A brief but important note

A lot of these tips come from CamronJK (who can be found on /CamronJK, /CamronJK.com). I count CamronJK as a mentor for streaming.

Accessibility

• Use native closed captioning. Open captions can look nice and provide for a backup for viewers who can hear what you say, but they’re hard on those need them because they can’t be adjusted the way the viewers may need. If using OBS, try ratwithacompiler’s plugin.

Audio

• The black bar in your microphone’s VU meter should fall into the yellow range most of the time (the middle colour of the moving bit). This is loud enough to hear but not so loud that you overload speakers and headphones.
• Apply a noise reduction filter. This helps remove sounds like your PC’s fans, the air conditioner, your little drink fridge, etc. while you’re mic is on. It doesn’t catch sudden noises and won’t remove really loud noises.
• Apply a noise gate. This keeps the mic muted until the volume gets high enough. It keeps out sounds like a conversation behind you except when you’re speaking. When the volume near the mic is high enough, all sounds come in normally.
• Apply a compressor filter. This puts a cap on your mic’s volume. You won’t peak, you won’t hurt people’s ear drums when you scream.
• Use a wind screen, a muffle, something. The wind screen and muffle both prevent or reduce sounds like breathing and wind across the mic.
• Use a pop screen. The pop screen keeps your plosives (‘b’s, ‘p’s, anything that creates a sudden burst of sound from your lips) from sounding like a gunshot in someone’s ear.
• Most microphones are designed to function best within a few inches/centimetres from your mouth. Beyond this range, you’re likely to get some distortion or dropoff of volume.
• Microphones are directional. They almost all pick up at least a little in all directions, but they have one direction that is more sensitive and clearer. Have that direction pointed as close to directly at your mouth as possible. Some mics are built to be very directional, these should generally not be used for streaming.
• Headset mics are fine. If that’s what you have, use it. If all you have is a mic built in to your laptop, use it, but remember: it’s not pointed well and is supposed to durable, not particularly clear. Stand-alone microphones are generally better, but the best microphone is the one that you have that can be understood. NB: if you’re a musician, you probably a have a much more complex microphone need, but you also probably have more information.

Video

• Have at least slow animations/changes across your entire outgoing stream. Static sections are not updated with every frame, and can develop artifacts over time or become blurry as the render processes devote more cycles to things that change.

Streaming technology

• Don’t crank up your outgoing frame rate (frames per second, FPS). The human eye only needs about 24 frames each second to make a smooth flow. 30 is good enough. 60 looks really smooth. However, your bandwidth doesn’t grow with your frame rate. A 1080p video running at 30fps uses the same bandwidth as slightly over 720p at 60fps.
• Run the highest stable bit rate you can. This will let you get the most pixels sent per second, so your image will remain clearer. Bit rate drops cause the image to go blurry.
• Audio is more important than video. People watch your channel for you. Unless you stream under the IRL category, your appearance is unlikely to occupy much of the stream, so your voice is you to your viewers.

Streaming behaviour

• Your chat behaves the way you let and encourage them. Don’t allow them to act poorly just to get views early on.
• Have chat rules. This will give you some support when you tell people to quit something.
• Have the following two chat rules in some form:
  • “Moderators’ decisions are final.” This lets you tell the chatter that it’s done and provides you with a clearly stated reason to not reverse a mod’s decision while someone’s being a problem.
  • “If a chatter is doing something wrong, even if it’s not in the rules, there will be consequences (up to, and including, banning and reporting to the streaming service).” This one gives you a rule for the person who says, “I haven’t broken a rule, you can’t do anything.” The less formal version of this is: “You’re making me unhappy, go away.”
• Ban people who are problems. If you are content that someone broke a rule on accident, time them out.
• Use automod systems. If it was a positive contribution, you’ll be able to approve it; if it wasn’t, you don’t have to do anything. Most reasonable people will accept the deletion and move on.
• Don’t do things that you don’t want your chat doing. If you do it, they will think it’s acceptable for them to do it.
• If you are getting irritated, frustrated, upset, angry, or anything like those because of what you are doing, STOP. If you’re not having fun, the only people in chat who will be having fun are not there for you, they are there because they want to see you suffer.
• If you find some aspect of your setup unpleasant get rid of it. If jump scares are making you uncomfortable, don’t have them; if you don’t want to put people’s names on your tools, characters, vehicles, or whatever, don’t give them the option.
• Most importantly: it’s your stream. If you don’t like a person, activity, whatever, make it go away; ban the people who are problematic, don’t engage in the activity, don’t allow the redeem, you can always deny ANY request. If there’s something you want, do what you can to make it happen; save for that new gadget or game, tell people what you want to see, ask people for advice. I have asked lots of streamers: “I like how you have X on your stream, how did you do it?” If they made it, they will normally love showing it off or inviting you to Discord or another stream so they can talk about it. If they bought it, most of them will be happy to tell you what it’s called; you may have to search for it, but you’ve got a start.