Docs/Getting started
Welcome to Shadow Rack
What Shadow Rack is, who it's for, and the rules it follows at a show.
Shadow Rack is a Mac app for live sound. You run your desk's channels through it and process them with the same plugins you use in the studio. On top of that, every musician can have their own 3D in-ear mix. Shadow Rack doesn't replace your desk, it works alongside it: the desk sends channels to the Mac, Shadow Rack processes them and sends them back.
One app, three parts#
You download one app, and your licence decides which parts are switched on. More in modules.
| Part | What it does |
|---|---|
| Rack FX | Your VST3 plugins as inserts on the channels: a mixer with every channel and its plugins, New York (parallel) buses, sidechain, chain presets, sessions. |
| Rack IEM | In-ear mixes: every musician gets their own binaural mix with each source in its place around their head, and sets their own levels in their phone's browser. |
Who it's for#
- FOH engineers who want their studio compressors, EQs, de-essers and reverbs at the show, on a Mac next to the desk.
- Monitor engineers and bands who do their own in-ears and want to hear the stage around them, not everything in the middle of the head.
- Anyone with a digital desk that can send channels to a Mac and take them back – over its own USB, an expansion card or an audio interface. Shadow Rack works with any of them.
Made for the show, not the studio#
In the studio, a click, a crashed plugin or a "please wait" is no big deal. At a show it is. So Shadow Rack sticks to a few rules:
- No clicks when you change things. When you add, remove, move or bypass a plugin, only that channel fades out and back in, over 12 ms. Bypass switches to a dry signal delayed exactly like the plugin, so nothing jumps in time or phase.
- Plugin crashed? You're back in seconds. Plugins run inside the app, so when one crashes, Shadow Rack goes down with it. It starts again by itself within seconds, with the same rack, and the plugin that caused the crash stays switched off until you switch it back on. A plugin that hangs the audio for 4 seconds is treated the same way. More in crash safety.
- Broken audio never reaches the PA. If a plugin suddenly sends garbage or jumps by +24 dB, it's muted in the same audio block and the channel keeps playing without it.
- Nothing is lost. The rack saves itself 1.5 s after every change and every 30 seconds.
- It never stops mid-show on its own. The licence is checked in the background and only matters at the next start. Switching parts on or off also waits until you restart the app yourself. If your interface disappears, Shadow Rack waits for it to come back – it never switches to another one (a laptop's speakers and mic, say). The Mac doesn't put the app to sleep while it's working.
- The in-ears have their own process. If the rack goes down, the musicians keep hearing their mixes.
How these docs are laid out#
| Section | What's in it |
|---|---|
| Getting started | Installing, activating, the window, and a first show from start to finish. |
| Rack FX | The mixer, the channel, plugins, New York buses, sidechain, sessions, latency, controllers, the tablet. |
| Rack IEM | Musicians, their mixes, sources, the phone page, the in-ear engine. |
| WING Extension | Everything that only works with a Behringer WING. |
| Setup | Every tab of Setup, one by one. |
| Help | What to do when something's wrong, questions and answers, shortcuts, files, the glossary and versions. |
The coloured boxes mean the same on every page:
- Red – during a show: what to do, and what not to touch, while the band is playing.
- Yellow, WING: this needs the WING Extension and a WING as the interface.
- Green – a tip, blue – a note, yellow – a warning.
Which version a page is for#
Under every page title there's a Written for v0.5.0 mark – the version of Shadow Rack the page was written for. When the app moves on and a page hasn't been checked yet, the mark turns yellow. A heading marked since 0.5 describes something that arrived in that version. How versions are numbered, and which updates are safe right before a show, is in versions.
Where to go next#
- Install Shadow Rack and give it the permissions it asks for.
- Activate it on this Mac.
- Take a look around the window.
- Go through your first show – from an empty rack to doors open.
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