Loss of sound when streaming

Hello I have the Prime 2 … and stream with the controller in the web radio with an XLR cable from the master to my laptop which is connected by a jack. unfortunately, the sound loses a lot of quality when straming … can you adjust what … in prime? or is it due to the external sound card that I connected to the laptop?

It might be good to add the word “quality” to the title of the post. As “loss of sound” might make some people think you mean silence.

There’s a lot of streaming software around and a lot of that has sprung up in the last couple of month to catch some wind from all the “I’m a radio DJ at home in lockdown” tsunami of the moment. Some streaming software is free, some is good, some not so good.

Also consider that with “everyone” online, at home, bored the local internet around you is going to be stretched to breaking point and it’s only fair to expect your neighbourhoods bandwidth to be throttled and bottlenecked back to 1990 quality.

It’s like here. I’m in a 7 storey apartment block in Devonport, we got ultra high speed fibre. Usually I can hit download on a movie from my subscription set top box and it’ll hit 10% downloaded in a few seconds and let me hit play. Right now, it’s taking 5 minutes to even show the first 1% and we gotta wait until it’s at 50 or 60% before it’ll let us hit play, cause it knows it’s not going to have the end of the movie by the time we’ve watched up to that point. It’s cause everyone’s locked in in the entire apartment block and that could mean 4 people behind each door, all streaming different movies or zooming or what else all at the same time.

So your streaming could be getting trashed by bandwidth throttling especially if the broadcast software you’re using has an option of auto-reducing Quality to match bandwidth - you won’t really know until lockdowns off.

It could be a more mundane reason though. It could just be your signal levels are too high and going into the red into however you’re streaming out.

What’s the output sound like if you attach a pair of speakers to the output you’re usually connecting to the stream out device/laptop

t might be good to add the word “quality” to the title of the post. As “loss of sound” might make some people think you mean silence.

There’s a lot of streaming software around and a lot of that has sprung up in the last couple of month to catch some wind from all the “I’m a radio DJ at home in lockdown” tsunami of the moment. Some streaming software is free, some is good, some not so good.

Also consider that with “everyone” online, at home, bored the local internet around you is going to be stretched to breaking point and it’s only fair to expect your neighbourhoods bandwidth to be throttled and bottlenecked back to 1990 quality.

It’s like here. I’m in a 7 storey apartment block in Devonport, we got ultra high speed fibre. Usually I can hit download on a movie from my subscription set top box and it’ll hit 10% downloaded in a few seconds and let me hit play. Right now, it’s taking 5 minutes to even show the first 1% and we gotta wait until it’s at 50 or 60% before it’ll let us hit play, cause it knows it’s not going to have the end of the movie by the time we’ve watched up to that point. It’s cause everyone’s locked in in the entire apartment block and that could mean 4 people behind each door, all streaming different movies or zooming or what else all at the same time.

So your streaming could be getting trashed by bandwidth throttling especially if the broadcast software you’re using has an option of auto-reducing Quality to match bandwidth - you won’t really know until lockdowns off.

It could be a more mundane reason though. It could just be your signal levels are too high and going into the red into however you’re streaming out.

What’s the output sound like if you attach a pair of speakers to the output you’re usually connecting to the stream out device/laptop

What’s up Cue,

Your issue most likely is outside of the Prime 2. It can be a couple of things:

  • Your Soundcard (most unlikely)
  • Audio levels (distorted signal)
  • Bitrate settings for your streaming software
  • Web radio station settings
  • Upload bandwith from your internet service
  • All of the above

First thing to do is check the FAQ for the web radio platform that you are using for best settings. Usually they’ll tell you how to setup your streaming software and test your internet connections for the best quality. Typically, you’ll want your internet UPLOAD speed to be a minimum of 3mbps.

As for bitrate setting for your streaming software, the higher the better, but no higher than the max level required by your web radio services (it’s usually set by your subscription level). Keep in mind, the lower the bitrate the worst the stream will sound (I find anything below 128k begins to sound like AM radio).

Good luck,

Can it really be due to the sound card? it is a very normal USB external sound card. because my laptop has only one headphone input. The MIC is therefore not possible to connect the Prime2 directly via the laptop

Rather than just saying the soundcard is “normal”, tell us what it is.

If you’re going from Prime XLR into a cheap USB dongle then you could well be overloading it. The signal level from the Prime XLRs is not “consumer level”. The input on a POS dongle is.

Try going from the RCA master outs instead.

TONOR USB Soundcard 20 €

yes sometimes it is even so that it overrides for a short time and the music then runs very slowly without adjusting the BPM or so it is a little slower but with on and off it is better again

That could be the weak link in an otherwise strong, high quality chain of equipment.

You’ve got that amazing Prime hardware, like a mighty NASCAR or Formula 1 racing car. But your trying to fuel them with home made throat burnin’ moonshine.

I have now ordered this one. i hope it works better … experience with interface?

https://www.thomann.de/de/behringer_u_phoria_umc202hd.htm

That’s better than the first one you were using. It should be ok at least for streaming, which isn’t exactly Pristine high audio quality anyway - in particular the terrible looking audio specs for Beatport live, but that won’t affect you here.

One thing, my past experience of behringer is that they make really great audio items but then put the cheapest buttons that China can offer. In particular the latching in/out buttons are as fragile as flower petals even on a AUS$3000 pa mixer - so watch those button presses

Here’s a video that I did on livestreaming. Most of this applies to audio streaming as well.

thx is 10000 better

I had also had an issue when loading a track from beatport and lost sound, in addition whilst also using beatport songs were taking an age to load in some instances over 20 seconds (for a 3 mins track) and worse failing to load at all. For me this is happening more frequently with every new update from 2.0 I have a steady wifi connection at home and the issue affects both sc6000s to varying degree’s in the most recent case the main player was having issues loading and the second player did not despite being connected via link cable. Tidal seems to be more stable in my use but I very cautious in using Beaport to live stream and certainly would not use in a gig it is too unreliable.

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