up and say "sorry my dream job has come up and they are offering an unbelievable package that I have to take" - and then live the very real risk that I may not be "good enough" and out of a job in 3 months. (which would be disastrous) - obviously this is majorly burning bridges with little start up and they would (rightfully) blacklist me from ever working for them again. I know how unethical this is, but then I also know how un-loyal companies can be when they need to cut their wage bill.

or

2. I turn down Mega-corp, and settle for start up, wondering what might have been for the rest of my life. Working 9-5, I'll see my family a lot and work will just be "a job" (something it's never really been for me) - there is future potential with this company, but there's also the possibility that it'll be gone in 5 years too. I KNOW I can do this job, but it doesn't excite me, and if I'm perfectly honest I'd probably be bored after a few months... (but then I take home a decent wage, with the occasional bonus and I know I'll never have to work past 5:30 again)

So now I'm after a few opinions, obviously everything on the internet about this subject is usually biased "headhunter" articles....

What sould I know about attending a live WWE taping?

ShawnStruck — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 00:20:37 -0800

So, a ticket to the taping of Smackdown in Newark today at the prudential center pretty much fell into my lap. I've been to a number of EVOLVE and other indy wrestling shows, but never a WWE taping. Can you give me any tips, etiquette, advice or anything I should know or keep in mind? Here is a seating chart.

http://www.prucenter.com/newWindow.asp?image=resources/images/seating_charts/500x445-wwe-seating.gif&title=WWE

I'll be in section h, row 12, seat 4.

Am I missing out on life?

Geppp — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 18:13:08 -0800

Will my health-nut friend live longer than me (all other things considered equal)? Will her life be better? My friend was describing her morning routine to me recently and it seemed pretty intense. She has a fairly extensive set of multivitamins and supplements that she takes in the morning usually in smoothie form. These things include probiotics, multi-enzymes, L-Glutamine, olive leaf, L-tyrosine, and NAC (N-acetylcysteine?). She also follows a very strict diet (including low carb and no meat).

I on the other hand, I don't do any of these things. I don't particularly watch what I eat, but I do passively strive for balance in my diet. I also have not heard of half the supplements that she's taking.

Assuming that we both exercise regularly and have no negative family medical history, will my friend live longer than me? Will her life be qualitatively better than mine in the long run? (at least health-wise). I hope this question makes sense.

Drum sampling options?

jonnyalvarez — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 14:31:59 -0800

I'm a drummer in an indie-rock band with a 5-piece kit who is looking to expand my setup to include a drum sampling pad. I want something that has unique percussion sounds (not just cheesy electronic beats), built-in effects, plenty of storage space to upload my own samples, and the ability to record and loop live drumbeats. Any advice? We have folk/chamber influences to our sound, but now we're getting into more psychedelic territory with some longer, hypnotic jams and tribal drumming, and I'm looking to expand on my current drum gear to be able to accommodate those changes and expand on my live setup, which at this point is just a standard acoustic 5-piece drum kit.

I just bought a MicroKorg synthesizer (http://www.korg.com/microkorg) and I'm just starting to tinker with it. I'm also considering buying the Roland SPD-SX (http://www.rolandus.com/products/productdetails.php?ProductId=1177) which is the newest drum sampler from Roland.

Here is what I want to get out of whatever drum sampler product(s) I buy:

- I want it to be a drum pad that I can hit with a drumstick (so it's not enough just to have something like the Roland SP-404)

- Has really unique drum sounds that I can sample. Not just cheesy electronic beats, but real, authentic percussion sounds that are sort of eclectic. Here is an example: http://www.ableton.com/library/skiddaw-stones/

- Has plenty of built-in effects (filter, reverb, delay, etc)

- Has the ability to loop live samples, i.e. record a drumbeat live and play it back live immediately - maybe triggered through a footswitch like the Boss FS-6

- Has plenty of audio storage space (at least 1 GB) so I can upload my own audio samples to it and trigger them live

- Can be connected to drum triggers.

If possible I want to avoid using a laptop on stage, i.e. some kind of setup like using Ableton Live and connecting it to the Alesis Control Pad - but then again if a laptop is the best thing, I'm open.

Thanks for any advice you have to offer!

Giants for the win

Funmonkey1 — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 14:07:02 -0800

Giants vs. Green Bay? Is there any way to stream online? Sitting in a hotel in Manhattan and its time warner cable that keeps cutting out every 5 seconds due to demand. Have a 6MB internet connection and HDMI cable?

Anyone have ideas? Google-fu reveals lots of spammy pay sites.

Live Mail and Verizon Broadband

sandyp — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 21:42:40 -0800

Dell Laptop with Verizon Broadband Card - Live Mail issue. Help please. My husband has a Dell Laptop with Windows 7 that he uses a Verizon Broadband Card to connect to the internet with. He uses Live Mail (Hotmail) to send emails. The problem we are having is after he connects to the Verizon Broadband the connection goes "dormant" after approximately 6 minutes and when he tries to use his Live Mail it gives him a error message:

Unable to send or receive messages to the Hotmail (perrypemberton) account
Server Error 0x80048848 Server "https://mail.services.live.com/DeltaSync_v2.0.0/Sync.aspx"
Windows Live Mail Error 0x80048848

I went to Windows website to problem solve this error message and done steps recommended there (update Windows Live Essentials, disabled Microsoft Security Essentials and Windows Defender) but none of these helped.

He has to disconnect and reconnect to the Broadband and then open Live Mail to be able to Send/Receive emails.

Is there any settings in Windows or Live Mail I can change to fix this problem? Since it is probably a Broadband issue who would I contact Dell or Verizon? Any ideas would be appreciated.

If you could live anywhere...

myShanon — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 11:23:37 -0800

I'm sick of Oklahoma, sick of cold and snow, sick of everything to do with this place. I want out of the state, but cant' decide where to go next. Over the last few years I've lived in San Diego, Orlando, Cocoa Beach, the Chicago area, Tulsa Ok, and originally the Phoenix area. Most of my moves have been prompted by having a friend with a couch willing to pick me up from the Greyhound station, but this time I'd like to go somewhere completely new and for the first time truly start over on my own. Details. I'm 34, no kids (but I do have an adorable tiny puppy), single (or will be by the time I get ready to move).

I currently work as a cashier at Walmart (glamorous, I know) and intend to stay with them so that I can transfer to a store and have a job waiting wherever I go. That means I won't be making a lot, so an affordable efficiency/studio or one bedroom apartment that allows my pup... with utilities included, if possible (and if I transfer to a store, will likely look for apartments within walking distance).

I don't drive, so need a place with reliable public transportation. Also, preferably a "big city" type area where I can take the bus to wherever I need to run errands without losing an entire day to one task.

I'd prefer a place that gets little or no snow... but also isn't insanely hot and humid in the summer... I'm willing to compromise on those points as long as I get one or the other (comfortable summers and also no snow is ideal, but warm summers and little snow is liveable).

I'd love to be near the ocean, or somewhere only a couple of hours drive from the beach, if possible.

My soon-to-be-ex was doing all the research on what the best options might be, because I'm absolutely useless when it comes to doing that sort of thing myself.

I'm still talking to friends in various cities, but am still kind of enjoying the thought of going somewhere and making entirely new friends.

The ex was set on Vegas, but that doesn't seem likely to be in a price range that I could afford on my own. I've also looked at Seattle, Portland, and have friends trying to talk me into Indianapolis and Gainesville among other places.

Also, I'm starting online college courses and expect a sizeable student loan payment in the spring, so will have the money to fund a move, deposits on an apt/utilities/etc

Recommendations?

How can I control floodlights via a foot-switch whilst on stage?

FuckingAwesome — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 16:12:53 -0800

How can I control floodlights via a foot-switch whilst on stage? I play in a band and we want to step up our live shows for a european tour we have coming up. We want to have floodlights/lights behind our amps and be able to make them come on/turn off via a footswitch.

This is already quite a common thing, an example is this band at 40 seconds in.

The sort of lights are these ones. I'm based in the UK and I think they sell them in B&Q/Homebase etc, and i've found them on eBay, so my question is which lights should I buy and how can I make them turn on/off by just hitting a foot pedal/switch. We're willing to put some money into getting custom built pedals, and I know some people who'll be able to do this for us, but yeah any suggestions on how this could be achieved would be greatly appreciated!

Windows Live Mail ate my everything!

New England Cultist — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 13:24:36 -0800

Windows Live Mail ate my everything! So, I recently switched ISP's. I went to delete my my previous email account out of Live Mail, and it deleted everything else, too. Messages, all folders, all contacts. Outlook pre-Windows 7 never did this. What a pain.

I have all my old emails on the old ISP's server still, and can access them, but the pain of forwarding everything on to the new address is something I'd like to avoid.

Also, my system restore was turned off, so no joy there. Did Live Mail simply wipe everything off my hard drive?

In the audiovisual deep end, all dressed in white.

Griffynn — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 21:58:09 -0800

I'm helping some friends with videoing their wedding day, yay! I have zero experience with event recording, boo! Are my noobish assumptions leading us to disaster? The wedding is some time off, so I have some planning time up my sleeve, but I'd appreciate any advice the hive-mind may have about recording the event in an interesting and cheap way.

Factors:
- The groom would like the event to be live-streamed for the benefit of friends and relatives who are stuck overseas (the wedding is in Australia, with an audience in the UK and Western Europe.)
- The bride and I question whether an international audience will realistically get up at 5AM to watch an unedited video feed.
- It will occur on Philip Island, off the coast of Victoria in South-East Australia. As a consequence, there's a question around how reliable a 3G connection will be, and the availability of wired internet is unknown at this point.
- We will have access to a consumer-level digital video camera and a MacBook Air laptop.
- Many guests will have reasonable-quality smartphone video cameras.
- Angie Hart will be performing live, and it would be nice to capture that with a degree of fideltiy. (She's a friend of the Groom, not an indication of the budget we have to play with.)
- Regarding sound fidelity, I'm also concerned about the audio quality of the options we have at hand.

Options we've been tossing around include:
- Ustream from smartphone for the live feed, supported by post-produced dedicated camera footage uploaded to YouTube.
- Skip the live feed (for quality and likely audience reasons), and crowdsource footage from guest smartphones and the video camera to the laptop for immediate upload with cursory editing and QA.
- Nominate a few trusted attendees to record with smartphones and stream them all to some form of online portal so people overseas can switch between channels (e.g. say for when a drone goes to the bathroom and hopefully goes offline - see "trusted"). Then, download the streams after the reception and edit them into something coherent. Assuming something like this exists and is not prohibitively expensive.
- A combination of the above.

I'm sure there's some other, completely awesome alternative that we're unaware of, so any advice or suggestions are welcomed!
(I have NO idea what I'm doing, so please be gentle.)

Audio live streaming options?

sdis — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 00:15:10 -0800

Live Audio Broadcast Options: I want to broadcast a live music performance of mine to friends and family abroad. What are my options? I have access to a WiFi connection in the concert hall that gets 350-800kbps up and I have a Macbook Pro with a Snowball USB microphone (which is mono). I've tried livestream for an audio-video feed, but it produced a pretty crappy feed, and the audio was the first thing to go when it got bad, so I'd like to set my priorities to the audio. Given the mono microphone, we're not talking about all that much data here, so surely there's a decent way to get it out to the masses.

I've tried Nicecast, which seems to work nicely at home, though I haven't yet checked if it will work on the hall's network, or if it takes more bandwidth for each additional listener, since it doesnt use external servers. Any other options, ideally one with a central server?