...it isn't setup properly as it should so i was concerned in changing any of the settings...
The default settings are more for testing a fresh installation that knows nothing, than they are for actual production.
The trap that catches the most people (though certainly not the only one) is the Desktop Audio and Mic/Aux (Settings -> Audio) both being set to "Default" by default:
- That captures whatever device you're most likely to be using at the moment, for both mic and speakers, and shows immediately that the audio system is in fact working.
- But then people complain about their audio getting "contaminated" with stuff they never use (because they never Disabled that source), or about OBS just suddenly not working anymore (because the "Default" setting follows the operating system's automatic selection, which can and does change, and now that source in OBS is looking at a different device). In both cases, they say it's OBS's fault because "they didn't change anything."
You *have* to change things, to make OBS work for *you*. It's so versatile that no set of default settings works for more than just a handful of people, and the rest are going to have the same sort of problems regardless. So the defaults are set for testing, and not for any particular use at all.
I am new to this streaming thing so I don't necessarly know what to look out for or avoid.
One of my concerns is being flagged (if there was music playing in the background) which as i said we aren't setup properly so we get everything on the recording there is no seperate audio source, its all or nothing.
Ah yes, copyright. There's the law itself, and then there's the hosting platforms that insulate ignorant kid uploaders from getting destroyed to make examples to everyone else. Much better to simply be banned and have your stuff taken down, than to also have your life savings taken away.
Thankfully, if you do follow the law, and provide evidence of it that the platform can see, it usually works. Yes, it's mostly enforced by bots that are still pretty stupid, and so there's always the risk of a false copyright claim. But as much as I've seen people complain about it, and demonstrate on themselves how it does in fact work and how bad it is, the church that I serve hasn't really had a problem.
The U.S. Federal Law says that a "Religious Service" is except from copyright, but ONLY for the "Performance" of Music, *within the Service itself*. Lots of legally-defined terms there, to avoid loopholes, and it effectively amounts to a 1950's Country Chapel, with a live pianist and physical hymnals, and pretty much nothing else.
As an interesting side-note, "Separation of Church and State" means that this law covers ALL music. Period. So if you wanted to play Metallica or AC/DC in church, that's legal too! (the Elders might want a word with you, but the Feds are okay)
That law didn't have to account for lyrics, because the license for those was included in the purchase price of the hymnals. So if you project lyrics in the sanctuary, or print them on a handout yourself, you need a buy a license for that. This is the CCLI license that pretty much everyone has now. You probably do too.
And, the law also does not account for streaming or replay later, at all. You're just like a commercial TV or radio station at that point. No special protection at all, and so you have to have permission/licensing for *everything*! I think the law needs to be updated from the 1950's Chapel, to what churches actually do today, but so far it hasn't.
All that to say that you need to be licensed to stream music, and make sure the hosting platform knows that, and then you can stream music. Likewise for anything else that is not directly original to you. CCLI has more licenses than just the ubiquitous lyric one, or you can shop around too. They're not the only player here.
For what we do, it was enough to add the CCLI streaming license to the lyric license that we already had from them, and put both of those license numbers in the description of the stream. And then educate the leadership about copyright, and why I kept muting the kids' showcase... (That song wasn't included in CCLI's whitelist, and they didn't get special permission for it either. It was okay for the in-person service, per the Federal Law directly, but not allowed to stream.)
...we get everything on the recording there is no seperate audio source, its all or nothing.
The live rig has to be set up with streaming and/or post production in mind. If you don't capture it right, you're stuck with what you got. As I'm sure you know, you can't unmix...
We ended up replacing our analog sound board that was original to the building in 1999 or 2000 or so, with digital, mostly for the stream. The old Mackie SR24 was actually still working perfectly as-designed, after 20 years, except for one dirty switch contact that was easily fixed (it was in an insert jack, so I made a dummy "loopback" plug to stuff in it). It just wasn't adequate to make a decent stream mix in addition to the live mix. So we replaced the cheap, ubiquitous, weird analog board with the cheap, ubiquitous, weird digital board: a Behringer X32.
Front-of-House works like you'd expect. A bit of a learning curve of course - different brand with slightly different philosophy, far more capability, and not everything visible at once - but it wasn't too hard to get the hang of.
The stream is a post-fade aux send, using two busses, stereo-linked, and controlled remotely. (digital boards can do that!) Post-fade inherits whatever tweaks the FOH Engineer does live, which is usually what the stream needs too, but keeps the ability to offset from that and add things that don't need amplification in-person at all.
For example, our drums are entirely acoustic to the room. No need for mics at all for just that. But we have a kick mic and two overheads that feed the stream, so they don't get lost there. Those mics don't go to the FOH system at all.
That aux mix then goes through some compression and limiting (still in the digital board), so that the actual output from the board is completely finished and ready to broadcast as-is. Short hop to a USB line-in (the direct USB connection is reserved for the FOH Engineer's laptop, for multitracking, extra effects, or whatever he wants to do), and OBS just passes that through completely unchanged with no filters whatsoever (*), and no other audio source at all except for the Welcome Video that plays in OBS to announce to the stream that the service is starting now.
(*) Okay, one filter, that is intentionally disabled for most of the stream: I have a Noise Gate in OBS to cut out the analog noise from that short hop when it's supposed to be silent anyway. I disable the gate during the service itself, because the noise coming and going is more distracting than having it constant. Once I finally get around to fixing the analog noise, I can delete that altogether.
That's a grossly simplified version, but it hits all the highlights.
