Questions, answered.

RehearsalWare is a rehearsal room on the internet. One bandmate hosts a jam, the others join with a server name and password, and everyone plays together live.

Each bandmate shows up as a channel strip on your mixer, which looks and works like Logic Pro's. You set your own mix, use your own plug-ins, and share a click.

• A Mac running macOS 11 or later (Apple Silicon or Intel).
• Headphones. Speakers feed the band back into your mic and add delay.
• An audio interface is strongly recommended. Built-in Mac audio works, but adds noticeably more delay.
• A wired internet connection if you can. Wi-Fi works, but it's less steady.

Click Host (⌘ ⇧ H), choose a server name, a password and the maximum number of players, then click Start Hosting. RehearsalWare tries to open the port on your router automatically and shows you an invite code to send to the band.

They click Join (⌘ J) and enter the password plus one of these:

• The server name if they're on the same network as the host. RehearsalWare finds the jam for them.
• The invite code (it starts with RW-) if they're anywhere else. It contains everything needed to reach the host over the internet.

Up to 12. The host chooses the limit when starting the jam.

It depends mostly on your gear and the distance between you. With an audio interface at 128 samples, wired internet and players in the same city, expect roughly 15–25 ms from one player to another. That's about what you'd hear standing 5–8 metres apart in a real room.

Distance adds about 1 ms for every 200 km, Wi-Fi adds jitter, and built-in Mac speakers and microphones add a lot more delay than an interface. The LCD and band list show a live estimate for each bandmate, so you can see the effect of every change.

Go to Settings → Audio (⌘ ,), pick your interface, and set 48 kHz with a buffer of 64 or 128 samples. Smaller buffers mean less delay but more work for your Mac. The input meters on that page light up when you play, so you can find which input your mic or guitar is on.

By default it uses Opus, which sounds great at low bandwidth and adds 2.5 ms. If your connection is fast, switch to uncompressed 16-bit or 24-bit audio in Settings → Network for the lowest delay and studio quality.

Yes. The metronome is synced to the host's clock and corrected for each player's output delay, so the click lands together for everyone. Tempo changes are shared, and plug-ins like tempo-synced delays follow along.

With speakers, your mic picks up the rest of the band and sends it back to them, so they hear themselves as an echo. Headphones keep each player's signal clean, and they're usually lower latency than speakers too.

Yes, any Audio Unit you've installed works, including instruments like Serum. VST3 plug-ins work too.

The exception is Logic's own built-in plug-ins (Channel EQ, Alchemy, Space Designer and so on). They live inside Logic and no other app can load them. RehearsalWare has its own 8-band Channel EQ plus a Compressor, Noise Gate, Limiter and Room Reverb.

Pro Tools uses AAX plug-ins, which only Pro Tools can load. Almost every plug-in maker also installs Audio Unit and VST3 versions, and RehearsalWare uses those. Settings → Plug-ins lists which of your Pro Tools plug-ins have a version you can use.

Yes. Your plug-ins run on your Mac, and your bandmates receive the finished sound. They don't need the plug-in installed.

Yes. Everything on your track's Audio FX slots is part of what you send to the band. Effects you put on Stereo Out are only for your own ears. Effects on Band Send are heard only by your bandmates.

Only if your Band send is post-fader, which is the default. Switch it to pre-fader and your fader only changes what you hear.

Your bandmates' faders never change your sound. If they turn you down, it's only in their own mix.

Yes, just like Logic. Every strip has up to four sends to Bus 1–4, each feeding an aux channel strip. Each aux's output decides who hears it: only you, only your bandmates, or everyone.

Choose New Aux with Room Reverb in any send slot to set up a reverb in one click. You can even send bandmates into your own aux, for example reverb on the drummer just for you.

Yes. Create a Software Instrument track, load an instrument like Serum, and play it from your MIDI keyboard. MIDI goes to whichever instrument track is selected, like in Logic. No keyboard? Turn on Musical Typing with ⌘ K.

Yes. Press R to record exactly what you hear as a 24-bit WAV file. Recordings are saved in Music → RehearsalWare → Recordings.

No. The host's Mac is the server. It passes each player's audio straight on to everyone else without mixing it, so it adds almost no delay.

Usually not. RehearsalWare asks the router to open the port automatically (UPnP). If the router doesn't allow that, forward UDP port 47100 to the host's Mac; the Host dialog shows the address to use.

Some internet providers, mostly mobile and some fibre services, share one public address between many customers. A host on one of those can't accept players from outside, so someone else in the band should host.

Only people with the password can join. The password itself is never sent over the internet: RehearsalWare proves you know it with a one-time challenge instead.

Yes, but a cable is better. Wi-Fi delivers packets unevenly, so RehearsalWare has to hold a little more audio in reserve to smooth it out. If you can, plug your Mac into the router with Ethernet.

Download the disk image, open it, and double-click Install RehearsalWare.pkg. The installer puts RehearsalWare in your Applications folder and lets it through the macOS firewall, so bandmates can connect when you host.

Not yet. RehearsalWare runs on Macs with macOS 11 or later, on both Apple Silicon and Intel.

RehearsalWare isn't registered with Apple's paid developer program yet, so macOS asks you to confirm it once. Click Done, open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down and click Open Anyway next to the RehearsalWare installer. You only need to do this once.

Microphone access is how macOS lets apps use any audio input, including your interface. Local network access lets RehearsalWare find jams hosted on your Wi-Fi or LAN.