The Local Player reads audio files from the Music subfolder inside your Station path and plays them in sequence, looping indefinitely. It’s the simplest way to stream a continuous music rotation without any external software involved.
On launch, SignalCaster scans your Station’s Music folder and builds a playlist from all the audio files it finds. It plays them in alphabetical order, looping back to the beginning when it reaches the end. The currently playing track name appears on the dashboard and is used to update stream metadata (Icecast) or video overlay (RTMP).
SignalCaster reads FLAC files natively. If your music library is in a different format, convert files to FLAC before placing them in the Music folder. FLAC is lossless, and the encoder handles the conversion to the streaming bitrate from there.
In the Settings drawer, set Audio Source to Local Player. Then make sure Station Path points to your TuneTracker Station folder — the one that contains the Music subfolder. If the path is wrong or the folder is empty, the player will have nothing to load.
The Local Player plays audio through the output device you select in the Audio Output setting. This lets you monitor your stream on a specific output without affecting your Mac’s system volume. Select System Default to route through whatever macOS currently has selected.
Each time the Local Player moves to a new track, it notifies the rest of the engine. For Icecast streams, the new track name is pushed to the server as a metadata update. For RTMP streams, the video overlay is re-rendered with the new track name. Both happen automatically — you don’t need to do anything.
The dashboard VU meters show the real-time audio levels of whatever the Local Player is playing. If the meters are flat while a track is supposedly playing, the file may be silent, corrupt, or in an unsupported format.