A self-confessed nutball musician human, Meri Amber has been streaming on Twitch for 5 years and creating content for YouTube for nearly 10! She effortlessly combines serious musical chops with her own eclectic comedic style to create something incredibly unique, entertaining and unmistakably her own.

To help welcome Meri Amber into the Audio-Technica family we thought we’d ask her a few questions to understand her content creation journey and get to know more about her stream and various creations!

Tell us about your stream and when people can tune in to see you live?

I usually stream three times a week on my main Twitch channel, where I do a mix of performing original, parody and cover songs, as well as live songwriting, live learning of new songs, musical challenges, rants, playing pre-made music videos or skits, and mini games or interactive segments with chat. The times I’m live vary depending on where in the world you are watching from [thanks to the confusions of daylight savings!], they are usually:

Monday 10am Sydney time / Sunday 11pm UTC

Tuesday 1pm Sydney time / Tuesday 2am UTC

Thursday 4pm Sydney time / Thursday 5am UTC

Though I often do special streams and events at different times as well, so it’s best to check my schedule when I post it at the start of each week on social media or on my Discord!

Aswell as my main Twitch channel, I also have a second Twitch channel called PRACBANG where I practice music live. It’s a channel inspired by mukbangs where people watch others eat… In PRACBANG people watch me practice music instead! The PRACBANG streams are a lot more spontaneous, relaxed and don’t have a schedule. The best way to know when I go live on there is to follow that channel or the Discord room in my Discord that gives alerts when I go live on that channel.

You’ve been incredibly busy on YouTube over the last few years, with an abundance of original songs, stream snippets and skits, which 2 videos would you recommend for anyone looking to get a better understanding of what you’re all about?

Oh this is a tricky one… The sort of content I produce is very varied and I’m not sure two videos would sum it up! I’ll go with a music video of an original parody written live on stream -W0nd3rtr0l1 - and a skit video featuring one of the guest characters that appears on my stream often - Bass Lesson With Meri Of The Darkness ft MrJacobEdwards - to try and cover some ground and give some idea of what to expect.

What inspired you to start streaming and prior to that, what were you doing with music?

Prior to streaming I was a touring nutball musician who performed primarily at events such as comic conventions. Streaming now, I do mostly the same sort of thing, but without having to leave the house!

I was inspired to start streaming by two musician friends I’d met while touring, Jonathan Ong and Mitch Bruzzese. They encouraged me to give the platform a go and, although I wasn’t very eager at the start, after I’d tried it out I fell in love with it and haven’t stopped since! I love that as a social media site, streaming is the closest to actual social interaction, it’s real-time, there’s very little you can hide and you get as close to authentic interactions with [and between] an audience as you can possibly get online now.

I know that early on into your streaming career your community helped you purchase an AT2035, but when you first got started into streaming do you remember your original setup?

Oh yes, the original setup *hides face in embarrassment*. The very very first setup was just my laptop [laptop webcam and inbuilt camera], which was catastrophic.

In time, I moved to a simple USB Yeti microphone and Logitech C920 camera, which was worlds better. I never wanted to use headphones and always opted for in-ears instead [so I could wear hats and style my hair, of course]. I didn’t have any of my own earphones for quite some time and borrowed my partner’s Sennheiser Momentum in-ears.

After that I fundraised to get the AT2035 microphone, DSLR camera setup and more over time. There must’ve been a dozen or so incremental changes. Each one would always feel like the most exciting level-up. I learnt over time that what people think are the most important things to level-up [the camera and headphones/earphones] really aren’t the most important things to focus on. Less sexy items like camera lenses, lighting and microphone setups can make a far bigger impact. It’s also best to get headphones/earphones that give a clear and accurate image of the sound you’re broadcasting, and not ones that are altered or enhanced with boosts [cause then it may sound good for you, but that’s not the sound your audience is hearing].

The setup I had just prior to the current setup I’ve got now had a Shure Beta 58A microphone for dynamic performance and the AT2035 for when I needed a condenser that could “hear the whole room”, as well as Shure SE215 earphones coming through a wireless receiver for monitoring. The room also had 4 main DSLR camera views [3 different zoom levels and a guitar cam], as well as a DSLR bird’s eye piano cam and the Logitech C920 relegated to being the Vector robot cam [for my pet robot Vector]. The space also had 21 smart Philips Hue lights as well.

To think, it could be upgraded even from that beast of a setup!!

Now I’ve got an AE6100 dynamic mic as the dynamic microphone instead, the AT2035 condenser mic still to “hear the whole room”, the ATH-E40 in-ears through the wireless receiver to monitor and a new DSLR on top of the previous 5 for AR interactivity. The setup definitely started very humble and took the full 5+ years to get to where it is now. I imagine, in another 5 years, even this setup will seem unrecognisable and prehistoric!

From Meri of the Darkness to Meri From Yamba, you’ve created some pretty epic and hilarious personas of the years, if all of these personas had to form a band, what would everyone play and how do you think it’d end up?

Oh jeepers, a band of all the guest characters on my Twitch channel would be quite comprehensive!

Meri Of The Darkness professes to play bass guitar and has even “taught” it through some skits, so she’d likely be the bassist. Meri From Yamba, the bogan Australian of the team, would most likely opt for the “metal stick” [flute] as she’s mastered the Land Down Under lick, which is all that is needed. DJ 4MB3RR doesn’t really play or sing or do anything, so she’d probably just dance around on stage, perhaps around a turntable, and “bring da sexy”.

Meri G From The G Side claims to be pretty big in the Australian Hip Hop scene despite having never dropped any songs, but she’d likely come in for the rap cameo, or at least promise to do so on her SoundCloud that she tirelessly promotes. Amber Night Raven Death Rose, the over-the-top, theatrical, goth character doesn’t really need to play any instruments, she’ll just use witchcraft to enchant one to play itself, or alternatively, cackle occasionally. Tess TiCle, the self-important “influenza” [influencer] of the bunch doesn’t sing or play instruments because people will watch her anyway, so why should she? She’d just send a cardboard cut-out of herself to be on stage because she doesn’t have time in her busy schedule to rehearse or appear.

Black And White Historical Person would travel in from history times to both play the lute and criticise everyone else for their sub-standard appearance, performance and general personage. Beatnik Meri would click. Doctor Web Emma D would diagnose everyone as being on death’s bed. Auditor Meri would excitedly take on the role of the band’s financial manager. And… The list goes on ?

There’s arguably too many guest characters that come on to my streams… And yet, there’s even more on the way!

Apart from your stream and YouTube channel, can you let us know about MPAR and anything else going down in your world at the moment?

I am SUPER excited about MPAR. MPAR is an augmented reality project that I do with my partner [MPAR stands for Meri & Pat Augmented Reality]. We were both ultra inspired at the same time, for different reasons, to try and make a positive difference in the future of tech. And, we both believe, augmented reality IS the future of tech.

From my perspective, being an online content creator and artist, I’ve seen some of the serious issues in the algorithmic infrastructure of the online world from both a user and creator’s point of view. From the algorithms pushing creators into creating echo chambers, compromising their artistry for “discoverability” or validation, feeling the need to be more extreme for attention and catering to the preference of quantity/novelty over quality/depth [just for starters], to the effect on users, with shortening attention spans, lowered communication & people skills, desensitisation and increased negative emotions/poor mental health [and more].

From Patrick’s perspective, as an IT professional and programmer, looking at the issues with security and data management, the effects of hardware design on human physiology, the overall effects of tech on the climate and more…

We knew we wanted to use our combined skills to do something positive to try and push the development of the next technological era in a more ethical direction.

So, we came up with MPAR, the world’s first augmented reality supergroup! We structure what we do in a similar way to a band, creating releases and content that draws attention to both the positive and more concerning possibilities of AR. Although we’ve just gotten started, we’ve already won or gained recognition in four separate International AR competitions and have had over a million uses of filters we’ve made for Snapchat or Instagram. There’s so much we have planned to do and I can’t wait for it to come together so we can start showing the world!

You can catch Meri Amber streaming live on Twitch on Monday 10:00AM, Tuesday 1:00PM and Thursday 5:00PM (all times are in AEST).

Check out what Audio-Technica equipment Meri Amber uses below and follow her on her various social media platforms!

Follow Amber for all the latest songs, videos and live streams!