Talk Light Trigger — talkback light for dLive, no hardware

// What it does

Someone talks on the shout bus, the surface flashes, you put the headphones on. Nothing to rig; one SoftKey to cancel. Talk Light Trigger watches a talkback mic or the shout bus and flashes the dLive's own surface lights while someone is talking — a talkback light, shout light or call light for the FOH engineer who can't hear the stage until the headphones go on, and for anyone who talks on cue.

The console's own lights flash when someone talks on the talkback mic or shout bus — no extra hardware
Flash Rate and Flash Hold — the lights actually flash, and keep going for a few seconds after a pause
Cancel SoftKey — one press on the desk stops the flash; it resumes if they're still talking
Threshold trigger on any audio input — Dante, SoundGrid, MADI, USB, Thunderbolt, PCIe
Tunable sensitivity — no chattering on breaths and pauses
Recall Filter to illumination only, so nothing else on the console changes
Full-featured 20-minute trial

// At a glance

Price~~$19~~ $9

PlatformmacOS 11+

ChipApple Silicon

Trial20-min sessions

Makerdylanmaudio

talkback lightshout lightsignal → triggertallymenu bar

// Why I built it

I was mixing FOH without a shout box. The old one hadn’t been loud, but it had a signal light, and that was the useful part: when the light came on I knew someone on stage wanted me, and I’d get closer or put the headphones on. Then it broke mid-tour. The crew could talk all they liked; I couldn’t hear them until the headphones went on, and I had no way of knowing when that was — short of them texting me and hoping I’d look down. So I sent every talkback mic to a bus, and wrote something that watches that bus and flashes the console when there’s signal on it. The dLive has the lights already. It just needed telling when.

// In detail

Watches the shout bus.

Any talkback mic, or a bus carrying all of them, on any input of any interface the Mac can see — Dante, SoundGrid, MADI, USB, Thunderbolt, PCIe.

Flashes the console’s own lights.

When signal crosses your threshold it recalls a “talk” Scene; when it stops, a “quiet” Scene. Each Scene carries a different Surface Illumination, and its Recall Filter is set to illumination only, so nothing else on the desk changes. Flash Rate alternates the two so the lights really flash; Flash Hold keeps them going for a few seconds after a pause.

Cancel from a SoftKey.

Assign a SoftKey to Custom MIDI — the panel shows you the exact string to type — and one press stops the flash the instant you’ve seen it. If they’re still talking after the cooldown, it comes back.

Doesn’t chatter.

Threshold, attack, release and a minimum retrigger time, tuned to the voice and the room, so breaths and pauses don’t set it off.

Tells you if the lights stop.

If Scenes stop reaching the console the panel turns red and says why. Through MIDI Bridge it reconnects by itself after a quiet spell. The session log records every Scene sent, every failure and every Cancel press, so an exported log shows what happened.

Gentle on the show interface.

One input channel, a large buffer, and it never changes the sample rate.

Connects the way you already do.

Direct TCP to the console with nothing else installed, or through the free MIDI Bridge. (The Cancel SoftKey needs a connection that can receive — Direct TCP, or a two-way MIDI port.)

Stream Deck control — and a Stream Deck that flashes too.

Run and Threshold on Bitfocus Companion keys with the talk state fed back, and a Talk flash page: when someone talks your Stream Deck jumps to a page of blinking keys, and goes back when they stop. With the free dylanmaudio Companion module.

// Who uses it

FOH and monitor engineers who can’t hear the stage until the headphones go on. Anyone running a shout system, or who lost theirs. Podium, pit and booth setups where a mic going live should show on the desk. And as a plain call light: any signal on any input, and the console lights up.

// Questions

Does it need a shout box?

No — that’s the point. It needs a talkback mic (or the bus they’re all on) reaching an input the Mac can see, and a dLive on the network.

Will it change anything else on the console?

Not if the two Scenes’ Recall Filters are set to Surface Illumination only, which is the setup the Quick Reference walks through. The Scenes then touch the lights and nothing else.

How do I stop it flashing once I’ve seen it?

A SoftKey. Set it to Custom MIDI with the string the panel shows and one press cancels the flash; it resumes after the cooldown if they’re still talking.

Can I use it as a cue light or a call light?

Yes. It doesn’t know what the signal is — any input crossing the threshold lights the desk.

What does it need?

A dLive; a Mac on the console’s network (Direct TCP, or through MIDI Bridge); the talkback signal on any audio input; and two Scenes on the console with different Surface Illumination.

Does it work with other consoles?

The dLive is the first console, not the only one — more consoles, from more manufacturers, are on the way. Users already report it works on Allen & Heath Avantis (I haven’t tested that myself yet). Register your interest and say which desk you’d like next.

Windows? Intel Macs?

Apple Silicon Macs on macOS 11 or later, today. Intel Macs are next, then a Windows version — register your interest and you’ll hear first.

Does it phone home?

No analytics, no telemetry. Activating the licence is the only network call; Check for updates runs only when you press it. A licence covers two Macs — show machine and spare.

// What’s new

Talk Light Trigger 1.2.0

Now runs on macOS 11 Big Sur or later, as the store page has always said. Earlier versions needed macOS 13.3 or later — on macOS 11 to 13.2 the app failed to open, with no message.
New: the lights now flash. While talkback is active the app alternates the Quiet and Talkback Scenes at a Flash Rate you set, instead of holding on the Talkback Scene. Flash Hold keeps them flashing for a set time after talkback stops (3 seconds by default; 0 is Off, to follow the microphone exactly), so a short pause doesn't cut them off, and talking again inside the hold just keeps the flash going.
New: cancel the flash. The Cancel flash button under Start/Stop — or a console SoftKey assigned to Custom MIDI — turns the lights dark at once; flashing resumes on its own after a cooldown you set if talkback is still going. The Cancel SoftKey section shows the exact text to type into the console's Custom MIDI page, in large type, and updates it as you change the CC number or the base MIDI channel. The SoftKey needs Direct TCP or an Existing MIDI Port that can receive — it can't be received through a MIDI Bridge lane; the button works everywhere.
Fixed: when sending through MIDI Bridge, the lights could stop responding after a couple of minutes without talkback, with "Send failed" in the status panel, until you pressed Stop and Start. MIDI Bridge closes a connection that has been quiet for two minutes, and Talk Light Trigger did not reconnect. It now reconnects by itself and the Scene goes out as normal.
Fixed: when the Mac's audio system resets — installing an audio driver does this (Time Code Tool's installer is one), and so can waking from sleep — Start could fail every time with "Internal PortAudio error [PaErrorCode -9986]" until you quit and reopened the app, and an input that was already running could stop for good: the level froze where it was and, if talkback was on, the lights kept flashing until you pressed Stop. The app now refreshes its device list and opens your input as normal, and notices a stopped input within 3 seconds: it sets the lights to the Quiet Scene, reopens the input and carries on listening, and the status panel says what happened.
Fixed: the Audio Input channel could not be set above 64, so channels on a larger interface (Dante, MADI) were out of reach. The Channel box now goes up to the last channel of the device you have selected — a channel you saved earlier for a bigger interface is left alone, not quietly reduced, so it is still there when you plug that interface back in — and if you pick one the device hasn't got, the message says so plainly.

All 13 changes in 1.2.0

If Scenes stop reaching the console while the app is running, the status panel now turns red and says why, and stays that way until a Scene gets through — before, the message vanished almost at once and the panel carried on looking normal. Warnings and errors now stay until you press Start or Stop, and the green "Connected" from Test Connection is cleared when you press Start, so it can't be mistaken for a live status.
New: Options — Start at login, Show in Dock and Check for updates live together behind one disclosure at the bottom of the panel. Show in Dock puts Talk Light Trigger in the Dock and in Cmd-Tab for easier switching; it is off by default. Check for updates tells you whether a newer version is on the store, with a link to get it. It only checks when you press it, never on its own and never while Talk Light Trigger is running, and it sends nothing about you or your Mac.
The Quick Reference guide is now installed with the app, so the footer's Quick Reference link opens it even with no internet — and it always matches the version you are running. The app's title and version stay in view while you scroll, and the panel sizes itself to the screen it is on instead of clipping its footer on shorter displays.
On macOS 11 and 12, the panel now shows all its colours — the red "Not reaching the console" status, the trial banner and the blue accents were missing there, because those Macs' web engine didn't understand how they were written — and the first click after opening the panel works: before, it only brought the app forward, and a right-click showed a bare "Reload" menu. Nothing changes on macOS 13 or later.
Export log now saves a diagnostics zip to your Desktop and shows it in Finder — this session's log, the previous session's, and your settings (licence details removed) — so one attachment covers a bug report. The session log itself now records your settings and where the app is running from at launch (a copy still running from the DMG is called out, since settings don't stick there), the audio and MIDI devices present and any change to that list, each setting you change, every Start with the settings and connection in force and every Stop with why and how many Scenes were sent and failed, any Scene that fails to send and when sending recovers, each Cancel SoftKey press, a Start or console connection that fails and why, a MIDI port that has gone missing, your licence or trial state, and a final line when you quit.
Fixed: a damaged settings file was silently replaced with the defaults on the next save. It is now set aside under a dated name, the log says so, and the app runs on defaults until you set things again.
Smaller fixes: pressing Start while already running now restarts cleanly instead of leaving the first run's audio stream and console connection alive underneath the new one; a Start or Stop that fails outright no longer leaves the button stuck on "Starting…"; and if the device or MIDI port list can't be read, the dropdown says "Couldn't list devices — Rescan" and keeps your saved choice instead of going empty.

Talk Light TriggerTLT