Mixers/Consoles Help with completely digital mixing setup

[Mrfiggityfigs]

Hello all, this one is a little different than what I've been reading on here.

The end goal is to broadcast video and audio onto the internet, we have a dedicated computer for the broad casting, and we have the video portion working, and the actual broad casting of the audio... the audio works as well, but we're trying to figure out how to "mix" the audio.

We have a source computer where all the content is generated and what we want is to be able to adjust what goes where.

So we have 2 USB microphones, standard computer speakers using the 1/8" jack, and wireless headset that used either optical(preferred) or 1/8". Then we have all the computer generated sounds such as a music playing software, other content software generating live sounds, voice communication software (similar to Skype calls), etc. So what we want is to be able to cue and adjust levels of the different sources and shove them out the "main" to the broadcasting computer. While still being able to monitor through the headset and/or speakers different sources (they have their own volume controls so levels aren't as much of an issue).. like send the music to the speakers and the communication based stuff to the headset.

We've tried "Virtual Audio Cable" and it works.. most of the time, it's quite finicky. And we'd like a more user friendly interface. Currently, we're only using the stock sound card that comes on the ASUS motherboard in the generating computer. There is no space physically in the rig for a PCIe based sound or interface card, so if we required extra hardware we'd need it to be USB (preferably 3.0, but 2.0 will be fine)

We were looking at a behringer xenyx 1204USB (and variants), but since the mics are USB and all the other audio sources are software based I can't for the life of me figure out how it would help at all.. other than look cool on the desk.

Thank you for any help you can offer.

 

[Mrfiggityfigs]

Oh I should add my Google-foo has failed me in this, everything I can find semi-related is for mixing pre-required audio such as mp3, wav, fla, mp4, etc.

Thanks again

 

[Footer]

Eh. Its not easy. What OS are you running? I don't have multiple USB headsets sitting around so I really can't test it. Unless there is a mac or PC app that I don't know about I don't think you are going to get what you want with the level of control you need easily. I assume this is some sort of podcast setup?

I would ditch the USB mics and get dynamic mics and a mixing console that will connect via USB such as the Xenyx. It won't work with your current mics. I would then route all the show audio to that console. That console would hook up to your steaming PC and go from there.

I would look for a better forum, this is not what we really do here. I am sure there are podcast forums out there that will give you a better solution. Your not the only person doing this. I know there has to be cleaner solutions but it really depends on your current hardware.

Its a start: Recording Tutorials « Nosillacast

 

[Mrfiggityfigs]

well we need the mic audio on both computers, for the communication, and to broadcast.

Both computers are running Win7 64 pro.

I was mainly posting here, because, well you never know heh.

 

[Jay Ashworth]

It's likely you're going to find that you'll be better off handling the audio as normal audio, XLR cables, mics, a mixer and the like, and then taking a final mix into your encoder PC.

Given how hard you're going to be compressing, you won't notice the half-generation loss, I wouldn't think. M-Audio Delta-44 cards seem to have a relatively good rep for this, if you have PC slots; there are lots of USB attach interfaces, if not.

As footer suggests, though, this is pretty tangential to what most people on this forum have to deal with on a regular basis; if the podcasting people don't have it for you, you might look around where broadcasters hang out.

If you need a mixing control surface, then Vestax VCM-600 is probably the only one at the intersection of "USB to PC" and "looks like a mixing desk", but it doesn't do the audio processing at all -- it's intended as an Ableton controller.

 

[Footer]

Your going to want mix minus feeds and a few other things that your simply not going to get without getting some sort of hardware or specialized software involved. Also, being that you are on windows that is going to limit you to some degree, for whatever reason most of the good apps like audio hijack pro are mac only.

Get a USB interface for each computer such as the Focusrite Scarlet 2i2 and a small mixer that has at least 6 channels and two auxes Tie that all into the console. Send what you need to each computer. That should do it.