Celebrating 4 years on Twitch

Today is my 4 year anniversary of streaming on Twitch!

To celebrate I'm doing a special 2+ hour stream at: 8pm BST / 9pm CEST / 3pm EDT / 12pm PDT

I'm taking requests for themes and special things I've done in the past that people would like to see return in the anniversary stream.

Predictably, so far I've had requests for llamas and cats (I use samples and incorporate them into the music) but I'm open to more - or even completely new suggestions! One of my personal favourites was lasers... oh and Hal 9000 from 2001...

It's been an interesting 4 year journey so far starting out as a lockdown experiment (like many musicians I wanted to play live but couldn't). I'd started using modular synths less than a year earlier and had got to the point where I really wanted to share what I was playing. You can actually still see my very first stream on Twitch:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/760245896?collection=qshVMtgxPRag1w

Listening back I really like some of the simplicity in this - and will try to recapture some of that as part of tonight's stream.

When I started streaming we were having a house extension built and some of my favourite early streams were done in the partially built 'building site' - with varying degrees of walls being not there and exposed to the elements. Here's an example:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/774032802?collection=qshVMtgxPRag1w

There's something I like about electronic music on a modular synth in a building site and I'd definitely like to perform in a building site again!

After that I tried out pretty much all rooms in the house for streaming and all sorts of setups for cameras, where to put the modular etc. I did a lot from the kitchen but I like this one was seated at a small table in the living room:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/910889685?collection=qshVMtgxPRag1w

Then there was modular + piano: with a one case modular synth on top of the piano:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/918767471?collection=qshVMtgxPRag1w

...and an attempt to perform cross legged sitting on the floor. This btw was not comfortable and I never did that again!

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/923370452?collection=qshVMtgxPRag1w

But all the different rooms and setups needed a TON of work each time playing with camera angles and settings. Eventually I got my studio setup, 3 wall mounted cameras and my modular synth mounted on the wall. Added loads of fun bot modes and other features and you get to the kind of stream I do today.

I also use two computers - one relatively powerful run for running the streaming software (OBS) + Bot software (Lumia stream). The other computer is my laptop which I have where I can see it so that I can read and interact with the chat. Another bid improvement was getting a headset with a microphone so I can easily talk on stream.

And then there's the coloured lights in the studio (can be controlled from the Twitch chat) and the special lights that people cat turn on and off (lava lamp, On Air Sign and 'mega lamp).

It is a complex system. But it stays setup, in one place so preparing for a stream is now mostly just getting ready anything new or special in terms of themes, samples or new bot modes. Here's a stream from earlier this week for comparison with the early ones:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2264810395

Hope you can make it to my special stream tonight!

Tim / TDC Tunes

TDC Tunes
TDC Tunes is a Live Modular Artist and experimenter with sound. He plays several times a week on Twitch and gigs around London.
Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/tdctunes
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Website: https://www.tdctunes.com/