by Tomasz Ciotucha

You are probably sitting at home and taking advantage of excess time and learning new things. If someone is interested in getting new skills in binaural streaming then this blog post is for you.

​Here you have a popular example of binaural audio (listen on headphones):

​Using ZYLIA ZM-1 you can capture high-resolution binaural audio. This can occur in real-time, so you can stream it online to other people. To achieve this, you will need ZYLIA Ambisonics Converter Plugin, Soundflower, IEM Binaural Decoder, and, of course - a ZYLIA ZM-1 microphone array. In this post, you will find out how to set everything up on your Mac system. 

You will have to install the whole IEM suite. Visit the page: https://plugins.iem.at/
Download the suite and install the software. Now you can proceed to the next steps.

To download the software use the link below: 
https://github.com/mattingalls/Soundflower/releases/tag/2.0b2

Scroll down to the bottom of the site and click on “Soundflower-2.0b2.dmg” in the “Assets” area to start downloading.

​After the successful installation in “Audio MIDI Setup” there should show up “Soundflower (2ch)” and “Soundflower (64ch)” devices. This step is just to check if the Soundflower is installed correctly.

If you haven’t connected your Zylia microphone array already, do it now. Go to preferences and select Zylia as an Input Device and Soundflower (2ch) as an Output Device. You have to tick the box marked in the image below to allow the use of different input and output devices.

​In OBS, go to preferences and specify the number of input channels to Stereo and select the Soundflower (2ch) as an input device (Mic/Auxillary Audio). Disable the Desktop Audio.

​Click OK to save the settings. You might have to restart the OBS.

Now everything should be set up and you should get input signal from your ZYLIA ZM-1, as marked here in the image below.

By Marek Kabacinski, Grzegorz Skowron, Pedro Firmino, Tomasz Ciotucha & Anna Czerwoniec

​These days we have in our hands all tools needed to broadcast events to the entire world. Live streaming lets you connect with your fans during your concerts, backstage Q&As, or press conferences. Thanks to apps like YouTube, Facebook Live, Twitch you can stream events and show what’s happening anywhere and everywhere in real time. If you want to share an event giving your fans the feeling of being next to you, you need both – video and audio in high quality. While the video quality on our smart phones is surprisingly good, the built-in microphones are still not good enough to stream all the details of your music.

We have several instructions for you:

• Streaming 2-channel audio with ZYLIA microphone on Windows
• Streaming 2-channel audio with ZYLIA microphone on Mac
• Using ZYLIA Studio Pro for live mixing and streaming using ReaStream and OBS
• Streaming First Order Ambisonics (FOA) with ZYLIA microphone for Mac
• Adding video source to OBS studio

and final steps:

• Receiving ReaStream signal in OBS
• Twitch setup for audio streaming with ZYLIA ZM-1 microphone
• Live streaming with ZYLIA to YouTube using OBS Studio
• Live streaming with ZYLIA to Facebook
• Streaming Ambisonics audio from ZYLIA microphone together with 360 camera for Facebook
  
  

​If you want to spread your performance all over the world, it is very important to invest in good quality microphones. If you can afford the cost of a microphone, it's well worth it. The quality of audio really matters. If people can't hear what you're playing, they will simply quit your channel after seconds.

When you record with standard microphones you must remember that each instrument needs to be equipped with one microphone. Is is also recommended to have one microphone for ambient recording – allowing your fans to hear your conversations between pieces.
It looks like you will need a lot of mics, cables and equipment, and perhaps even a sound operator? Don’t worry. Instead of all this stuff for audio recording, you can simply use ZYLIA MUSIC.

ZYLIA ZM-1 is a spherical microphone array designed for multi-track audio recording. It captures all sound sources that are present in the audio scene. You can put ZYLIA in the middle of the band, record everyone and everything with one mic connected to your laptop with a USB cable and stream it to the world.

by Tomek Ciotucha

To download the software use the link below:​
https://jackaudio.org/downloads/

And choose to download JACK2 binaries:

 Click OK to save the settings. You might have to restart the OBS.
 
Then, open the Reaper project called “ZM-1 FOA Streaming via JackPilot.RPP”. If you haven’t connected your ZYLIA microphone array already, do it now. Go to preferences and select ZYLIA as an Input Device and JackRouter as an Output Device. You have to tick the box marked in the image below to allow use of different input and output devices.

Now do the same with the rest of the channels:​

Out1 -> in1
Out2 -> in2
Out3 -> in3
Out4 -> in4

Now everything is set up and you should be able to stream first order ambisonics captured with your Zylia!

by Marek Kabacinski

by Grzegorz Skowron

by Marek Kabacinski

​1. Go to the site: https://www.facebook.com/live/create

2. Click on Create Live Stream

​3. Click on Broadcast this as a spherical video and choose an option for you 360 camera
4. Click on This broadcast has Audio 360.
5. Start Stream by OBS using stream key.

by Pedro Firmino

In the situation you are playing with a band and would like additional control to mix the audio from the ZM-1, you can also apply the following workflow for streaming:

Step 1
​On the track receiving input from the ZM-1, add ZYLIA Studio PRO plugin.
Remember to disable the track master send

Step 2
In ZYLIA Studio Pro plugin, add virtual microphones. You are able to add as many necessary but the output will be 2 channels only.
Remember to position the microphones and play with the plugin settings for better results.

Step 3
Add equal amount of tracks to the number of virtual microphones created.
​
Step 4
​Route the signal from the ZM-1 multichannel track to the tracks created.
          4.1 – Click the routing button
          4.2 – Click add new receive and choose the track with the ZM-1 input.
          4.3 – Choose the virtual microphone channel to receive
          4.4 – Do this process for all the virtual microphone created.

Step 7
To the same track add the ReaStream VST to the FX bus (if you don’t have it installed you are able to download this free plugin at: https://www.reaper.fm/reaplugs/ ).

Step 8
In the ReaStream plugin, send the audio signal. In the identifier field you may leave it at default but it should be consistent in the OBS as well ( more information mentioned in OBS tutorial. )
In blue: here you can send more audio channels to OBS. Which can also be used for sending First Order Ambisonics (replace ZYLIA Studio PRO with ZYLIA Ambisonics Converter plugin).

by Marek Kabacinski

By Pedro Firmino

After using your DAW to send the signal using ReaStream plugin you will have to configure OBS to receive the signal from your ZM-1.

Step 1
Open Audio settings in OBS. In the Desktop Audio choose your output device. In this case Speakers. Confirm with OK.

Step 2
With Desktop Audio added, click on the cog Icon and select Filters.

Step 3
In the + Icon add a new VST 2x Plug-in: Choose ReaJs (it is included in the ReaPlugs vst pack).

by Tomek Ciotucha

Then, click on the “capture_5” item on the “Send Ports” list. ​

The inputs from the ZYLIA microphone array should appear in the “Sources” section. First, you have to delete the current connections, by clicking on the “cables” (highlighted by the red circle in the image below) and then pressing the delete button on the bottom of the screen or by pressing cmd + backspace.

Then connect the 5th and 8th channel in the “Sources” section to the “Channel 1 (L)” and “Channel 2 (R)” respectively in the “Output Channels” section. 

Now, that all the routing settings are prepared, you can change the name of the virtual device, so it will be easy to find in your broadcasting software.