Live Breaks & LiveAssist

AutoCast is built for the real world of radio — where a human voice is still at the center of what makes a station worth listening to. Going live is never more than one click away, and you have full control over how AutoCast handles the transition in and out of a live break.

Going Live with the Go Live Button

The simplest way to open the microphone is to click Go Live in the center column transport controls. The moment you click it:

Your live input (microphone or board feed, as configured in Settings) opens immediately
The program audio ducks down so your voice is heard clearly
The deck display shows a live input indicator — a red dot and the label "🔴 LIVE INPUT" (or whatever label you've assigned)
The VU meter on the right side of the transport controls shows your live input level

When you're done, click Go Live again. AutoCast fades out the live input over the configured Live Input Fade Out duration (default 1.5 seconds) and resumes program audio.

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The Go Live button opens an indefinite live break — AutoCast waits for you to close it. If you walk away and forget to close it, your station stays in live mode. For scheduled live breaks of a fixed duration, use the # Live-For program log command instead — it opens the mic and closes it automatically.

Scheduled Live Breaks in the Program Log

For predictable, recurring live breaks — morning drive talkbacks, traffic reports, news updates — you'll usually schedule them in the program log rather than clicking Go Live manually. This gives you precise control over timing and lets AutoCast handle the transitions automatically.

# Live-For — Timed Break

Opens the live input for an exact duration, then closes it and resumes automation:

# Live-For 0:03:30 Morning Talkback

This opens the mic for 3 minutes and 30 seconds, displaying "Morning Talkback" on the deck during the break. When the time is up, AutoCast automatically fades out the live input and rolls the next song. You don't have to do a thing — it closes itself.

You can adjust the live input level relative to normal with an optional volume modifier:

# Live-For +2 0:03:30 Morning Talkback

The +2 adds 2 dB to the live input level for this break — useful if your mic tends to be a little quiet relative to your music levels.

LiveAssist Mode — DJ-Controlled Shows

For morning shows, evening specialty programs, or any time a live DJ wants to control the pace of the music, AutoCast has LiveAssist mode.

In LiveAssist, AutoCast doesn't auto-advance. Each song plays to completion, then AutoCast stops and waits. The DJ decides when to start the next song by clicking the play button on Deck B. AutoCast does the crossfade — the DJ just controls the timing.

This gives you the best of both worlds: AutoCast handles transitions and sound quality, and the DJ has natural control over pacing without having to manually manage every crossfade.

Turning LiveAssist On and Off

There are two ways to enable LiveAssist mode:

From the program log — add a # LiveAssist On command at the point in the log where the live show begins, and # LiveAssist Off where automation should resume. This is the cleanest approach because the mode change is baked right into the schedule:

## 6am — Morning Drive begins
# LiveAssist On
/Station/Music/...
/Station/Music/...
## 10am — Automation resumes
# LiveAssist Off

Manually — long-press the Auto button to toggle LiveAssist mode on or off at any time. The deck display shows "LIVE ASSIST MODE" to confirm it's active.

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In LiveAssist mode, Time-Correct evaluations are suspended and interrupt timers are cancelled. The DJ has full pacing control. When LiveAssist turns off, interrupts for the current hour are rescheduled and normal automation logic resumes.

The Live Input Fade

When a live break ends, AutoCast doesn't just hard-cut back to music. It fades out the live input over a short duration (the Live Input Fade Out setting, default 1.5 seconds) before bringing the music back. This prevents jarring transitions and gives the DJ a natural-feeling exit from their break.

You can adjust this fade duration in Settings → Audio → Live Input Fade Out.

Monitoring Live Input Levels

The right-side VU meter in the transport controls section shows your live input level whenever the mic is open. Keep an eye on it during breaks — it's your at-a-glance confirmation that audio is flowing from the input and that you're not broadcasting silence. The meter updates ten times per second.

Configuring Your Live Input Device

AutoCast uses whatever audio input device you've configured in Settings → System → Primary Input Device. This is typically your studio microphone, a USB audio interface, or your board's main mix output — however your studio is wired.

If you have a multi-channel audio interface, you select the specific stereo channel pair to use (pair 1–2, 3–4, etc.) when configuring an Input Source button, giving you flexible routing from any input on the device.

Outcues — Knowing When to Come Back Live

One of the hardest parts of doing live breaks during a commercial cluster is knowing the exact moment the last spot will end so you can be back on the mic without dead air or talking over the tag. AutoCast's outcue feature shows the closing words of each upcoming spot directly on the player deck, so you have a verbal cue right in front of you.

The outcue appears as a small line labeled Q: on the bottom row of the deck, alongside the scheduled start time:

Advertising Council
Al Roker
07:39    Q: “Only you can prevent forest fires.”

The host watches the deck, sees the closing words, listens for them on the air, and steps in the moment they hear them. No stopwatch, no guesswork.

Where the words come from

Outcues are extracted automatically by Librarian using Apple's on-device speech recognizer, which transcribes the last few seconds of each audio file and stores the closing words as a metadata field. AutoCast reads that field from the library database and displays it.

To populate outcues for a folder, open Librarian, right-click the folder in the Station Folders sidebar, and choose Detect outcues. Librarian sweeps every audio file in that folder. If a particular outcue comes back wrong, hand-edit it in Librarian — once you've corrected it, the row is locked so a future re-extraction won't overwrite your fix.

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Outcues are most useful on commercials, PSAs, liners, sweepers, promos, and station IDs — anything you'd typically come back live after. You don't need to extract outcues for songs.

The “Indistinct” line

When the closing seconds of a spot are music, sound effects, or speech the recognizer couldn't make out clearly, AutoCast shows:

07:39    Q: Indistinct (or music out)

That's the honest answer when there's no clear verbal cue to listen for. From the host's seat, both situations call for the same thing: listen for the music tail or the natural ending and time the return that way.

When no Q: line appears

If a deck row has no Q: line at all, Librarian hasn't yet extracted an outcue for that file — usually because the folder hasn't been right-clicked through Detect outcues yet, or because the file is a song or other content type that doesn't need an outcue.

Long cues

If a stored outcue is too long to fit in the available width on the deck row, AutoCast truncates from the front with a leading ellipsis:

07:39    Q: “…call today at 1-800-555-0199.”

The closing words — the actual cue — are always preserved; only the beginning of the cue gets shortened.

Next up: Voice Tracks →