Thoughts on Streaming (Page 5 of 8)

I must admit, when watching Roboctopus' set on WWCW the other day, I was simultaneously sending similar "Awwwjeah!" and "Oh no he didn't!"s to my brother and I definitely had more fun that way.

I think there's a lot of potential for streaming to lower the borders between artist and audience and encourage more conversation between the two groups, but it won't replace concerts or physical workshops, both of which would be better done physically or through recordings; it's much easier to get consistent quality on a recording when you're not worrying about streaming it (kills FPS, audio quality).

For concerts, unless there's some killer VJ stuff going on, the visual aspect generally isn't necessary. Put a few condenser mics around for atmosphere and make it an audio-only stream going off the mixer or bootleg it and upload it later. Another issue with concert recordings the chip community suffers from a lot is that the live elements of shows (i.e. what's separating it from listening to the record in your house) are primarily visual or not unique enough to make the act of watching a stream/recording worth the effort. Larger shows like Blipfest lend themselves more to recordings since they're good for discovering new artists, but the same appeal could be had through a radio show, or just poking around here. (Arecibo's chip shows have been doing that pretty well for me.)

Workshops could definitely be streamed, though many of them don't have much of a need for direct audience interaction. It'd also be difficult to read and answer every question you receive while presenting a power-point to a bunch of other people. Much of that could be alleviated through recording the workshop and having its presenter answer questions via a forum, much like this one. Smaller scale ones done from homes have more potential to work as the person doing them would have a much easier time answering questions and interacting with multiple people.

I think that for people looking to do streaming chiptune stuff, good examples to look at would be day9 and Shinsei Kamattechan (the latter of which is more applicable since they're musicians). day9's streams are, essentially, Q&A sessions between him and his audience. Kamattechan does largely the same thing, though the antics and unique personality of their lead singer/guitarist/songwriter Noko tend to draw in more people and keep them interested in the stream. This style of streaming could easily work for chiptune musicians as well, though it'd require interesting content to back it up. If little-scale was sitting on a stream talking about rad hardware stuff, I'd watch that. If you're just sitting at a desk streaming music and not saying anything, no one's going to watch. You have to have the personality to back it up, and for a lot of people it's hard to get that sort of personality without something like a concert to amplify it. I've done decent stage shows before since I work well in that setting, but I can't stream because my personality isn't interesting enough to make it work in a casual setting without someone else to talk at. It's sort of like how good Let's Players tend to be in duos (Retsupurae, Chip & Ironicus). Having multiple people in a stream helps a lot.

Basically, there's a niche for concert streams, but for archiving quality it'd be better to bootleg the mixer than anything, since the audience loses out on too much of the live atmosphere for it to work on a stream (at least for me). Workshops can be streamed but that won't matter much for ones outside of a dude presenting in his room; forums are much better mediums for discussing specific technical stuff than streams, especially for archival. Stream replies generally aren't logged or are hard to discern in a stream while looking in a series of forum posts is much easier for most people. Q&A streams have the most potential, but holding people's attention would require having a good personality or interesting subject matter to discuss.

EDIT: Also, NicoNico is a solid streaming service. Glad it just got opened up to the west. I have no idea how to actually use it but I'd be surprised if there isn't some way to configure XSplit for Nico streaming.

Last edited by Fatal Labyrinth (Dec 19, 2012 4:25 am)

The idea of workshops is entertaining to someone such as myself who has more of an audible, hands-on learning approach partially thanks to a massive battle with ADHD that keeps me from focusing on reading manuals unless I'm absolutely invested in it (also inb4 that argument...  it's not a crutch, it's just an obstacle you just keep having to tackle, and I've done pretty damn well so far.)  However, youtube is a great place for tutorials because it's already a saved recording and can be re-wound and viewed as often as necessary.  All in all, the idea of a workshop is cool, but we'd have to see how the crowd would be likely to react to one being streamed live.

As for the argue that nobody's going to watch someone sitting there pressing buttons...  I feel a lot of people go for the music first and then the performance aspect second.  While both important, one has a larger priority than the other.   I think streaming can still provide audible, visual and social entertainment and interaction without having to worry about buying ear plugs, age restrictions, or travel costs for both the artists and audience.

That being said, I would never dream of ever replacing live shows.  While knowing the concept of chiptune existed, the Boston 8-Bit Chip Concert at Pax East 2009(10?) was what honestly got me to jump on board, start making music and get involved.  I owe way too much to the  idea of live, physical concerts to ever even consider getting rid of them or dare thinking, "Oh, irl chip shows are on their way out."  I know some people that want to replace live shows with web shows (whom shall remain nameless unless they personally come forward.)  I refuse to see things that way.

Call it naive and unrealistic, but I would much rather a symbiotic relationship with as many people in the community over a competitive one.  Hell, it actually bothers me to the point I nearly wrote an apology letter to whomever runs 8static because we have to be the same weekend as them for two months in a row.  I only want to add to everything being awesome, not take away or compete.

Having multiple people in one stream does indeed help the chemistry and flow of a show, but let's not forget the classic Let's Plays from Deceased Crab, now.    Once again, while we can encourage all kinds of acts and ideas, we really are at the mercy of whomever is streaming.  Perhaps after MAGFest we should sit down and come up with a collective guideline on how to not do a lackluster show, be it a physical venue or a web show?

Yes, this is a new and dare I even say experimental concept to our scene, but with anything new and experimental, I hope you all can give our show a shot and that you guys can give us the same kind of amazing feedback on ideas and problems that you've been giving to us so far.  To those still wondering, yes, there is a chat that the artists and audience share with each other, although sometimes it's hard for the artists to check it out mid-performance.

What's funny is that the moment I heard someone was talking about streaming and mentioned Clipstream here, my first reaction was wondering how terrible we were going to be picked apart and pissed on for being a terrible idea.  Thank you all for being incredibly rational and logical on this topic, your support, your criticisms and your suggestions.  I know I'll be checking back here as this keeps going and bringing up every post to the rest of the group that helps organize every Clipstream (whom seem to have been checking back often, as it is.)

Edited for punctuation.

Last edited by Glenntai (Dec 19, 2012 6:32 am)

doing things for free = invalidating yourself as an artist ?

I dunno how you invalidate your act by doing a free stream. Are we invalidating ourselves as artists releasing stuff for free?

You guys seriously think that streaming is a stupid thing? WTF is wrong with you, guys?

I personally like streaming, its a good way to hear live music without the commute to shows. However, I don't even compare the two. It's a totally different experience, and both are enjoyable for different reasons. Of course I'd prefer a live concert, nothing beats jumping up and down like an idiot surrounded by a bunch of other sweaty people jumping up and down like idiots, but if there's a good stream, you can just about guarantee I'll be watching.

live concert dvds don't consist of some dude sitting at his desk. going hard during a webshow just looks silly.. I speak from experience... cuz I done that