Intro

To the coincidental onlooker, the job of a DJ starts and ends with pressing "play" and letting the music do the balance. For some DJs, that'southward all there is to it — only the audiences know it takes much more to be a expert DJ. Yous know it, too. It takes months, maybe years, of practicing beatmatching, scratch mixing, and building sets to develop the correct skillset. Then yous demand to test it in forepart of a live audience.

That's where live streaming comes in. If you're having a difficult time finding a venue that will allow you to play, taking your set up online is a way to get yourself in front of an audition. At the very least, it's a way to practice performing live. And so, let'southward see how you tin get into live streaming your sets online.

The Hardware

Having decent hardware is important, but knowing how to use it finer is what sets the greats apart from the rest. If you're itching to arrive front of an audition, y'all shouldn't let a lack of dedicated gear cease you lot. You already have your DJ setup — the balance should exist piece of cake to figure out, right?

Yeah and no. Y'all tin can go started with little more than your DJing gear, that much is truthful. But you volition need a video source. And because live video significantly outperforms uploaded video in most engagement metrics, you will demand a reliable cyberspace connection to upload information technology. And that'due south not all you might demand.

🚀 The Streaming Device

Enough tin can happen with your camera footage between the point where you recorded it and the bespeak where information technology's displayed. The streaming device is the slice of hardware that serves as a bridge between the two, the place where encoding happens.

Encoding or transcoding is a resource-intensive process, but in the strides we've made with applied science in the by couple years, you can employ almost annihilation as a streaming device:

  • Your cellphone
  • Your tablet
  • A GoPro camera
  • The laptop you use for DJing if you're a software DJ
  • A desktop computer for live streaming

Whichever you choose, go on in mind that alive streaming can exist taxing on a device. If it has to multitask, make sure it tin handle the boosted load.

🔈 The Audio Interface/Sound Card

Your DJing gear, namely your mixer, has to connect with the streaming device somehow, right? Then unless you have 1 of the newer mixers that come equipped with a sound menu that's ready to be plugged into the device via a USB cable, you'll need something in between.

There are plenty of different types of hardware you can use, including:

  • External sound cards
  • Audio interfaces
  • Input-output breakout boxes

What you choose will depend on the gear y'all already take. Nevertheless, yous should go along in heed that every bit of equipment that relates straight to the quality of your sound is something you should ever look to upgrade and improve.

📹 The Cameras

Everyone can use video, live video streaming included, to grow an audience, showcase their skills, or have some fun online. DJs, yet, have the challenge of keeping the video visually appealing (or at least appealing enough), without compromising the quality of the audio.

That usually means getting good-quality cameras to record the video and using separate gear to tape the sound, then mixing the two to stream live DJ sets.

Using multiple cameras is the right solution because it will allow DJ streaming to apply dissimilar angles to showcase skills. So you might have a wide-angle that depicts you in the room, simply also a bird's eye view of your deck to show your gear and how you are using it while y'all circulate your DJ sets live. If you're Fatboy Slim, you can also have a camera operator.

Read later: Top streaming equipment based on your budget 📍

The Cyberspace Connection

Finally, information technology would help if you kept in heed that yous'll need a reliable internet connection to exist able to upload your whole alive set. And not only will you need the bandwidth, just you'll likewise need stability and all the other things that make for a good upload speed for streaming.

Whatsoever yous practise, avoid connecting via Wi-Fi, every bit it's unlikely to yield favorable results. Don't do annihilation except alive streaming when you live stream, and make sure you run a couple of tests before you finally go alive.

The Software

When it comes to streaming software, you lot'll have a couple of options, too. The one you pick will generally depend on your platform of selection, as well as the streaming device you decided to use. Here's what you'll have at your disposal.

📱 Platform Apps

Platform apps will exist available to y'all if you cull to stream via a mobile device. Yous shouldn't expect too much from them in terms of control or options, merely they might be perfectly adequate to perform their task.

🤓 OBS Studio

OBS Studio is the go-to live streaming software encoder — a piece of software that lets your estimator be the kind of bridge a streaming setup needs. OBS Studio is fantabulous because, for 1, it's free. Just it will too give you lot lots of controls in terms of audio and video sources, overlays, and even a greenish screen.

OBS Studio tin besides be a neat choice if you have a multi-photographic camera setup. In that case, having someone help you out with your alive stream and switching between the cameras would be a great boon for the quality of your stream.

🦑 Restream.io

Restream'south role in the setup is quite specific. It's a deject service that allows you to stream to several streaming services at the same fourth dimension. It can significantly amend your reach, and thanks to the contempo advancements with the Restream Studio, it might i day even replace the need for OBS Studio.

Overall, information technology's a freemium service yous tin can utilize to stream to multiple platforms simultaneously with the resources requirements of a single stream. Restream comes with a lot more features, which include:

  • Social alerts
  • Transcoding
  • Admission to analytics
  • Restream Conversation

Whether you multistream or not, Restream can exist a valuable tool when streaming DJ sets. To get the almost out of it, notwithstanding, you lot have to alive stream to more than one platform.

The Platforms

The hot topic everyone's been buzzing about is how Twitch started to fissure down on DJs who were playing music for which they didn't have the proper permits. While the whole permission attribute is murky and complicated, ane thing's for sure — yous're never more than than a few strikes abroad from having your channel banned on most platforms. You should play your sets in a way that conforms with the rules of the platform yous're using. Here are the elevation choices in platforms.

📌 MixCloud

The platform that's welcomed live streaming DJs, MixCloud might not have the presence of its competitors, only it has something ameliorate — a deal with major record labels. The closest you tin go to legally DJing online is doing it on MixCloud.

Restream tin help you with that, too. The service can exist used even on platforms it doesn't support natively. In fact, live streaming to MixCloud from Restream is then smoothen you'll be up and running in no time, without having to worry that your sets will be taken down.

📌 Twitch

Twitch is the biggest alive streaming platform in the earth, with the virtually massive audience and the highest concentration of live streamers. It's the identify where some serious bucks are being fabricated. It's likewise a place where the competition is off the charts.

You'll barely be able to log into the platform without seeing someone's DJ session going on right in front of your eyes. It might be worth your while to larn how to stream to Twitch, and and so find a style to do information technology and so your account doesn't go flagged.

📌 YouTube

YouTube is the globe'south premier video platform that as well dabbles in video streaming. While it's nowhere virtually as famous for streaming as Twitch, it has a larger on-demand audience, which can surely come in handy for a budding DJ.

Or at least information technology would if YouTube weren't and so keen on taking down content afterwards only a whiff of copyright infringement. When it comes to YouTube, employ it at your discretion.

gamepad

Easy live streaming for everyone

Run professional person live streams from your browser.

Get Started

Wrapping it upwards — How to connect everything

Ok, then now that you lot know what you need, let's see how it'south all continued and gear up. First of all, make sure your streaming device has the advisable streaming software. If you're using a platform's app, make sure you lot meet the requirements for in-app streaming. That's step number one.

For footstep number two, yous should connect your mixer – or any you're using to DJ – with the streaming device. If yous have to use a sound carte du jour or an interface for it, become ahead and plug information technology all in. Past the time you're done, y'all should have a viable audio source for your live stream.

Setting up the video source is the next role. If you're using phones or webcams, make sure they're connected and recognized by your streaming software. If you're using DSLRs or camcorders, connect them to your computer via a capture card. Make sure that, past the end of it, you have a clear indicate coming from all the cameras you'll be using.

Make sure your streaming software is expert to become. Create the necessary scenes, set the switches between different cameras, and run everything through Restream if you want to multistream. Finally, exercise a dry run with a privately released stream. If all goes well, you should exist able to hear and see yourself well, and you'll know you've created a setup that will allow you to live stream DJ sets online.