SMART pads (Alt+3)

Setting up the pads in every bank: what each pad does and how it behaves, your own voice effects, and jobs on the whole set of pads. To play pads from the keyboard, see the pad shortcuts on App settings, Keyboard shortcuts: the number row plays the pads of the bank the desk is on.

• Pads: Every pad in a list, saying where it is and what it does. Edit this pad's settings changes how it behaves; Change what this pad does gives it a new job.
• Change what this pad does: A sound of your own, a voice effect, a mixer action or a MIDI trigger, the same types the desk's own screen offers, or Empty to clear the pad. Nothing changes until you press Apply.
• How a sound pad plays: Toggle: press to play, press again to stop. Hold: plays only while you hold the pad, so a tap gives a blip. One Shot: every press plays it from the start and it cannot be stopped, so Loop is not available with it.
• Trim and fade: Four points as a percentage of the sound: where it starts, where the fade in ends, where the fade out begins, and where it stops. They are percentages because the desk does not report how long a sound is. Put a fade point on the start or the stop for no fade at that end.
• Mixer actions: Censor beeps over everything. Trash Talk cuts your audio to callers while you still hear them. Fade In and Fade Out ramp the whole mix. Back Channel is off-air talkback with the people you choose. Ducking lowers everyone but the host. A latching pad stays on until you press it again; a momentary one only while you hold it.
• MIDI trigger pads: Send a MIDI message to another app or controller. By default a pad sends a Control Change on its own number, counting from 0, on channel 1. Switch on the custom mapping to change it; switching it off puts the default back and forgets what you typed, as the desk itself does.
• Voice effects: Build your own effect from reverb, echo and more, and save it to the list of voice effects you can put on a pad. Live preview plays it on your mic as you build, and only while it is switched on. Deleting an effect does not change a pad that already uses it.
• Pad maintenance: Clear all pads empties every pad except the built-in System pads. Restore the pads from a backup puts them back from a backup on this computer, sounds included. Restore the factory voice effects, Censor and Ducking rebuilds those eight pads, but not RODE's factory sounds, which only a backup or a factory reset can bring back. Tidy up unused pad audio deletes sound files no pad plays any more. Export this pad's sound copies it to Documents, AccessCaster, Pad exports, for when the desk holds the only copy. Anything that copies sounds to the desk takes about fifteen seconds a pad.