Scenes and Presets

A scene is a saved state of the whole mix. Switching scenes changes every level, mute and destination at once, so you can go from gameplay to a break to a chat segment with one key press.

What a scene holds

Saved in a scene	Not saved in a scene
Bus faders, mutes, balance and destinations	Solo (it is a live monitoring aid only)
Headphones and Stream master levels and mutes	Push to talk, push to mute and panic mute
Mic gain, mute and sidetone level	Auto-ducking and the scene fade setting
The bus list: names, colors, what each bus receives	Your headphones and mic choice, and Mono headphones (those are on the Devices page)
App rules, with each app's volume and mute	Global settings and shortcuts

Rostrum starts with one scene, Live.

Saving: automatic or manual

Settings → General → Save scene changes automatically is on by default.

• On: fader, mute, balance and destination changes save to the live scene about a second after you make them, and also before a scene switch and when Rostrum quits. You never need to press Save.
• Off: level changes stay unsaved until you press Save. The scene switcher in the header shows a dot when faders have moved since the last save, and the Scenes page marks the scene "Live, unsaved fader moves". Switching to another scene throws those moves away. Turn on Confirm before switching scenes to be asked first; the dialog offers Save and Switch, Switch and Cancel. Switches from OBS, the command line and D-Bus never ask.

Either way, bus names, colors, added or removed buses, and app rules are saved to the current scene straight away.

To save by hand: Ctrl+S, Save Scene in the header menu or the scene switcher, or Save Scene As… in the scene switcher to keep the current mix under a new name.

Switching scenes

• Header: click the scene switcher and pick a scene.
• Scenes page: select a scene and press Load, double-click it, or press Enter.
• Tray: the Scenes submenu, Previous Scene or Next Scene.
• Global shortcuts: Meta+Alt+PgUp and Meta+Alt+PgDown for the previous and next scene, and Meta+Alt+1 to Meta+Alt+4 for the first four scenes in the list. Load scene 5 to Load scene 8 have no shortcut until you set one. See Keyboard Shortcuts.
• OBS: map an OBS scene to a Rostrum scene, and Rostrum switches when OBS does. See OBS Setup.
• Command line: rostrum --scene "Just Chatting". See Command Line and D-Bus.

Selecting a scene on the Scenes page does not change your mix. Only Load (or the header, tray and shortcuts) does, so browsing scenes during a stream is safe. Loading another scene clears the undo history.

Scene fades

By default a scene switch changes every level at once. To make levels glide instead, pick a length in Settings → General → Scene fade: Off (switch at once), 150 ms, 300 ms, 600 ms or 1 second.

• Only bus and master levels fade. The mic always switches at once, so a scene that mutes your mic cuts it straight away.
• A bus being muted fades down and is then muted; a bus being unmuted fades up from silence.
• Switching again mid-fade starts from wherever the fade got to. Grabbing a fader during a fade takes that bus out of the fade.
• The scene saves the new levels straight away, never an in-between level.
• The default scene that loads when Rostrum starts never fades.

The Scenes page

The list shows each scene with a short summary, for example "6 buses, Music → Stream, mic muted, 2 app rules". The live scene is marked Live, and the default scene is marked Default with a star. The first eight scenes have a number badge: the hotkey slot they load with (see Scene order).

Button	What it does
Load	Switch to the selected scene.
New	Empty Scene… or a scene From a Preset (see below).
Duplicate	Copy the selected scene, named "… copy".
Rename	Rename the selected scene. Names must be unique, ignoring case, and at most 64 characters.
Move Up / Move Down	Move the selected scene in the list. Alt+Up and Alt+Down do the same.
Set as Default	The default scene loads when Rostrum starts, and its app rules are the ones written for apps that start before Rostrum.
Delete	Move the scene to Recently Deleted. Deleting the live scene switches to the default scene. You cannot delete the last scene.
Export… / Import… / Recently Deleted…	In the toolbar's overflow menu (⋮). See below and Recently Deleted.

An Empty Scene has the six default buses at their default levels and no app rules, so apps fall back to automatic placement while it is live. To keep your buses and rules in a new scene, use Duplicate or a preset instead.

Scene order

The order of the list is the order everywhere: the header's scene menu, the tray's Scenes submenu, Previous Scene and Next Scene, rostrum --list-scenes, and the hotkey slots. Load scene 1 loads the first scene in the list, Load scene 2 the second, and so on up to 8. Hover over a badge to see its shortcut, for example "Load scene 1: Meta+Alt+1", or "Load scene 5 (no shortcut set)".

Use Move Up and Move Down (or Alt+Up and Alt+Down) to change the order. Renaming a scene keeps its place. New and imported scenes go to the end.

Recently Deleted

Deleting a scene does not remove it for good. A message says "Deleted “…”" with Undo, which puts it back in the same place (and as the default, if it was).

Later, open ⋮ → Recently Deleted… on the Scenes page. It lists deleted scenes, newest first, each with Restore. A restored scene goes to the end of the list, with a number added if its name is taken. Deleted scenes are removed for good after 30 days. They are kept in ~/.config/rostrum/trash/.

Presets

New → From a Preset creates a scene from the live one. It keeps your buses, their names and colors, and your app rules. Only levels, mutes and destinations come from the preset.

Preset	Description in the app
Gaming	Game and voice chat on stream, music low under your voice.
Just Chatting	Your voice up front with music as a bed. Game muted.
Music Stream	Music at full level on stream. Voice chat only in your headphones.
Podcast	Guests on Voice at full level. Game, music and alerts muted.
Be Right Back	Mic muted and music on stream. Voice chat stays in your headphones.

What each preset sets

Presets apply to buses by what they receive automatically, not by name. A bus that receives games gets the Game column even if you renamed it. Buses set to receive Nothing keep their levels. Levels are approximate dB.

Preset	Game	Voice	Music	Alerts	Desktop	Mic
Gaming	Both, 0 dB	Both, −4 dB	Stream, −18 dB	Both, −6 dB	Both, −6 dB	Live
Just Chatting	Both, muted	Both, −4 dB	Both, −16 dB	Both, −6 dB	Both, −3 dB	Live
Music Stream	Both, muted	Headphones, −6 dB	Both, 0 dB	Both, −13 dB	Headphones, −6 dB	Live
Podcast	Both, muted	Both, 0 dB	Stream, −18 dB, muted	Both, −6 dB, muted	Headphones, −6 dB	Live
Be Right Back	Both, muted	Headphones, −4 dB	Both, −6 dB	Both, −6 dB	Headphones, −6 dB	Muted

In every preset, both masters go to 0 dB and are unmuted, and the mic keeps its gain. Creating a scene from a preset does not change the live mix; load the new scene when you want it.

Import and export

• Export… writes every scene into one .toml file. It is a good backup before you delete or experiment.
• Import… reads such a file and adds its scenes. It never overwrites: if a name is taken, the imported scene gets a number added, for example "Live 2".

Scenes are stored one per file in ~/.config/rostrum/scenes/. To back up your scenes together with your settings and hotkeys in one file, use Settings → Advanced → Back Up Settings…. See Files and Folders.

More detail

The scene file format and the save rules are in docs/audio.md, Files. The preset values are defined in src/core/ScenePresets.cpp.