11/30/2025
A lot of people ask what I actually do with all the audio, lighting, and streaming gear I mess with, so here’s the simple version—and why it actually gets me excited.
When I run sound, it’s basically a small broadcast setup. Every mic and every instrument gets its own EQ, compression, gates when needed, and levels. Nothing is shared. Vocals, guitars, drums, bass—each one gets shaped individually so the mix stays clean instead of muddy. I’m using high-quality mics, so everything has detail and clarity.
Each musician gets their own monitor mix too. The drummer needs something completely different than the singer, and I can walk around with an iPad and fix their mixes in real time while the show is happening.
I also run two mixers at once. The TF5 handles the clean preamps, EQ, gain, and the main front-of-house mix. Then I send four stereo aux paths into the X32, where each path can run up to eight effects. That’s how I can stack up to 32 effects at one time and blend everything back as a polished stereo “wet” return. I can mix and match processing from both boards however I want—compression here, effects there, routing wherever it makes sense.
The livestream gets its own audio chain. The stream feed has a limiter on it so it never clips or distorts for people watching online. It is on a matrix delayed to match Audio and Video perfectly.(lip sync) And here’s something most people don’t realize: I can hear exactly what the livestream hears. I use an audio de-embedder and a headphone amp to pull the audio *directly* from the outgoing video feed, so I can monitor the broadcast mix in real time while I’m mixing the room. I’m literally listening to the same thing the viewers hear, not guessing.
On the video side, I run a multi-cam setup—closeups, wide shots, different angles—all switched live. The stream goes out through Restream with its own dedicated audio mix, totally separate from the room sound.
Lighting is a whole other layer. My lighting guy, Seth, runs the lights in a way that fits the mood—clean, intentional, not overwhelming. Between the beams, washes, and haze, the whole thing ends up looking like a small concert instead of a random jam session.
And when I choose to, I can record every individual mic into Reaper for virtual soundchecks. I can play the entire performance back through the system with no band on stage. The band can hop off stage and hear the actual front-of-house mix like they’re in the crowd, or I can run it through their monitors so they hear exactly what *they* sounded like. It’s the same technique touring engineers use.
I’m not monetizing any of this. I just want musicians to hear themselves through a finished, polished product and see what they’re truly capable of. That’s the fun part for me.
If you know musicians or bands who’d want to be on a livestream like this—or just want to hear themselves the way the audience and stream actually hears them—send them my way.
