My how to guide for producing a web show with remote visuals and remote audio.

http://chipmusic.org/forums/post/157762/#p157762

i like the chat roomz

yesyesohgodyes and I sometimes go chipbusking and we create tracks in live mode from scratch on the fly in LSDj with two gameboys and a link cable. We take turns switching off per song on who's running Master and Slave sync. It's a good system.

And that is 100% no discredit to any of the artists' talent, either. I honestly believe that I would also not enjoy a "webshow" of some of my absolute favorite artists ever unless it was really planned well on their part too. But that's not something I as a fan should be expecting of the artists I enjoy; instead I should be more focused on buying their products and seeing them at a physical show whenever and as much as possible. It's asinine to assume that in addition to creating appealing music, performing live and creating a brand that my favorite artists should be prepared to also bottle all of that up into a prepackaged and cohesive webcam presentation that I can view from the leisure from my own bedroom and oh yeah just like Peter Swimm said, for absolutely free

Good topic and I think it's relevant to address this. For me, it depends on what you mean. I am a huge fan of actual concerts being streamed in audio and/or video. It's interesting to be observing the party from the outside, see the interactions between artist and audience, and most importantly to learn how so many of us can not and never will be able to dance

But playing a "webshow" is something I'm not particularly a fan of. I've been interested in trying one myself, but I know I would have to figure out some creative and enticing way to keep it entertaining. IMO, you simply cannot take the same approach you would have to a normal, in-the-flesh show...I think it's near-embarrassing to be watching someone just tweak out in their bedroom/basement while hearing a super crisp line-in signal or even just as bad when you hear the ambience of a room with only one person in there wailing it out. Sometimes the live webcam show idea works though; I think Radiohead actually was a great example of this (regardless how you feel about their music) when they played through In Rainbows on a live stream in the studio with stuff like multi-cam angles and choreographed video clips; but if you're not bringing anything new to the table and you're doing something like just sitting at a desk and staring into the webcam then you are not playing a show-you are debuting songs to a chat room. I don't see any real difference then between that and something like turntable.fm, which is already a mighty fine establishment, but you can start to see the confusion there now between the two mediums

This is just my (probably unpopular) opinion on the matter but I think the reason for this discrepancy is that a huge element of playing live is the ability to feed off of and respond to the audience's reactions be them positive OR negative. Sometimes this even is the deciding factor between a good and a bad show over the actual quality of the music and many artists in any genre still struggle to realize this. On a "webshow" this is simply not possible save for reading through a chatlog of text responses and I think this is the Achilles' heel of the entire underlying idea behind playing a "webshow" live.

Look man all I need is a Tricaster and some back up dancers.

Some background :
I've been casting, let's just call it a live radioshow with cam and chat, regularly for well over 4 years now.
While by no means popular, mostly because I simply don't advertise it, or any reference for that matter,
I have learned that for a stream to be successful there has to at least a means of direct interaction.
But that in itself is not enough to captivate viewers. Most viewers come for a personality/show
they can relate to and the actual streamcontent is secondary to that.

So, is there room for a stream about chiptunes? Defenitely. Are we missing the boat if there isn't? No.
The question is only what direction to take it in. Just showing a video of a concert is
not going to cut it nor is just playing music. People use youtube for that.
It would however be a great predefined time for likemined people to actively get together,
hang out while promoting and/or enjoying new music while getting instant feedback.
Basically the way I see it is that it's just a not all that different venue for a community to get together
and share/promote what they care about with the added feature of being able to show visual information.
How to fill in the visual part is really the only question and by far the most work.

My random 2 cents

Yea i agree, im just talking about WEB ENTERTAINMENT. You have to compete with everything if you want to be a good web performer.

It's not like in chipmusic the rules on things have to be different though, I don't really get why some people make this aesthetic a special case. Your average listener probably has a bunch of chipmusic mp3s in their music folder along with everything else they listen to, I doubt they're going "NOW I'M LISTENING TO CHIPMUSIC FOR AN HOUR.  I MUST PREPARE FIRST."   Quite frankly I'm glad we're not stuck with releasing music as source files anymore, having to attach a bunch of instructions before people can hear the damned things.  Anyway, this thread seems to be another one where the question is "how would musicians in general approach doing a webcast?" and probably just googling that would come up with answers.

i'm not sure how many people see streaming of chipmusic as "THE NEXT BIG PHENOMENON THAT'Z TAKING THE WORLD BY STORM", or a soon-to-be predominant way that chip is proliferated, or anything like that.

i get that streams do have the potential of hurting the integrity of whatever else you've put out there though.   i think that's where i found myself feeling the most conflicted tbh.

on one hand, considering i've really only played like 1.5 live performances to date, i was actually quite pleased with how my clipstream set turned out.  it was fun to prepare for and i think it was representative of the tunes and other resources i had at my disposal.  i think i did about as good as i could have with a single-camera setup and no visuals.  and as much as a live performance flies in the face of my perfectionist nature with respect to releasing anything over any medium, it was a fun thing to do in the moment and it was great to get to know other chip artists better in the process.

On the other hand, is that recorded stream something i would use as "press material" per se?  probably not.  most people who don't understand where a chip streamer is coming from would scoff at it or dismiss it, which is why i haven't shared it on facebook.  i don't think such a set represents the kind of "whole package" i would want to put forth, which i think would entail some kind of multisensory experience.  what that experience would look, i haven't had the time/energy to formulate yet, but i'm pretty sure it doesn't involve me bopping in front of a camera for half an hour.

so there's this weird internal conflict between
a) the idea that i'm free can do whatever i feel like in a live stream and people can enjoy it in the moment for what it's worth, and
b) the fact that this supposedly spontaneous event has been recorded for on-demand viewing - taking away from the spontaneity and intimacy of the live act, and giving undesired permanency to any mistakes or other aspects that we'd like forgotten.

I wonder if people might feel differently about streaming if there was an unwritten rule in the chipscene that any live streams should only be broadcast and recorded?  or at least, that any recorded streams get deleted after a couple of days?

Actually Boa, I have nothing but respect for you playing Devil's Advocate and speaking a difference in opinion.  I like a challenge and a debate, so thank you for doing so.

If you have any ideas that would escalate chipmusic, I'm pretty sure we're all ears (and if nobody else is, screw it, I'm always up for that convo.)

Okay, after catching up on the posts, I think I see where everyone's coming from.  Again, I'm not looking for web shows to replace venue shows-- venue shows are great for introducing new people to how shows work while web shows (in its current state and art) are much more community-friendly.  We all can agree there.

What I meant about promotion wasn't necessarily people new to chipmusic but people in the scene that haven't heard of each other yet.  A lot of these new-comers and up-and-comers want to do something more than push a few links on their website, and I feel this kind of show is a decent vehicle for getting their name out there provided that we get the attention of those in the scene to begin with.

Perhaps in their current state they should be considered more for the community to have fun instead of attracting new fans, but let's not count out the idea that it could do so.

As for making it look less amateur and silly to the uninformed, there's two parts of the stream that make this tough--  Let's just call it host side and performer side.  Host side can organize, get people going, scheduled, etc. ... but the performance is all up to the minds of the artists.  If we could figure out a guideline on how to make it look more legitimate instead of a bootlegged skype video conference, I'm totally up for it.

I do have some ideas for said guideline that I'll be writing down, and when I have something substantial I'd like to share them with you guys if you're interested.  After all, despite going to shows and being a part of a few of them, I don't have nearly as many notches on my belt as some of you.

Pretty much. 

This is 100% why I haven't participated in one yet. As far as video stream is concerned, if I can't make it look half as interesting as an actual show then I don't want to do it for those reasons. Especially since I've been paying much more attention to the visual aspect of my project in the past year or so. Call me vain or whatever.

But hey if that kind of stuff isn't important to you, then by all means dance around your dorm in your sweat pants in front of your macbook. I'll probably watch it and have fun regardless.

I have to say I agree with what Boa is trying to say... if your webstream is your best foot forward and it looks silly and amateurish to the uniformed it isn't going to serve very well as a promotional tool, no matter how much clothes your friends puts on the emperor. The idea of a stream as a online party is fun, but I think you have to look at the results more objectively before you start praising them as the ideal.

Thats not to say im against bootlegs, but I think you have to be really careful how you are portrayed in the media if you expect to be taken seriously (of course if this is even your goal).