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Livestreaming a DJ set: which platform should you choose?
April 11, 2020
Livestreaming a DJ set: which platform should you choose?
Livestreaming a DJ set can be done to various platforms, each with their own pro’s and cons. Use this guide to find out which one of the 5 suggested platforms is best suited for you.
1. FACEBOOK
Facebook is with 1.6 billion daily users still one of the most popular social media platforms in 2020. So livestreaming your DJ set to this platform can be an effective way to reach your audience. But livestreaming to Facebook comes with some challenges.
How are you going to stand out in a sea of livestreams (total of more than 3.5 billion in 2018)?
Create an interesting setup to watch. Think about your background, lighting and other decorations. Or put the camera directly above your gear so people can see what you’re doing. The goal is to let people pause their scroll to check you and your music out.
Consider the duration. The most succesful livestreams to Facebook are longer than 20 minutes. This amount should be easy to reach with streaming a DJ set which are usually a minimum of 60 minutes.
Promoting your livestream beforehand and during the stream is very important to reach your audience. Create a Facebook Event so people know you are planning to livestream. And identify valuable Facebookgroups to join and promote it there while you’re live.
What to do about the copyright filters resulting in your stream to be cutoff?
Facebook uses a service called Audible magic to filter all the uploaded and streamed content. It completely depends on how the copyright owner arranged it’s rights if you are allowed to stream it. Copyright owners seem to become stricter which results in more livestreams being cut off. If you want to minimize the risk of being cut off, you should probably choose a different platform.
How are you going to set up your first DJ livestream to Facebook?
Livestreaming a dj set is really easy right from your phone with an iRig to increase audio quality.
Or if you want high quality audio and video you can use the free service called OBS (Open Broadcasting Service). Read about how to do this in our previous article.
In conclusion
If you want to livestream to a platform with a big potential audience which is easy to setup, this is the fit for you. But if you want to minimize the risk of being cutoff because of copyright restrictions you should probably choose another platform.
2. YOUTUBE
This video platform owned by Google is also a major player when it comes to livestreaming. Plus side is that Youtube has better audio quality than Facebook. Compared to Youtube, Facebook uses heavy compression which makes audio sound bad. Furthermore, you need to promote your livestream outside of the platform a lot, because it’s a small chance unknown people will stumble upon your livestream when they are not subscribed to your channel. This is not the only challenge you face on this platform.
Livestream your DJ set only with a computer, not mobile
You always need a laptop or desktop computer with webcam to stream to Youtube. Streaming from mobile is only possible from 1000 subscribers and up.
Copyright issues like Facebook
Youtube has the same issues with copyright similar to Facebook. When your stream is recognized as having copyrighted material you don’t have the rights to and the copyright is strict: your stream could get cut off. But if it didn’t and contains copyrighted material, the chance is you get to upload it to your channel but can’t monetize it and the copyright owner can decide to play ads in front or during your video.
Livestream your DJ set to Youtube for better audio quality
To sum up: livestreaming a dj set to this platform gives you better audio quality than Facebook and a good solid platform to stream to if you already have a big following or want to build one there.
3. INSTAGRAM
Instagram is one of the Facebook apps which is experiencing massive daily user growth and also has a live stream feature. A big advantage is that there have not been cases of streams being cutoff because of copyright.
A downside is that you can’t use programs like OBS to setup multiple camera angles because you always have to live stream from your mobile. This is also bad for your audio quality, but you can make the audio quality a little better by using an iRig for your smartphone.
Another advantage is that when you go live on Instagram stories, your story will be pushed to the front. This is because the Instagram algorithm favors live streams.
Livestream your DJ set to Instagram for less copyright issues
In conclusion, you could say Instagram is a good platform to stream to because there haven’t been a lot of copyright issues (yet) and it’s a good fit if you don’t mind lesser audio quality.
4. TWITCH.TV
Twitch is a popular streaming platform for gamers. Since their main focus is on gamers and people who like to watch gamers the chance of users on Twitch looking for listening to music is low. But their service is reliable, consistent and has a very good reputation.
One big disadvantage when you want to stream a DJ set is that Twitch won’t make a recording available afterwards when your stream contains copyrighted music of which you are not the owner. When you choose this platform, always record your stream in OBS as well so you can upload your video to other channels like Youtube afterwards.
On this platform you can interact with your audience on a different level than you can on platforms like Facebook Live.
To sum up, Twitch.tv is a reliable streaming platform but you will have a hard time finding an organic audience since it’s focused on gamers. Promoting your stream to other channels like Facebook is absolutely essential.
5. ZOOM
Since the majority of the world population is in quarantine these days, Zoom has seen a BIG growth in users. This service is mainly used for video conference calls with most people now working from their home.
Use Zoom to organise dance parties
You can use Zoom for free, but then you are restricted to a maximum of 100 users and 40 minutes call time per session. But! Since the quarantine, Zoom has waived their 40 minute restriction for free accounts. There’s no way of knowing how long this will last, but you can use this as an advantage at the moment. If you do decide to pay for the service you can also stream your Zoom to Facebook & Youtube.
A BIG advantage is that people can join and also turn on their video, which makes it as close to a real life party we can get at the moment! There also seem to be NO copyright restrictions, yay!
Some disadvantages are that Zoom has been receiving lots of critique on their privacy functionality which seems to be easy for hackers to break. And you have to promote your live stream on other channels because there will be NO organic audience on Zoom, because it’s a video conference service and not a social media channel. You would also need to record the DJ set for yourself because the audio quality is mediocre.
All in all, this seems to be a FUN virtual alternative for real life parties. But remind yourself to promote your event on all other social platforms you’re present on.
Livestream your DJ set to the platform you feel comfortable with, promotion is key.
In conclusion, each platform has their own advantages and disadvantages. It’s important to know which features and risks you find most important and base your decision on that. Do make sure you communicate to your audience on all your social channels on which platform the DJ live stream will be so they know where to find you
Streaming to multiple platforms at once? If you don’t want to decide on which platform to stream to, you can look into services like Restream. This is a subscription based streaming service which lets you broadcast to multiple platforms at once and uniting the chat functions of all platforms into one feed.
Which platform do you live stream to? Let us know in the comments
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