Old 04-01-2020, 04:26 PM   #1
daxliniere
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Default Working remotely during COVID-19

Hey everyone,
I've been trying to find a way to remotely stream mixes to my clients, preferably with video as well. Cubase has VST Connect which even allows recording of the person on the other end, but that's needless complication for me.

Skype and Zoom are both super-easy with video and screenshare, but have terrible audio quality due to low-rate codecs.

OBS seems like a pain to set up, Twitch is not private and audio quality is average.

AudioMovers Listen.to has been suggested (for audio-only) but I just can't endorse another subscription-based product. I'd happily buy it outright, but subs just bother me.

IceCast/SHOUTcast with ReaCast seemed like a good idea, except that you need to subscribe to a *cast server, I can't see how to run it on your own computer.

I've been testing NCH BroadWave, which works and audio quality is very good, but approx 9 second latency makes it pretty annoying (in it's defense, it's designed as a 'radio station').

Looked at "Jamulus", scratched my head, no setup instructions, very unclear, website has dubious-looking font choice and electric guitar photo.


Has anyone found a solution that truly works?


All the best,
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Old 04-01-2020, 04:44 PM   #2
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Perhaps Linphone?? https://www.linphone.org/

I was reading that it can use the Opus RFC 6716 codec which is very high quality (http://opus-codec.org/) Looks like there are even ios+android apps.

I'll try to test this over the next week, if anyone wants to give it a try as well, please let us know how you go with it.
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Old 04-02-2020, 09:10 AM   #3
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OBS is just simple and holds your hand to set up FWIW. Use a virtual audio device app like Soundflower or Loopback to route audio from Reaper to the streaming app.

I think there are a couple streaming services that stream flac encoded. Not sure if those are a listening-only service though. I think they are.

There's still sharing flac renders via the cloud accounts of course.
I don't think there's a full fidelity lossless streaming service right now and certainly not one that would handle something like 5.1 surround in lossless quality.

Maybe a combination of live streaming for "conferencing" and sharing flac renders for critical evaluation?

Sorry if you already thought of that and I'm not being helpful!
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Old 04-02-2020, 10:42 AM   #4
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I tested out a combination of Audiomovers and Zoom last night - seemed to work well for the most part, with very occasional minor audio glitches.

Audiomovers is the only solution I've found so far that streams full quality audio without a huge lag time....and is simple for the person on the other end to set up (just a web browser link, or a plugin to receive audio in their DAW). Yeah, it's a subscription, but the price is cheap enough to be honest. That, and the fact I sent an email with a tech question to them at midnight last night, and literally got a reply 10 minutes later....impressive.

I know that doesn't really answer your question, @daxliniere, but thought I'd speak up as well - also curious to hear what others are using.
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Old 04-04-2020, 12:14 PM   #5
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There's quite a few options that will do what you're looking for, but the only non-free one I know of that lets you outright buy a license instead of subscribing is Source Live, and the price is a little steep

Personally, I've settled on Session Link Pro. Their conferencing app will do everything you're looking for (high quality audio streaming via opus + video/screenshare) and latency is relatively low (maybe half a second or so at most). It's also super easy to set up both on my end and for the client. It is unfortunately subscription based, but the price is reasonable for me considering how much use I'm getting out of it.

If you need the lowest latency possible and cost isn't factor there's Evercast, but I think the price ($699 per month, just for their for their lower tier service. Yikes!) puts this one out of reach for most individuals/freelancers.

If you'd prefer something you don't have to pay for OBS is probably the best option in terms of audio and video quality. It's really not that hard to set up and you can stream to a private or unlisted youtube link instead of twitch if you're worried about privacy. Voice communication is only one way though (i.e the client can't talk back to you except through text chat) and latency is like 10+ seconds

Also might be worth giving Zoom another shot if you haven't messed some of the advanced audio settings. Buried in the preferences of the Zoom desktop app there are options for stereo and "original audio" which will greatly improve the quality. It's still not top notch, but may be good enough for some things.

If you can get by without video Source Now and Cleanfeed are both free and very good:
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Old 04-04-2020, 01:22 PM   #6
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I've read that Zoom has multiple vulnerabilities that made an attacker adminitrator of your machine. And new vulnerabilities are being discovered each day. Just google "zoom vulnerabilities". They will probably fix it but privacy is also a concern.

I would go with Jitsi and a private server. It's secure, free and open source. But you don't need to setup your own server. You can just enter on jitsi website and start a call.
https://jitsi.org/
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Old 04-08-2020, 11:08 AM   #7
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Hey Robin and Hector,
Thanks for the tips! I had no idea Source Connect was free now! Used to be pretty pricey, but it's pretty good. I'll check out Jitsi, I hadn't heard about that one.

Thanks everybody! Hope you're not going crazy in isolation!
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Old 04-09-2020, 07:21 PM   #8
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I’ve been working on this and the best free easy to use solution I’ve found is Loopback into Discord. I have my first session next week, but all my testing so far has shown promise.
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Old 04-10-2020, 06:02 AM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by heda View Post
I've read that Zoom has multiple vulnerabilities that made an attacker adminitrator of your machine. And new vulnerabilities are being discovered each day. Just google "zoom vulnerabilities". They will probably fix it but privacy is also a concern.

I would go with Jitsi and a private server. It's secure, free and open source. But you don't need to setup your own server. You can just enter on jitsi website and start a call.
https://jitsi.org/
While that's true, the rest is equally bad when it comes to security.

It's just that Zoom is the best known AND Chinese.
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Old 10-15-2021, 02:51 AM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tone Ranger View Post
I tested out a combination of Audiomovers and Zoom last night - seemed to work well for the most part, with very occasional minor audio glitches.

Audiomovers is the only solution I've found so far that streams full quality audio without a huge lag time....and is simple for the person on the other end to set up (just a web browser link, or a plugin to receive audio in their DAW). Yeah, it's a subscription, but the price is cheap enough to be honest. That, and the fact I sent an email with a tech question to them at midnight last night, and literally got a reply 10 minutes later....impressive.

I know that doesn't really answer your question, @daxliniere, but thought I'd speak up as well - also curious to hear what others are using.
I wonder if AudioMovers would work over Linux?
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