How To Stream Or Share Your Screen or Audio

One great thing about Discord is it’s ability that allows a user to share their screen, or more importantly for The Blind Logic Pro community, share your audio, which can include the screen reader. This feature makes it easy to show others what you are working on and demonstrate how it’s done with the screen reader.

On Discord, streaming is quite simple once you understand it. You do not have to leave the channel you’re in to start sharing your screen and audio. First, the app you want to stream audio and/or video from must be running. In this case we’ll use Logic Pro as our Example, so make sure Logic is running before proceeding to the next step.

Starting a Stream

Once Logic is running,, In Discord, bring up item chooser with VO I, and type share. Share your Screen should be the result, VO Space on it to be put on the “Share Your Screen” button. VO Space a second time to activate the “Share Your Screen” button and bring up the options for sharing your screen. If nothing happens when you press VO Space the second time, VO Left to the image and VO Space on that image to activate the “Share Your Screen” button. . Once the screen sharing options come up, VO right to the “Entire Screen” button, and VO Space to select if if you would like to share your screen, the screen reader along with Logic and the rest of your computer’s audio.

If you only want to share the audio of Logic or another app, press TAB until you get to Logic or that app and VO Space on it to start sharing your screen with Logic or said app’s audio only. This will only share Logic or the selected app, and those viewing or listening to the stream won’t be able to hear your screen reader.

If this is your first time streaming, you’ll see a message about Discord requiring screen permissions of which you’ll need to allow in system settings > privacy and security > screen recording. In the dialog letting you know that the permission is needed, you should be able to select the open System Settings button. This will put you in the Privacy & Security screen recordings area of System Settings. Interact with the scroll area and then the table . There will be a toggle switch which you must set to on for Discord. You should be able to toggle it on with VO Space. You will only need to do this once.

After screen sharing permissions are allowed and you’ve VO Spaced on the “Entire Screen or The app you wanted to share, you’ll hear a sound indicating that you’re live, and other users in the channel will also hear a sound notifying them that a live stream started. They can then join your stream if they wish, and you will hear a sound notifying you when a user has joined. Once they join, they will be able to hear your audio in stereo (if they are watching the stream from a computer - mobile may still be in mono), and follow along with what you’re doing.

Note that if you’re in voice chat, those who did not join your stream will still be in the Voice Channel with you, because the audio for voice chat and the stream itself are separate.

Clipping Audio

Another useful thing about Discord is it will let your viewers know when your audio has gone over zero. So if, at any point, someone tells you that your stream is making a crackling sound, this means your stream or elements of your stream are clipping, so you’ll need to turn the audio down of the app you’re streaming from. In a mixing environment, it’s usually a case of levels not being fully adjusted and things peaking where they shouldn’t, because remember, nothing should ever be above zero. So balance the levels of your vocals and instruments accordingly, and everything should sound good. In the case of something like Logic, a quick fix can be just turning down the Stereo Output track, but remember to turn this back up after you adjust the levels.

Ending a Stream

Any time you want to end the stream, just close the application you’re streaming from in the case where you choose to specifically stream just an app. Alternatively, if you chose to share your entire screen, in Discord, press VO I for item chooser and then type stop. You should be on the “stop stream” button. VO Space once to put Voiceover on that button then VO Space a second time to select or activate the Stop Stream button. If nothing happens when you VO space on that, then VO Left once to the image and VO Space on the image to stop the stream. A sound will play indicating the end of your stream.
Tip: If you ended it by accident, or want to stream something else, you have approximately 5 minutes to re-share your screen and users will be automatically connected so they don’t have to rejoin.

Happy Streaming!