Video Streaming from Traktor with BCD Controller to VAC to OBS Studio

Here is an example of this setup in action as livestreamed and recorded from OBS Studio.


Leave the Traktor audio settings alone.  These are related to the particular controller, the BCD3000, which provides two ASIO outputs, stereo master out that typically connects to the speakers and stereo monitor out that typically goes to headphones.

Use the ASIO from the controller

Typical outputs to speakers and headphones

Now this gets a little tricky fast, and the first trick is instead of connecting the Master Out cable directly to the speakers that I typically do for Traktor, I take the master out and plug it into the Mic In on the laptop.

I usually connect the Master Out directly to the speakers, but in this setup I leave the connection to the speakers from the Headphone Out alone (and do not use it because there will be no signal to the speakers in this setup.

This overview combines a little bit of the hardware with the software as block diagram. The client is obviously connected to speakers/headphones.

The block diagrams give a general idea of what's going on after Traktor.  For the VAC stage, you need just one cable.  VAC (Virtual Audio Cable) is a paid program, and you might have O Deus ASIOLink or Jack. Out of the box, VAC arrives with one cable, which is fine. I happen to have eight as I didn't know how many I would need.

I have no idea what this is aside from letting it determine how many cables I have, so aside from that, leave it alone.

As to a repeater, I use the KS version and it takes the Mic In and sends it to a virtual patch cable out, VAC1.

50% of the magic happens right here in this repeater.  You can see evidence of incoming audio at the mic as cabled, and you can see it is hitting the out at VAC1 front left and front right speaker signals at the bottom of the window. Note setting for 44,100 sample rate and 100 ms total buffer selected from the dropdown.

Now we're ready for OBS Studio configuration. This isn't quite perfect as you can occasionaly hear stuttering, but overall the sound is good. When I was livestreaming the test video, there were several instances where I was listening to the audio from the client with a pair of phones and attempting to load a track in Traktor and danged if I couldn't hear the monitor signal as expected. Oh, I was using the wrong phones.

The base canvas and the output resolution is governed by some reduction to final 360p video. It's this small because I use DSL that offers .9 Mbps upload best case, which does not provide bandwidth for 720p upload.

Here's the other 50% of the magic at audio settings.  See how VAC1 is configured as the Mic/Aux In.

You can tell the audio is working.  It is pulsing green.  I set the slider  near the speaker icon to -2.5dB. This is the window capture of my Traktor screen in OBS as seen in much of the video.

Stream files from VLC

01tools-messages-set-verbosity-to-2

02media-stream

03-click-add-button-then-select-file(s)-to-stream

04click-stream-button

05click-next-button

07A-select-icecast-from-the-drop-down-not-file-then-click-next

08select-transcoding-option-then-click-next

102make-sure-you-put-source

103copy-paste-my-sout-and-now-i-am-going-to-stream

104at-stream-it-starts-streaming-if-it-is-going-to-work-no-need-to-press-play-these-messages-look-good

105vlc-is-now-streaming-the-file

106and-here-it-is-making-a-trip-to-server-and-back-to-my-browser

107the-address-you-use-for-the-server-in-the-browser

Here's how to stream a file from VLC, which facilitates simple FFmpeg calls (saves loading mixing and streaming software such as Traktor and generating history).  Start by searching for tutorials and information on your own to get the general idea and possible ways to help you if your questions are not answered here. I used a video as an example by TechKidda.  If you have an Icecast server available, all you need is host name or IP address, domain, port and password.  Work through the VLC part of the tutorial until the stream works for you. Be very careful to put source:your-password in Icecast destination set-up (two pieces of information separated by a colon). Save the generated sout statement (known to work) to a text file for copy pasting in the future as it will work fine for streaming other files without filling in the forms completely. Instead, in the future, just click through until you see the stream where the sout statement goes, plug it in and stream. You can play the stream in a virtual world or on a music player such as Foobar 2000 using the entire URL, or, you can hear an Icecast2 stream in progress by way of the browser (just need host and domain names followed by a colon and then the port number without the mount).

Streaming with Mixxx

Some time ago, a friend had some difficulties doing a set-up with Mixxx on Windows 7 or 8.1.  This illustrated tutorial is a recap, and is here to help you.

On Ripping

Recently I have had to add must-plays to copy-cat sets I've been doing, and there was no way to find the music except on frostwire or youtube.  I wrote an article on Medium about this.  I really wanted to find a way to get the best sound out of a video, and not go back to ripping a video to mp3, which is something I got away from years ago by way of playing DJ promos.  However, I cut myself off from must-plays by playing promos only.  A better ripping workflow has made it possible to re-access these tracks.

Skype calls on Traktor

I wanted to be able to accept Skype calls on Traktor, so I looked for a recipe and found one for SAM, How to Record Skype in SAM Broadcaster.  The main change from previous solo voice on mic setup is instead of connecting the mic to the mic in of the primary soundcard, connect it to a secondary soundcard configured to be used for Skype mic and Skype speakers, then take a patch cable and go from the speaker out of the secondary soundcard to the mic in of the primary soundcard and connect everything to Traktor using Virtual Audio Cable as before.  The deck set to Audio Through will be live and now can invite callers to be heard on the stream.  Far from first ever, but still, for me, a first.

How to tune in to internet radio on your computer

You might see on a web page a fancy message indicating that by clicking on a link or a little "play" arrow, you can tune in to their station in some way. Sometimes you can find a link that is not a proprietary player from a walled garden, and you will be able to save that link and find out what it says by following the approach we are about to show. We'll start with getting a list of stations with a search.


We were looking for a specific station in this case, leftob. You can also search by genre, style or artist, among other criteria. Clicking on the link for leftob will open a proprietary player (or perhaps it opens all by itself), but this is only good for testing. You wouldn't normally come to this website in order to listen to a station, but instead you'd want it in your music player in its library. How to accomplish that?


We'll do a save link as, and get it saved somewhere on your system. But be careful with the file. Clicking on it might invoke it and wipe out current playlist completely if your music player is Winamp or Foobar2000, for example. But it will play on your default music player. It did on mine, iTunes, when I accidentally clicked it, but no harm was done to the overall music library.


Instead what you want to do is rename the file so it is harmless. Rename to a txt file, and maybe differentiate it from others by putting what you think it is into the name. Then go ahead and open it up in Notepad.


If all goes well, you can go to the advanced menu on iTunes and Open Audio Stream. A GUI opens that lets you enter the URL, which you can copy/paste from the text file.


Regardless of whether you click on the downloaded file or you use the "Open Audio Stream" approach, it plays. It is now located in the Music Library and can be dragged into a playlist of your choosing for radio stations, or you can search for it and play it in the Music Library in the future.


This same technique works similarly in Foobar2000, where you go to File -> Add Location and paste in the URL you copy from the text file you created.


Once it is added, you can play the station as shown with visualizations.


The approach is similar for Icecast. Here we are in the Icecast Directory and we are looking for Techno.


Here we have selected a station and are ready to do a Save Link As on the M3U link on the right.


Yes we want to change that to a text file so we can safely open it up in Notepad.


Here we are interpreting the constents of the file and selecting the tek-minal mountpoint link for copying, Ctrl-C.


And here we are in the Add Location GUI, pasting the previously copied link, Ctrl-V.


Here we are right clicking the newly added loaction and are about to select Play from the menu.


And it plays. So we've seen a couple of examples of unlocking a link and tuning in to an internet station. There are many more stations to choose from than you will find in the local broadcast spectrum, and more independent choices than you will find in satellite subscription. These two examples happen to have very little advertising or promotion either.

Winamp hints

Sometimes people are motivated to use Winamp. Apparently it can be done, but having tried it, not recommending it because it is easy to crash, lose playlists and rudimentary fading between tracks is quite difficult, though maybe it's not impossible. Start with this article, and focus on the Winamp paragraphs. These are Winamp version 5 screenshots, which would be Shoutcast version 1 only. You need to enter into the Shoutcast DSP three specific pieces of information from your stream host that looks like the following:

IP address
64.34.170.176

Port
15036

Password
bogus1



And you need to set up your selected encoder properly, as in this example:

MP3 Encoder
128KBPS, 44.1KHz, Stereo