Audio I/O

Choose your audio device, sample rate, buffer size, routing. Test signals. Monitor latency. Standard but essential.

✅ Shipped · v0.2.0 · full v0.6.0

What it does

The Audio I/O panel is where you configure how Stardust talks to your audio hardware:

Input device — usually unused for Stardust (no audio input processing in MVP), but available
Output device — your USB interface, built-in speakers, or specific routing
Sample rate — 44.1 / 48 / 88.2 / 96 / 192 kHz
Buffer size — 32 / 64 / 128 / 256 / 512 / 1024 samples (latency vs CPU trade-off)
Reported latency — input + output + processing, with green/yellow/red zone indicator
Channel routing — map Stardust’s logical outputs to physical channels of your interface
Driver selection (Windows only) — WASAPI / WASAPI Exclusive / ASIO

Sample rate guidance

For musical theatre:

48 kHz — modern standard, what every interface and plugin supports natively. Default.
44.1 kHz — old CD standard. Some plugins prefer it. Slightly lower CPU.
88.2 / 96 kHz — pro audio, more CPU. Only useful if you care about audiophile-grade quality.
192 kHz — usually overkill, definitely more CPU.

Match what your interface is set to natively to avoid sample rate conversion overhead.

Buffer size guidance

Buffer	Latency (at 48 kHz)	When to use
32 samples	< 1 ms	Tracking with monitoring; impressive but unstable on slower machines
64 samples	1.3 ms	Lowest practical for live performance; needs a fast machine
128 samples	2.7 ms	Sweet spot for live performance — recommended
256 samples	5.3 ms	Conservative for high-CPU plugin chains
512 samples	10.7 ms	Very safe, audible delay but tolerable
1024 samples	21.3 ms	Only for fixed-tempo / backing-track work

Stardust shows the total roundtrip latency (input + output + processing) so you can dial it in.

Driver selection (Windows)

Driver	Latency	Notes
WASAPI (shared)	20-50 ms	Default; shares device with other apps; high latency
WASAPI (exclusive)	6-15 ms	Lower latency; takes exclusive control of the device
ASIO	3-10 ms	Lowest latency; requires interface-specific ASIO driver

For live performance: use WASAPI Exclusive or ASIO if your interface supports it. Stardust supports ASIO via direct binding (not through CPAL’s abstraction).

See Latency Budget for the full latency breakdown.

Channel routing

Stardust internally has logical outputs:

Main L/R — the audience-facing audio (Songs + Patches)
Click — click track only
Monitor mix — optional sub-mix for in-ears
Aux 1-4 — additional outputs for effects sends, etc.

The Audio I/O panel lets you map these logical outputs to physical channels on your interface:

“Main L” → Channel 1
“Main R” → Channel 2
“Click” → Channel 3
“Monitor L” → Channel 5
etc.

So you can route the audience-facing sound to FOH and your click to your in-ears without bleed.

Test tones

Press a “Test Tone” button per channel — Stardust outputs a safe-level 440 Hz sine wave (or pink noise) for verification. Hold to play, release to stop. Useful for:

Confirming your routing is correct
Setting interface gain
Diagnosing a quiet channel

Level meters

Per-channel input and output meters with peak hold. See levels in real time. Peak hold so you can spot momentary clips.

Sample rate mismatch warning

If your interface is set to 44.1 kHz at the OS level but you’ve configured Stardust for 48 kHz, you’ll get a warning. Sample rate conversion at the OS layer adds latency and can degrade quality.

Audio device hot-plug

If your USB audio interface disconnects mid-show, Stardust falls back to the system default output (better silence-or-laptop-speakers than total dropout). On reconnect, you can manually switch back without restarting.

See Hot-Plug Resilience.

Phase status

Phase	What’s available
v0.2	Basic device selection (input, output, rate, buffer)
v0.3	Hot-plug recovery
v0.4	Full Audio panel with routing matrix, test tones, level meters, ASIO support