avatar – Metaverse Musician

How do I send my music to listeners in Second Life? Shoutcast, Icecast, and streaming explained

Music in Second Life operates on a technology known as Shoutcast. Shoutcast, along with its open source compatible follow-on Icecast, is the same technology that underpins all of internet radio. When you stream your music into Second Life, you are essentially operating your own internet radio station!
This article explains the links in the chain between the musician and the listeners. Technologies and software components are described for each link in the chain.

DJs, karaoke track artists, singer/songwriters, and bands can all find a ready-made, world-wide, paying audience in Second Life. What all is involved in getting your music streamed into Second Life?

Overview

There are several links in the chain between you creating your music and the listener hearing your music.

– you create your music on a computer
– a program known as a source client encodes your music for the server
– a Shoutcast/Icecast streaming server broadcasts the music to multiple Second Life viewers
– the listeners’ Second Life viewer plays your music for their enjoyment

Let’s look a little deeper at each stage of this process.

Music Creation

Again the first step in the chain is that your music must be input to a computer. If you are DJing from WinAmp, iTunes or other music player, this is already taken care of by the music player program. If you are performing in real-time — such as playing a guitar and singing — you will need to input your performance into the computer’s sound card through the use of a microphone and/or a mixer. Many computers have microphones built right into them that would be suitable, though you may notice an increase in sound quality with a more sophisticated microphone.

Source Client

The Source Client is the link between your computer and the internet. This is a program or utility that runs on your computer. It has essentially two responsibilities. It creates and maintains a connection to the Shoutcast/Icecast server, and it encodes your music into the datastream that the server needs. Source Clients are available both as standalone programs, and as plugins that operate with your Music Creation program.

Shoutcast/Icecast streaming server

The Shoutcast or Icecast streaming server is a ‘virtual machine’ that runs on a computer. While you can technically install the server on your own computer — even the one you are using as the Music Creation computer — it is generally inadvisable to do so. The reason for this is that the primary function of the Shoutcast/Icecast server is to take as an input the single stream from your Source Client, and redistribute it as any number of of streams — one for each listener. Each additional listener consumes more bandwidth. A typical home internet connection can accommodate only a few such listeners before all the available or upload/download capacity is exhausted.

As such, a Shoutcast/Icecast server is most typically rented — as one would rent space on a web host. There are numerous companies that rent streaming servers for a few dollars per month. Further, most Second Life venues have already rented such servers. If you are slated to perform at a given venue, they will most often have you employ their existing streaming server.

Second Life viewer

The last link in the chain is up to the Second Life viewer. Each parcel of land in Second Life is associated with a Music URL. When an avatar steps onto a given parcel, the Second Life sim sends the Second Life viewer this Music URL. This URL should be the location of your Shoutcast/Icecast streaming server. The Second Life viewer then sets up a connection to the streaming server. It accepts the stream of your music from the server, decodes it, and outputs it through the audio system of the computer upon which the Second Life viewer is running. In this manner, each listener is able to hear the music you are making. Your listeners may even be on the opposite side of the Earth!

What do I need to get started?

While all the pieces described above are needed to stream your music into Second Life, only a minimum set is required to get up and running. The absolute minimum is that you will need a Music Creation program and a Source Client. There are many options available in these categories, both free and commercial. They are available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and other platforms.

As mentioned above, there are many venues that supply Shoutcast/Icecast streaming servers for your use. I spent about a year as a Second Life musician before I decided to rent a stream of my own.

The last item is the Second Life viewer. While you do not technically need this to stream into Second Life, you will want it anyhow. Otherwise, you will find it difficult to connect with venues and fans. There really isn’t any downside, as it is free. Plus, Second Life is just a lot of fun!

Is it for you?

After reading the above, you may be eager to delve into Second Life as another marketplace for your musical endeavors. As you can see, the opportunities are nearly endless. Further, it costs nothing to try your hand at it — plus, it’s just a whole lot of fun. No matter what sort of musician you may be, there is another market waiting for you in Second Life.

Questions? Comments? Let me know if there is any specific aspect of being a Second Life musician that you’d like me to cover!

This is but one article in a series on opportunities for musicians in Second Life. Further articles will cover resources, technical issues, groups and organizations, revenue streams, publicity outlets, and more. Next up, however, will be a survey of the software choices for Music Creation and Source Clients required to pipe your music inworld. I hope you join us in this journey to a strange and wonderful new world. In the meantime, you may wish to do some early exploring on your own — it is free to get started! Just click the link below:

Second Life provides musicians with new moneymaking opportunities

There is a burgeoning new online market for musicians of all types. Recording artists, performers, singer/songwriters, turntablists, playlist DJs, karaoke aficionados, and more can find paying audiences in Second Life. This article provides a top level view of Second Life from a musician’s perspective. It quantifies the market opportunity, and touches on some of the considerations in reaching this worldwide music market.

Second Life

So what is Second Life? It is an online 3D virtual world, or Metaverse, where people meet and interact with each other through digital ‘avatars’ in a virtual landscape. Visually, this Metaverse bears a passing resemblance to Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) such as World of Warcraft. However, this resemblance carries no further than the ‘look’ of such MMORPGs. Second Life is an alternative universe where avatars (people) are free to carry out whatever activities they wish. In my mind, the three qualities of such a metaverse that distinguish it from an MMORPG are:

There is no previously defined goal or objective by which one may ‘win’. Instead, avatars live the life of their choosing.
Everything inworld is created by the residents. With enough talent and time, you can recreate every thing you would encounter in the metaverse — be it a house, a landform, an article of clothing, a manner of moving, or any other ‘thing’, tangible or intangible, that can be discerned.
Second Life has a freely functioning real economy, with a unit of currency that is freely exchanged to and from US dollars.

Size of the economy

So how big is this potential marketplace? Linden Lab, the creator of Second Life, reports that over $1 Billion in resident-to-resident transactions have been made since the inception of the metaverse. In 2010, the projected figure is in excess of $500 Million per year, and growing quickly. As quoted from San Fransisco Business Times:

In 2008, Second Life users spent more than $360 million on virtual goods ranging from land to designer shoes to lavish homes. The Second Life economy almost doubled in size – 94 percent up – between the second quarter of 2009 and the same period in 2008. User-to-user transactions now amount to nearly $50 million per month.

To put this figure in perspective, in 2009, all sales of digital downloads of music combined totaled about $1.9 Billion — barely a little over three times the size of Second Life’s economy. Indeed, Second Life’s economy is larger than the GDP of some real countries.

Music and other economic activity

Of course, not all this money reflects musical purchases. There are many other activities and goods vying for the avatar consumer’s dollar. Again from the aforementioned source:

In total, users around the world have spent roughly 115,000 years in Second Life socializing, attending live concerts, creating, selling and shopping for virtual goods, learning languages, attending business meetings etc. User hours grew 33 percent year-over-year to an all-time high of 126 million in the second quarter of this year….

However, music does represent a significant part of the overall inworld economy. At any moment of the night or day, there are multiple performances occurring across the grid. Rock, country, Hip Hop, or Americana … solos, duos, bands … some completely live, some with backing tracks, some doing mimed ‘role play’ … about any form of music you can imagine can find a worldwide audience on Second Life.

At any given moment, there are dozens of thousands of people logged in as their avatars to the Second Life virtual world, or ‘grid’. And for many of these people, attending musical events is their primary reason for being inworld. They visit virtual venues, hosting musicians on their stages, at virtual concerts. There they can sit and listen, or dance and interact with the other avatars onsite. While partying there, they may converse with the others in text chat about any given topic. As a musician, you are also able to see the local chat, thereby providing you with a direct communication channel between you and your fans. This provides a higher level of interactivity than typically possible in real life.

Dancing to live music

Employment in Second Life music

There are several broad categories of musicians performing within Second Life. Linden Labs makes an official distinction between Live performance and other forms of music:

A live performance in Second Life is presented by a person who is represented in-world by an avatar, and is creating the performance in real-time, streaming the audio (or audio and video) portions into Second Life as they are being created.

Playing back a previously recorded performance, whether audio, video or Second Life machinima, is generally not considered to be a live performance if there are no live elements performed while the audience is watching the show.

We do not intend to imply here that either Live or non-live music is superior to another. This is just being pointed out in order to understand how to present your performance consistent with inworld norms. If you are presenting a playlist DJ type performance, it would be a breach of protocol to list this as a Live Music event — however, it would indeed be appropriate to list it under the Nightlife/Entertainment event category.

And the variety of opportunities is quite staggering. I have seen the following types of acts, all paid for their performances:

Playlist DJs performing various styles of music for the dancing enjoyment of the venue’s patrons
Scratch or BeatMatch DJs creating unique layered performances using prerecorded tracks and synthesizers for real-time creation
Singer/songwriter types with a guitar or keyboard and vocals
People singing over Karaoke backing tracks of hit songs
Solo musicians performing with backing tracks of their own creation
Duos, trios, and full groups completely live
‘Tribute’ acts, where the ‘musicians’ construct and animate elaborate imitations of chart-topping groups — to the original recordings by those groups
‘Role Play’ or ‘listening’ sessions where original artists mime performances to their own recordings

Much as in real life, some performances are the main focus of the venue, and others are an adjunct to some other commercial or social venture — such as a mall opening, or a mingler. There are also inworld opportunities to sell digital downloads of your music — either limited to playing inworld or as universal mp3s.

Is it for you?

This is but one article in a series on opportunities for musicians in Second Life. Further articles will cover resources, technical issues, groups and organizations, revenue streams, publicity outlets, and more. Next up, however, will be a brief overview of the software required to pipe your music inworld. I hope you join us in this journey to a strange and wonderful new world. In the meantime, you may wish to do some early exploring on your own — it is free to get started! Just click the link below:

WordPress avatar — creating one for the blog admin

WordPress allows one to associate an avatar with a user profile. This is a small picture that will be displayed on each post or comment you make to the blog, giving casual visitors a ready means of identifying all your posts. However, it is not readily apparent how the site admin is to set this avatar. There are no settings anywhere in the Site Admin control panels for setting this. Accordingly, the admin is stuck with the default ‘phantom person’ for an avatar.
This Two Minute Tutorial explains step-by-step how to set up a custom avatar for the admin.

However, it is not readily apparent how the site admin is to set this avatar. There are no settings anywhere in the Site Admin control panels for setting this. Accordingly, the admin is stuck with the default ‘phantom person’ for an avatar.

The key to rectifying this is to realize that WordPress does not use a local copy of your avatar. Instead, it uses an avatar that you upload to gravatar.com, and associate with your email address. According to the good folks at gravatar, their name derives from Globally Recognized avatar. By using this service, your avatar will automatically follow you to comments you make on random sites of others. This eliminates the need to upload an avatar to each site upon which you would like your avatar displayed.

Once you realize this, the implementation is pretty simple.

Go to the gravatar.com website
Watch the two minute video to get an overview
Log in with your WordPress.com credentials*
Click on ‘Add one by clicking here’. This will open a screen asking for the source of the picture to be uploaded
Choose from Hard Drive; Internet URL; Webcam; Previously uploaded — as appropriate
Assuming Hard Drive, a new window will open allowing you to browse your file system for the desired picture
Locate the desired picture, then click ‘Next’. This will upload your picture
Crop your picture as desired, then click next
Choose your rating – G, PG, R, or X
That’s it!

Allow some time for the changes to propagate throughout the internet. Clear your browser’s cache while waiting. Refresh your pages, and you should see your smiling face on your comments. WordPress knows your email address, so it goes off to gravatar to grab your picture!

*If you have a WordPress.com account, you also have a gravatar account. You are using akismet to fight blog comment spam, right? Akismet required you to create a WordPress.com account in order to obtain your API key.