When I got up this morning my intent was to reconfigure my OBS installation on the computer in Studio 3, the room from which I will likely be doing my live streaming. When I was first exploring the subject I installed the Streamlabs OBS package on that computer while my laptop had the generic OBS Studios and I wanted to make everything consistent so I uninstalled the Streamlabs version and installed the other version. That was the rabbit I decided to chase today and it led me down a couple of holes to meet some of its relatives that I will now describe.
The first was a direct descendant, an issue with the audio configuration on the laptop that I have been moving between Studios 1 and 2 that I discovered this past Wednesday. Prior to my drum lesson on Wednesday (which was very helpful and which I hope to write up soon) I had hoped to make a video of the exercise I was working on with the Nitro that included a view of the Nitro control unit and how I was using it to validate my efforts at improving the timing accuracy of my playing. I had three cameras on the scene, a Logitec c920 overhead, the built in one from the Dell laptop, and the cell phone configured with IP Webcam. These were recorded by a single instance of OBS Studio. The audio was using the microphones in the c920 and the Dell and, as I was doing it somewhat last minute, I didn't do a separate recording using Reaper. When I went to play it back I noticed that the hi-hat hits seemed to have a slight delay between the two sources and realized that the resultant mix was the net of the OBS audio mixer inputs so after loading OBS on the HP computer in Studio 3 this morning I decided to see if I could get a better understanding of how audio works in OBS.
After installing OBS I observed that the default audio from the device, in this case the HP, is automatically detected by OBS so I renamed the scene and the audio source. I then added the c920 audio source and lastly added the UMC404HD. With the UMC404HD I was expecting to have four assignable audio inputs but OBS only recognized a single instance of the I/O device and when I had three microphones plugged in it sent one signal to the left channel and the other two to the right channel. I don't know if that was due to a windows configuration problem or if it might be that I need to download and install a specific driver on the HP from the Behringer website. I'm currently resuming the chase of that rabbit and will update this if I manage to resolve it soon.
At any rate, as I was setting up the Studio 3 scene in OBS I decided I wanted to be able to capture my Reaper session with the video output so I started up a copy of Reaper and assigned that window as an input to the OBS Studio 3 configuration. That's when the second rabbit ran in front of me. When Reaper started it opened one of the first projects I ever created using Reaper. Back in 2012 I did a cover of Shepherd Me Oh God by Marty Haugan and thought it would be nice to post that on some kind of platform like SoundCloud or YouTube but before I did that I wanted to make sure I didn't run into any kind of potential copyright violation issues so I started a long chase after that rabbit and still haven't caught it but I did catch a few others from the same family.
The first sibling rabbit was what Performance Rights Organization I should become a member of, BMI or ASCAP. My current inclination is to join BMI but I will put it off shortly until I digest all I have already learned. I need to decide on if I should self publish - when I am ready to publish my works. Of course I should register them with the US Copyright Office. I will also need to register as both a author and a publisher. I found Mariea E. Watkins had produced a series of videos on music business on her YouTube Channel The Music Business Made Easy. that covered many of the topics I was interested in and that I need to be sure I have considered before I get too deep into developing both my own music and my online presence. Not only was the content relevant to what I am wanting to do long term but her channel is well branded and is a good example of the structure I want to develop with my channel and my websites. Now I have two rabbits in the bag but I still need to cook them.
There were several different types of royalties that were discussed in different contexts including writer, publisher, mechanical, performance, cover, and copyright and these titles aren't accurate but reflect the complexity of what I am trying to accomplish within the context of the law to ensure that those people whose material I may use, whether it's through sampling or doing a cover of a song by someone else, that they get paid for it. I still haven't figured out how to properly obtain a license to make a cover and play the music of someone else, but the royalties that are generated by YouTube seem to go through organizations called Awal and SoundTrust. Other organizations in the food chain, including some that deal with streaming on platforms such as Spotify, Apple iTunes, Pandora, and Sirius XM include Sound Exchange, Tone Core, CD Baby, Distrokid, and Songtrust. Some deal with radio and television broadcasting to collect and distribute royalties. These are a lot of rabbits I've been chasing and I haven't caught any of them yet. With them I think my best bet is to lay some more traps for another day although I did lay a good foundation. There were some other sites that provided more information and I still need to get a grip on the Harry Fox Agency but all in all it worked out well.
One other thing that did come up in this research spate was the importance of including metadata in sound recordings to take care of the copyright attribution issues and the program BWF MetaEdit will insert the information needed so your recordings are properly identified. I could probably go on for longer about this but I finally just got my X32 Compact and want to unpack it and hopefully figure out how it works sometime soon so I'll leave you with that.