With CASTER Live, you can separate applications’ audio, microphones, and other audio devices connected to your Mac. This virtual mixer allows you to control and process each of those tracks individually, create your desired mixes, and send them to your favorite streaming app, headphones, speakers, or other output devices, through two distinct output tracks. You can also use the direct-out option on each individual track. In addition, CASTER Live provides several other advanced features, such as multitrack recording and audio processing, to meet the needs of all users.
As discussed in the quick setup section, when you open the CASTER, there will be five main sections in the mixer:
1) Inputs, 2) Add Tracks, 3) Outputs, 4) Recording Panel, and 5) Toolbar.
Add up to 8 Application Tracks and 6 Input or Microphone Tracks simultaneously using the Add Tracks. The chosen input tracks will appear in the inputs section, where the sticky tracks will always appear as the first two tracks. You can always delete the input tracks and add a new one or simply change the input source of previously added tracks using the input source menu. You can also change the order of the input tracks by dragging and dropping them to the left or right of other input tracks (except for the sticky tracks).
The Outputs section of the mixer has two output tracks, one output designated for streaming, which is hard-wired to our virtual output device called CASTER stream mix 1, and another one for monitoring, which allows the user to select any physical audio output (e.g., speakers, headphones). Each track in the inputs section has two volume faders and mute buttons, allowing the user to create two distinct sub-mixes for streaming and monitoring. By default the faders are linked.
The Recording panel is located under the outputs section with several features. For your convenience, we have also included a Toolbar on the right side of the application, which provides some tools for appearance, hot keys, GroundControl audio devices setup, and MIDI device options.
Now we will label every part and feature within each mixer section on CASTER. In the next section of this user guide, we provide detailed information on how to get the most out of each component.