Managing Online feeds

You have the power

While many venues will employ a seperate audio engineer to mix the online feed, with enough attention and focus, you can direct and create the same mix through your main board as long as it is a digital board with enough channels, AUXs, Groups, and effects controls to manage two master mixes. 

You can control it

If it is possible for a seperate engineer to mix the same material to sound good online, then it is also possible for one engineer to establish an online mix that follows the live mix very very well. The key ingredients are planning ahead and attention to detail. You must establish and adjust the EQ and compression for individual channels in your feed so that as it tracks your live mix. Everything falls into the place you established in your mix. In some ways, the era of in-ear monitor mixes has resulted in a lowering of expectations for audio engineers. It used to be that audio engineers were responsible for much more and were constantly adjusting and balancing monitor requests so that everyone on stage and in the audience would hear a great mix. Due to the bouncing of sound from monitors, the best engineers would have to compensate in their house mixes for closed venues. The attention to detail and planning kept engineers on their feet and helped keep advanced audio theory involving phasing and mic placement in the forefront of their minds. 

Channel Routing

There are primarily two approaches to generating a broadcast mix on a board mixing FOH. The first approach is duplicate the outgoing LCR by placing channels into a bus. This bus also takes outputs from an Aux channel that is set to post-fader which can be used to fine tune and compensate for differences in volume in the room. An overall EQ will probably be needed to offset the broadcast tone from the dynamics of the live venue. For this reason, if you do plan to mix both FOH and online feed together, it is a good idea to have the room properly measured with pink noise and the overall main EQ adjusted for a balanced frequency delivery at the board. That way what you hear at the board has a consistent EQ adjustment that you can easily counter act for the online feed.

The other approach is more difficult and involves creating a second mix through an aux channel. The aux sends should be set to post-fader so the levels ride your fader adjustments. This approach can be used to create a mix that you spent more time and energy fine tuning. This aux feed should be run through processors to add reverb and adjust EQ.

Compression and EQ are key

Compression on every channel in a live mix is absolutely essential when you plan to take your online feed seriously. Online feeds, TV feeds, and broadcasting all work within a very specific range of dBFS (decibels relative to full scale). If you allow your individual channels to move outside of the space you have set aside for them, they will cause your overall mix to run too hot. As a result, one instruments running hot will squelch the dynamics of the other tracks. Before broadcasting, your audio output must pass through a limiter to restrain it within the necessary dBFS. Harsh limiting by definition clips the wave forms and causes distortion in your final output. This distortion could have easily been avoided by properly compressing and riding the channel volume of your tracks, keeping everything where you intended it to be.

One of the huge differences between live and online feeds is the overall EQ and reverb you apply. Online feeds may need a layer of correcting EQ to help restore tonality that is present in the live venue. Online mixes, especially when no floor monitors are used, will sound extremely dry and dead without a generous amount of reverb on the vocals and select instruments. For the sake of clarity, be very careful with the reverb and do your best to add it to individual tracks for your live feed rather than the entire feed itself.

For large venues

For the largest of venues with enough volunteers, an entirely separate mix for online feeds is a reasonable pursuit. When you have the resources and space to create a well tuned studio for online feeds it can be easier to fine tune every channel to sound best in the feed. However, if you truly have an incredible live mix, that mix should translate well to your online feed with slight adjustments. If you find yourself venturing into multiple boards, networking solutions such as Dante offer extremely reliable and versatile routing over ethernet.