Hi all, need some help if anyone can offer me some guidance?

I'm using a spare room (lets call that the studio) to broadcast a live chat show with four hosts along with guests joining us via Skype (we can't use vCall as I only have one available).

Currently I'm using 4 channel UHF mini wireless lavalier lapel mic system for the hosts to use with the output placed into my PC Sound Blaster Z mic input, it works great (audio input via vMix) but sadly the hosts can't hear the Skype guest (NDI input).

Along with the mic, I'm using a very cheap (ebay rubbish) EX-218 UHF wireless audio tour guide monitoring system so the hosts can hear me directly without the viewers knowing what I'm saying- so far it's doing the job.

I use a spare visual monitor so the hosts can see what is being broadcasted along with the comments from the viewers, the monitor has an audio output, but if I turn this up (so the hosts can hear the Skype caller) I get terrible feedback, an option I don't want to use.

If I don't have a Skype guest then everything is ok, very basic but it works.

Therefore this is my idea of an improved more semi-professional setup:

1. Studio hosts and Skype guest(s) to hear me (as a producer).
2. Studio hosts to hear Skype guest
3. Skype guest to hear hosts - Skype guest uses headsets (this is usually ok via vMix).
3. Viewers to hear all guests
4. Viewers can't hear me talking to hosts and guest


I have a basic 4 channel Xenyk Q502USB sound mixer available if needed (was donated but never used).

I wish to upgrade (purchase equipment) and go a bit more semi-professional but I'm just not sure what to purchase or how to make the idea above achievable.

Any suggestions on how to achieve the above idea (and what to do) would be great, thanks in advance.

Sims.

basically you need to set up another mix for your talent. obviously everything in the show goes to the Master buss for the viewing audience. creating another mix that just goes to the talent is a workflow you will find in any type of network broadcast. personally I would make one mix for your studio talent, and yet another mix for the remote guests. You can do this in vMix, lets say we use Buss A for the studio and Buss B for the remote guests. Now you can assign whatever you want each group to hear, just make sure these busses DO NOT go back into the Master buss. Add your producer mic to these busses too (hoping you use some kind of PTT on/off switch). Assigning B to be what Skype hears is easy enough. For your studio you just need a local audio output on your computer for A to go to your studio guests. If you don't have a free audio port on your computer, adding a simple USB audio interface is easy enough. Bonus points if you can replace your tour guide system mic with this feed.

once you get talent mixes working you have SO much more flexibility and everybody can hear what they need without affecting the main show mix. shout back if you need more specific setup help.

Sure.

Master - final output to the world/audience. Assign all sound sources to this bus, except for your producer mic

A Bus - lets use this for your studio hosts. Assign only what you want them to hear...producer, remote guests, videos, music.

B Bus - lets use this for what your remote guest hear. Assign...producer, studio hosts, videos, music.

To recap, Studio mics assign to Master and B, Remote guests assign to Master and A, Producer mic assigns to A and B, videos and music assign to Master, A and B.

Then it's just a matter of assigning the Master to your stream output (defaults this way), Bus A to your headphone jack/tour guide system, and Bus B to Skype

Me again, sorry for being a pest but finally got around to testing it, the following seems to be working great.

Presenters can hear me
Skype caller can hear me
Presenters can hear the Skype caller
Skype caller can not hear the presenters.

I've followed the instructions above but for some reason the Skype guest can't hear the presenters. I've looked under the Skype settings to see if vMix is listed as a sound input but only NDI audio and the basic microphone input.

With that in mind, I placed the audio mixer (presenter mics) into the microphone input and changed the mic input under the Skype settings, but still no change, it's all strange why they can't hear the presenters!

Any suggestions please?

You'll need to use one of the four extra outputs vMix provides as your return source to Skype. In the vMix setting under Outputs/NDI/SRT, you'll see the 2 main fullscreen outputs that always have Master audio. Below that are outputs 1-4, pick one for Skype. Select the video you want the Skype callers to see, and then click the gear icon. On this page at the very top is a drop down list where you can select what audio goes with the pictures, select Buss B. Click OK. from there I'm guessing you want to NDI over to your Skype computer, so make sure the NDI is turned on for this output (Green).

Hi there, not wanting to hijack the thread but I'm looking at doing the same/similar setup so didn't think there was any point in starting a new topic.

I have been doing a show with 8 vMix Callers and setup comms to each of them separately using audio buses so I'm ok with setting that up. I now need to bring three of those 'vMix callers'into the studio as they are the main presenters.

I'm guessing I can just buy an audio interface with four outputs and route the buses I originally made to feed their vMix Calls return audio (Buses A-C) to an audio interface with multiple outputs allowing me to customise each feed to each presenter and allow me to talk to one at a time if needed?

@DWAM, is there any advantage of having the Behringer HA-8000 if I use an audio interface with 4+ outputs and only have three presenters?

Cheers

EDIT: I have just looked up the Behringer X AIR XR18 and have a few questions. This might be the time to start a new thread so let me know if that's the case...Im a complete noob when it comes to audio interfaces!

I like to keep all my audio inside of vMix if possible as it gives me the greatest flexibility for routing different sources to remote contributors. To avoid using an external mixer and feeding it's 'flattened' two channel output to vMix, I feed my on set talent mics into the cameras....presenter 1 into camera 1, presenter two into camera 2 and so on. I then bring these into vMix via the embedded camera signal via a decklink Quad 2. This means I have access to each microphone for easy audio routing in vMix. At the same time, I need to set up audio buses for comms to the presenters and am wanting to send buses out to them so I can tailor what each presenter gets from inside vMix.

My question is, can an audio interface like the Behringer X AIR XR18 look after all my audio needs (3 presenter mics into vmix and 3 presenter talk back channels via vmix Audio buss outputs) while showing up each input and output in vmix separately with complete independent control of each channel and routing in vMix? This means I could plug each presenter microphone directly into the Xr18 (bypassing the camera) and make use of the future Dugan Automix feature that is coming to it. I have used Dugan Automix on Yamaha mixes and really like it for one man band streams.

Hope that makes sense? Happy to post this in a new thread if too off topic to the original poster.

Cheers

Thanks for the reply.

Yeah, I'm aware that the Dugan automix will only work on the mixed output of the Behringer but I'm thinking that I could use the main output that is automixed into vMix as the main source and use that as my main presenters audio. I could then also bring in the three presenter mics as three seperate audio inputs (ISO's) and use them for routing. Assuming that works, it should be a very versatile solution.

Some great ideas!

Yep, this seems like a really great solution all round for audio and super flexible.
I also like the idea of a proper sound person being able to do a mix on larger projects by using a connected ipad or midi controller directly to the Behringer and feeding that mixed source into vMix but at the same time, I as the vMix operator having access to each channel independently if needed for monitoring and comms.

Outputs on an audio interface are not supposed to feed headhones but line level equipments. Furthermore in general you can't set the volume on outputs.
That's where the HA-8000 is handy. It brings you 2 INS (that I feed from vMix busses according to my needs) which you can route to any of the 8 headphones preamps and you can adjust volume individually for each talent (which is a must imho)