The Effects Deck

The Effects Deck is where you shape the sound of your stream — compression, limiting, EQ, reverb and the rest. It sits between your audio source and the stream encoder, the way a hardware audio processor would. Each effect lives on its own card. Switch cards on, put them in the order you like, and your listeners hear the result straight away.

The Effects Deck is part of SignalCaster, which is included with System 7 Basic and System 7 Pro.

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Don’t double up on filters. If your audio comes from AutoCast, it already has AutoCast’s Effects Deck applied before it reaches SignalCaster. Use SignalCaster’s Effects Deck only for filtering that belongs to the stream alone, such as an EQ change you want only for your listeners online. Compressing or limiting twice, or applying strong noise reduction twice, can make a stream sound squashed, harsh or pumping. Make small changes, and listen to the stream itself.

Opening and Closing the Deck

Press X and the Effects Deck slides out to the right of the dashboard, the same way the Settings drawer does. Press X again, or Esc, to close it. A small reminder, Press X for the Effects Deck, sits under the status line on the dashboard.

Key	What it does
X	Opens the Effects Deck. Press it again to close it. If another drawer is open, the Effects Deck replaces it.
Esc	Closes the Effects Deck.

If you are typing in the deck’s name box, X is just a letter.

One Deck for Every Source

SignalCaster has a single Effects Deck, and it works on whichever audio source you are using: the Local Player, TCP Input (AutoCast) or App Capture. There is nothing to switch when you change sources.

The deck changes what goes to your stream. With the Local Player, the sound you hear from your own speakers is not changed, and the VU meters and spectrum show the audio as it arrives, before the deck.

SignalCaster starts with no effects in the deck. The deck you build, each card’s checkbox, Bypass All and each effect’s settings are saved automatically, and are back the next time you open SignalCaster. If you switch the effects off, bypass them all or remove them, that is how SignalCaster stays until you change it again.

The Cards

Under the title is a stack of cards, one per effect. A deck holds up to 12 cards, and there is always at least one. Each card has:

a checkbox. Checked means the effect is in use; unchecked bypasses that one effect without removing it — handy for comparing processed and unprocessed sound.
a name box, Name This Effect Card. Leave it blank and the card shows the effect’s own name.
Choose Effect, a pop-up listing the effects you can use, in groups (Dynamics, EQ and Filters, Reverb and Delay, and so on). Choosing a different effect replaces this card’s effect with that effect’s starting settings.
a Settings button, which opens the effect’s own control panel. You can leave it open and adjust while you listen.
+ add another, which adds a new card directly beneath this one.
a strip of dots at the left edge — drag it to reorder the cards. Effects work in order, top to bottom.
a round x at the upper right, which removes the card.

At the top of the deck, Bypass All switches every card off at once so you can hear the stream without any effects; it lights up while the effects are bypassed. Click it again to bring them back. At the bottom, New Deck, Open Deck and Save Deck let you keep named decks and bring them back later. Saved decks are kept in a folder shared with the other TuneTracker apps, so a deck saved in one can be opened in another.

Changes apply live: your listeners hear a card being added, reordered or bypassed straight away, even in the middle of a stream.

A starting deck

If you are not sure where to start, this order matches common practice — each stage catches what the one before it lets through:

Compressor — tames the overall dynamic range, so the stages after it get a more consistent signal.
Parametric EQ — corrects tonal balance after compression.
Limiter — last, as a final safety net before the encoder.

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If your audio comes from AutoCast, it has probably been through this kind of chain already. Start with the deck empty and add one small change at a time, listening to the stream after each.

Delay

Every effect takes a little time to process sound, and some take much longer than others. This delay is often called latency. Apple’s built-in effects add only a few thousandths of a second, which you will never notice. Some other plug-ins, especially noise-removal, click-removal and de-reverb tools, can add far more — sometimes a good part of a second. That delay is added to your stream’s audio, so a plug-in with a large delay makes the stream arrive that much later than the sound you hear from the Local Player on your own speakers. A plug-in’s own manual often lists its delay, usually under the name latency.

Using Other Audio Unit Plug-ins

Besides Apple’s built-in effects, the Effects Deck can use the Audio Unit (AU) plug-ins installed on your Mac, from Waves, FabFilter, iZotope, Universal Audio and others. Once a plug-in has been checked (below), it appears in a card’s Choose Effect list alongside Apple’s effects. A plug-in that has not been checked yet, or that failed the check, is shown greyed out and cannot be used.

A stream is often live and unattended, so third-party plug-ins are handled with care:

Each plug-in is checked once. Before the deck uses a plug-in, SignalCaster loads it, runs test sounds through it and watches what happens. A plug-in that passes appears in the list; one that fails stays greyed out.
Plug-ins run apart from SignalCaster. They work in a separate helper process, so a plug-in that misbehaves cannot take SignalCaster, or your stream, down with it. If a plug-in ever stalls, SignalCaster passes the sound through untouched for that moment and restarts the helper. What happened is noted in the Activity Log. Your stream is never held up waiting for a plug-in.

Checking plug-ins

The first time you open the Effects Deck after starting SignalCaster, it offers to check the plug-ins on your Mac if any have not been checked. The Checking your plug-ins window shows how many need checking and how it is going; a handful takes a few seconds, and a large collection usually a minute or less. You can stop at any time and carry on later. When it finishes, it tells you which plug-ins passed and lists any that could not be used.

Plug-in checking is paused while a stream is connecting or live, so it never competes with your broadcast. It runs when you ask again after you stop streaming. A plug-in you install or update later is checked automatically the next time. To run the check yourself, choose SignalCaster ▸ Check Plug-ins… from the menu bar.