Repository navigation
AccessCaster 2.52
AccessCaster 2.52
AccessCaster is public
AccessCaster version 2.52 released to public. Thanks to Michael Babcock and Steven Scott for testing and feedback.
The headphone knobs tell you where they are
The headphone level knobs on the unit have no notch or marker, so there is no way to tell by touch how far up one is set. AccessCaster now reads the level out as you turn one, the same way it does a fader. It follows your level announcement setting, so if you have those switched off the knobs stay quiet too.
One Backups page, and one list instead of two
The Profiles page is now the Backups page, and it has one list instead of two. Before, your own saved profiles and the unit's own backups sat in separate sections with separate buttons, and nothing told you which of them would actually put your desk back. Now one button backs the unit up and one list holds everything you can restore from. Underneath, the unit keeps its own complete copy on its card or drive whenever there is one, and this computer always keeps a copy of your settings and pads, so a backup survives the drive being pulled, erased or filled. Restoring uses this computer's copy, for the reason in the next note.
Restoring no longer asks the unit to load its own backup
The unit can crash when it restores its own copy of a backup. I measured it over a full day on my own Pro 2, with the app recording every command it sent: restoring the unit's own copy crashed it five times in thirty-one attempts, across three different backups. Restoring from this computer's copy did not fail once in nine. When it crashes, audio stops, every control stops answering, and unplugging the USB cable is not enough - the power lead has to come out, because the unit itself has stopped rather than the connection. If your screen reader plays through the RODECaster, you lose your speech until it is back, which is why this was worth changing rather than warning about. So the Restore button now always uses this computer's copy. It takes about two minutes instead of a few seconds and restores a little less. Backing up has not changed: the unit still makes its own copy alongside, because backing up has never caused this. Everything points to the unit rather than anything the app does wrong, though so far that is one desk on one computer, so I am not claiming it as settled. I am still working on it; if a safe way is found, the faster route will come back. Two places can still reach it, and you have to choose them deliberately: resetting the unit to factory settings, and restoring a backup the unit made on its own with no copy on this computer beside it. The dialog tells you when that is the case.
Backups the unit made itself are in the same list
Backups made on the unit itself, at its touchscreen or in RODE's software, appear in the same list marked as made on the unit. They cannot be renamed, because the unit names its own and offers no way to change that. There is no copy of one on this computer, so restoring it has to ask the unit to load it - the one case that can still crash it, and the dialog says so before you press anything.
Deleting a backup clears it from the unit too
Deleting a backup now removes both copies, this computer's and the unit's, so you are no longer left with a large file on the drive you believed you had deleted. The as-found backup still asks twice before it goes, since it is the only record of how your desk was before this app touched it.
Nothing you have saved needs converting
Everything you have already saved is still there and still works. Your profiles appear in the new list without anything needing to be converted or saved again.
Mix presets now say which outputs they change
A mix preset, on the Routing page, remembers where every sound is going: which sources each output carries, whether each one follows its fader, and the level of any you have set by hand. Applying one puts those mixes back in a single press. The problem was that some presets rewrite every output on the desk and others touch a single one, and nothing in the list told you which you were about to press. Now every preset ends with its answer. "Every output" means the whole desk goes back to what that preset holds, including any mix you have set by hand somewhere else. A named output, such as "Chat only", means that one mix changes and nothing else is touched. Thanks to Michael Babcock, who reported that there was no way to tell them apart.
You can save a preset for one output on its own
Until now, saving a preset always captured the whole desk. There is a second save button on the Routing page which saves just the output you have chosen at the top of the tab, and its label names that output so you can hear what it will do before you press it. A single-output preset is the only kind that cannot disturb a mix you are currently listening to, which makes it the one worth putting on a keyboard shortcut for use mid-show. Presets you saved before this still cover every output, because that is what they have always done, and they now say so in the list.
A log of what the app has done
The tray menu has a Diagnostic log entry. It opens a plain text record of what AccessCaster has sent to the unit and what came back. You do not need it day to day; it is there for when something goes wrong and you want to say what actually happened rather than describe it from memory.
Download AccessCasterSetup-v2.52.exe below. Setup asks whether to install just for you or for all users; either is fine.
Requires Windows 10 or 11 and a RODECaster Pro II or Duo connected by USB, in the socket nearest the power inlet.