The studio is a small radio desk: a microphone, a queue of files, and a readout telling you whether any of it is reaching listeners.
The Microphone
The meter beside it moves when sound is arriving. Check it before you start — a still meter means the browser gave you the wrong input device, which is the single most common reason a first broadcast is silent.
The File Queue
Drag audio files in from your computer and they play in order. You can reorder them by dragging, remove them, and set the queue to Repeat list or Repeat track. The studio calls this queue your running order, the radio word for a show’s playlist.
These files never leave your computer except as the audio going out on air — nothing is uploaded, and nothing here counts against your AutoDJ storage. It is a stack of records beside the desk, not a library.
The running order stays saved in this browser between shows, along with the song that was playing when you went off air. The Go Live page shows what is waiting and lets you choose to pick up that song where it stopped or start it over from the beginning.
Push-to-Talk
Hold it and your microphone comes up while the music drops to a fifth of its volume underneath you. Let go and the music comes back. This is how you talk over a bed without touching two faders, and it is the control worth learning first. Radio people call the music dipping “ducking”.
To talk for longer without holding anything, press Keep mic open (or L). The mic stays open until you press Close mic.
Monitoring
The monitor lets you hear the file bus through your own speakers so you know what is playing. It deliberately does not include your microphone: routing your own voice back to your speakers is how you build a feedback loop, and the studio will not do it for you.
If you want to hear yourself, use headphones and your operating system's own monitoring. Never speakers.
Audio Lost
The important readout, and the one people ignore. It counts audio that actually left your computer — not what the mixer thinks it is doing. A level meter will bounce along happily through a dead connection; this will not.
It shows lost time as a duration, like “3.2 s”, because that is the number you can act on. A second or two over a long show is nothing. Seconds accumulating steadily means your upload is struggling: close whatever else is using it, and prefer a cable to wifi for anything that matters.
On a Phone
There is a version of the studio built for a narrow screen, with the same microphone, queue and push-to-talk. The rule from going live from your browser still applies: keep the tab in the foreground.