Fadebank

Fadebank turns an iPad, iPhone or Apple Watch into a control surface for your digital mixing console — so the person running sound can stand in the room and hear what everyone else is hearing. Built for the volunteer, not the touring engineer. Console apps tend to put every parameter on screen at once, which is right for someone who already knows the desk and daunting for someone who does not. Fadebank shows you faders, mutes, meters and sends, in that order, at a size you can hit while holding a coffee. THE SURFACE Every input, bus, matrix, DCA and the main mix, laid out as channel strips with real fader travel. Live metering on every strip, and the main in stereo. Colors and names come straight off the console, so the desk you know is the desk you see. Tap a strip's name to open it: its scribble strip name and color, the preamp, gate, compressor, and a full parametric EQ with a curve you can drag. On iPad every strip carries a small EQ curve of its own — tap it to edit that EQ without leaving the surface. The small controls are tap-to-open rather than drag, because a twenty-point slider is no way to set a seventy-decibel range. Tapping opens a wide one with nudge buttons. SENDS ON FADER Pick a monitor bus and the whole surface becomes that mix. Every fader is now a send to it, and the caps turn blue so you can never be confused about which mix you are holding. Exit and you are back on the main. It is the fastest way to fix a monitor from the stage instead of shouting across the room. Four effects sends sit on every strip — verb, hall, delay and chorus by default, configurable to whichever buses your desk actually uses. The main strip shows those effects' own levels, so turning the reverb down is one tap. ON YOUR WRIST The Apple Watch app is a real control surface, not a remote for the phone. It talks to the console directly over Wi-Fi. Scroll the channels with the Digital Crown, turn the crown to set a level, tap to mute. Your console's address travels from the iPhone to the watch automatically, so there is no IP address to type on a wrist. TRY IT WITH NO CONSOLE IN THE ROOM Fadebank has a complete console simulator built in — a real implementation of the protocol, seeded with a plausible band patch and live meters. Open the connection sheet and tap Use Built-in Simulator. Learn the app on the bus, train a new volunteer on a Tuesday, or just see whether it suits you before you carry an iPad to church. HOW IT CONNECTS Fadebank speaks OSC over UDP directly to a compatible console on your own network. There is no cloud service, no account, and no sign-in. Nothing you do in this app leaves your local network, and nothing about you is collected — because there is nowhere for it to go. Put the console and your device on the same Wi-Fi, type the console's IP address, and you are mixing. REQUIREMENTS • A digital mixing console that accepts OSC control over your local network, reachable from your device. The current list of consoles Fadebank has been tested with is on the support page — please check it before buying. • iOS 17, iPadOS 17 or watchOS 10 and later • A Wi-Fi network shared with the console Fadebank is an independent product, not affiliated with, authorized by or endorsed by any console manufacturer. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.