What I Learned From My First Live Stream – Official Bootleg
Greg Kocis What I Learned From My First Live Stream
My first Songs by Greg — Official Bootleg livestream was as much a learning experience in live broadcasting as it was a presentation of my music. I originally planned the stream as a three-hour broadcast using OBS Studio. However, the three-hour program was actually one hour of prerecorded content that I looped three times. I decided to do this because, since the program was being presented as a live broadcast, I thought people would have the opportunity to drop into the stream at different times and listen.
I chose to use a prerecorded program because I was having difficulty getting the microphone volume to sit properly with the music. I wanted my voice to be clearly audible without overpowering the music, but getting the two levels balanced the way I wanted proved more difficult than expected. Prerecording the program allowed me to control the presentation while still giving it the feel of a scheduled live event.
During the first hour of the livestream, I stayed home and monitored the broadcast. During the second hour, I went out for a walk through the streets of New York City while continuing to listen to the livestream on my iPhone. Part of the reason for doing this was to hear how the stream sounded outside of my studio environment. I also wanted to be able to notice if anyone entered the chat while I was away from the computer.
That turned out to be important because there was actually one chat message during the original broadcast. Unfortunately, I missed the message while I was away, which showed me one of the limitations of trying to monitor a livestream remotely while also doing something else.
When I returned home during the second hour and put my Bluetooth earbuds back on, another technical problem occurred. The earbuds automatically disconnected from my iPhone and connected to my computer instead. This changed the computer’s audio connection and interrupted the audio playback in the stream.
At that point, I decided it was better to end the livestream rather than risk additional audio problems. The original three-hour broadcast therefore did not run for the full planned duration, and I subsequently had to edit the recording to remove the portion affected by the interruption.
The experience taught me several practical lessons for future Official Bootleg releases. In particular, I learned the importance of carefully testing microphone and music levels beforehand, monitoring the computer’s audio output and connected devices, and being aware that automatic Bluetooth connections can unexpectedly change the audio routing during a broadcast.
Following the experience, I decided that future Songs by Greg — Official Bootleg releases would not use traditional livestreams. Instead, I would use YouTube Premieres. This approach would allow me to completely prerecord and edit each episode ahead of time, while still giving the audience the experience of watching the video premiere at a scheduled time. It would also eliminate the need to keep a live broadcast running for hours and reduce the possibility of unexpected technical problems affecting the final presentation.
Although the first livestream did not go exactly according to plan, it became an important part of establishing the Songs by Greg — Official Bootleg series. The experience ultimately helped determine the format I would use for future episodes.