Voice Tracks

Voice tracking is how a station gets the sound of a live DJ without actually having someone in the studio around the clock. A DJ records their breaks in advance — intro, outro, talk-up, whatever — and AutoCast plays those recordings at the right moments in the broadcast, synchronized with music underneath. Done well, it sounds completely natural and keeps the station sounding staffed even during hours when nobody's physically there.

What AutoCast Does (and Doesn't Do)

AutoCast's job is playback. It takes the voice track recordings you've created and plays them at exactly the right moment, with exactly the right music underneath, with professional-sounding fades in and out.

AutoCast does not record voice tracks. Recording is done in a standard wave editor — any audio software you're comfortable with works fine. The DJ records their break, saves it as an audio file, and drops it into the appropriate folder in the Station Folder. AutoCast picks it up from there.

How Voice Track Playback Works

When AutoCast encounters a # VT command in the program log, here's what happens:

1. AutoCast selects the voice track recording file (more on file selection below).
2. AutoCast selects a talkbed — a music bed to play underneath the voice track (if configured).
3. The talkbed begins playing at full volume.
4. The talkbed fades down to the configured Ducking Level (default 50% — half volume).
5. The voice track recording plays over the ducked talkbed.
6. As the voice track nears its end, the talkbed begins fading back up to full volume.
7. The talkbed continues playing until its natural EOM point, then transitions to the next song in the log normally.

The result: the DJ's voice plays cleanly over music, the music comes back up naturally as they finish talking, and the whole sequence flows into the next song without any dead air or awkward gaps.

The # VT Command

# VT Comment TalkBed

The # VT command has two parts: the attribute name (Comment in this example) and the value (TalkBed). Together, they tell AutoCast what to use as the talkbed music. AutoCast searches the music library for files where the specified attribute matches the specified value, then selects one using the Rotation Tracker.

The Rotation Tracker cycles through all matching files in sequence, ensuring you don't hear the same talkbed twice in a row. It remembers where it left off between sessions — even if you restart AutoCast, it picks up the rotation where it stopped.

If you use # VT with no parameters, AutoCast plays the next available voice track file from the default voice track folder in sequence.

The Ramp Point — The Key to Good Voice Track Timing

For voice tracks to sound their best, AutoCast needs to know when the talkbed's vocals (if any) begin — so it can make sure the voice track DJ is finished talking before the talkbed singer starts. This information comes from the Ramp point set in the music library for each talkbed file.

The Ramp point is the moment in the song where the vocals begin, measured in seconds from the start of the file. AutoCast uses the Ramp point to time the music fade-up: it starts bringing the talkbed back up early enough that the full level is reached just as (or just before) the vocals begin.

If a talkbed file doesn't have a Ramp point set, AutoCast uses the No-Ramp Talkbed Fade setting (default 2.0 seconds) as a fallback fade duration. It works, but it's less precise than using real Ramp points — so it's worth spending a few minutes in Librarian to set Ramp points on your talkbed files.

Voice Track Timing Scenarios

AutoCast handles voice track playback intelligently based on how long the voice track is relative to the talkbed:

Voice track fits within the talkbed — The most common case. The talkbed plays, ducks, the voice track plays over it, and the talkbed fades back up. Smooth and natural.

Voice track is longer than the talkbed — AutoCast adjusts. The talkbed plays from its cue point, the voice track starts, and when the talkbed ends, AutoCast transitions to the next song to continue as the background. The voice track finishes, then everything normalizes.

No talkbed configured — If # VT is used without an attribute/value pair, or no matching talkbed is found, the voice track plays without music underneath. It works, but a music bed usually sounds better.

Voice Track Timing Settings

All voice track timing is configured in Settings → Voice Track:

Setting	Default	What It Controls
Ducking Level	50%	How much the talkbed is reduced in volume while the voice track plays. 50% = half volume underneath the DJ recording.
Talkbed Crossfade	3.0 sec	How long the talkbed takes to fade in or out during the voice track sequence.
Fade Up Duration	1.0 sec	How long it takes the music to come back to full volume after the voice track ends.
Fade Up Early	0.75 sec	How many seconds before the voice track ends to begin fading the music up. Starting early creates the natural "music rises under the last words" effect.
No-Ramp Talkbed Fade	2.0 sec	Used as the fade duration when a talkbed file has no Ramp point set in the library.

Organizing Voice Track Files

Voice track recordings are typically stored in a folder within your Station Folder — many stations use a subfolder of Programs or create a dedicated VoiceTracks folder. The exact location depends on how your program logs are set up. The key requirement is that AutoCast can find the file at the path specified in (or derived from) the # VT command.

If you're using ClockWork and TuneStacker to generate your logs, the voice track file paths will be written into the log automatically based on your scheduling configuration.

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