No doubt this is going to draw fire from the purists. But I’ve just spent a couple of days writing a set-up guide for novices in the world of livestream performance, and after thinking the whole thing through, I’d suggest that anyone and everyone who is doing livestreaming just go out and buy the Behringer UCA-202. It costs 30 bucks at Adorama and practically anywhere else (except, oddly, Amazon). You’ll probably also need an adapter cable to get from your mixer to its RCA inputs. If you’re a novice, it’ll be a godsend. If you’re not, you’ll wonder why you spent so much time fiddling with that other stuff.

Does it provide the ultimate in audio fidelity? No. Does it provide the ultimate in audio fidelity that human beings are actually able to hear after the audio in question is jammed through the keyhole of streaming software? Probably. Almost certainly. I’d say, “Absolutely”, except there’s always some guy (and believe me, it’s a guy) who thinks he can hear 40 samples worth of latency. Maybe he can.

So just go buy it. If you want to know about the hellish alternatives, read on.

Streaming or not, experienced live performers will basically do anything to simplify their rigs. Less to fiddle with at setup and sound check, less to go wrong during the show. When we could still do live performance, most were sending a single stereo feed to the house PA system (a few were sending mono, and I’ve seen some bold souls do really nice quad performances, and then there are all the planetarium guys. But I digress.) So it makes sense to simply send that same stereo feed to whatever computer you’re going to use to feed the livestream.

And unfortunately the alternatives to that can be really, really difficult. Operating systems vary, with Windows being perhaps the most troublesome, but in general it’s fair to say that trying to use some kind of multichannel input costs a lot of time and trouble to get working. A lot of apps — particularly the OBS software that a lot of us use for video and audio livestreaming — really are expecting stereo. You can do multichannel work with them, but it’s difficult and very time-consuming to configure. It’s really tempting to try to use an 8-in multichannel audio interface as a live-performance mixer, but it’s hard to set up and impossible to mix well in the heat of the moment. [Note: mixers that are designed as mixers, but also have a USB out, like the Mackie ProFX10v3 and some of the Yamahas do, might be an exception to this rule but — (for reasons too complicated to explain here) — only if they make the main outputs available on the first two channels].

By contrast, the Behringer is a class-compliant USB device that has been found to work with pretty much anything you plug it into, without messing with special drivers or complicated internal audio routing setups.

So, I’m telling you: just go buy the $30 Behringer. Oh, and for you wise guys (and it will be guys, believe me) who want to know what the difference is between the $30 Behringer UCA-202 and the $39 UCA-222, you can find a detailed answer here, but the summary version is: not much, and none of the differences are really improvements.

Credit where credit is due: Jez Creek, Steve Mokris, and Jeremy dePrisco provided the shots to the head that changed my thinking on this.