The phone remote: mix, leave a note, sing an idea

The phone remote puts the transport, Tracks faders and Knob Panel on your phone. You can leave Oscilla a note or sing an idea for the Mac to write down. It works through a page on the phone, with nothing to install and no router or VPN setup.

Pair the phone

On the Mac, open Settings ▸ Phone and turn on the remote. Scan the code with your phone’s camera, then open the link. The page is your remote. Add it to the phone’s Home Screen if you want to return with one tap.

The remote works at home or elsewhere through Iced Audio’s relay. The Mac and phone encrypt what passes between them with a key only the two devices have. That key is kept in the code you scanned.

While a phone is connected, Settings ▸ Phone says so. New pairing makes a fresh code. Phones paired with the old code stop working until they scan the new one, so use this when you want to replace the existing pairing.

What you can control

The phone shows the transport: Play, Stop, Record, Loop and the metronome. It also shows the Tracks lanes with their faders, mute, solo and record-arm controls. Use those to change the mix or arm a lane from where you are listening or playing.

The remote’s Record control operates the Mac’s transport. In Tracks, recording captures the Mac’s audio input onto an armed lane or a new lane while the set plays. To capture an idea with the phone’s microphone, use Sing.

The Knob Panel’s knobs are on the phone too. If you have those controls set up in AudioCortex, you can turn them from the remote. The Song Map panel shows what Oscilla is working on, and its Checkpoint button keeps the song as it is now.

The phone does not reach your files or settings. Its controls are for the session: playback, recording, mixing, knobs, notes and the Song Map actions described here.

Leave Oscilla a note

Use the note box to send a thought to Oscilla. You might write “the pad is too loud” after listening from across the room, or ask to try a different direction for a part.

This is another way to work with AudioCortex’s cybernetic assistance. Keep the request concrete so Oscilla knows what you want to change. The phone gives you a place to leave the request while you are away from the Mac’s keyboard.

Sing a melody

Tap Sing, sing or hum one idea, then tap again. The phone sends the recording to your Mac. The Mac writes the melody down on the beat grid at the Tracks tempo, names the key, saves a MIDI file and leaves the melody in Oscilla’s inbox as a note from you. The voice recording is kept in Recordings.

One voice works best. Try a single melody you can sing clearly, then use the notes as the starting point for work with Oscilla. This step transcribes the idea you supplied.

You can also use an existing voice memo. Bring it into AudioCortex, find it in the Library, then right-click and choose Melody from This Recording → Oscilla. It follows the same route from a sung or hummed recording to notes and an inbox message.

Check that a press arrived

A line under the phone page’s header says whether each press is sending, done or not done, with a reason. A press made while the connection is down is sent again when it returns and applied only once.

On the Mac, Settings ▸ Phone lists recent presses, what each did, whether it happened and how long it took. Each press is also recorded as coming from the remote in the history Oscilla reads. If you need to report a problem, Copy diagnostics copies the last fifty presses for a bug report.

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