How to Share a Live Mix With a Client (Without Bouncing, Subscriptions, or Setup Headaches)
By David Payette · audio engineer, professional musician · About →
Most mix‑sharing tools assume the same flow: bounce the mix, upload the file, send a link, and wait for feedback. That flow is fine for finished deliverables. It is the wrong flow for a working session.
There is a faster way. You let the client hear the mix while you mix it. They listen on their phone, their laptop, or in their car. They text back what they hear. You make the change. They hear it again. The whole revision round can happen in the time it would take to render and email an MP3.
This page is about how to do that — what tools exist, what each one is good for, and how to do it for free with Auxfeed if all you need is the audio path.
Why bouncing is the slow path
Picture the standard “send the rough” flow:
- Bounce in place. Two minutes.
- Trim the export. Thirty seconds.
- Upload to WeTransfer / Dropbox / Filepass. Minute or two for a high‑res file.
- Compose a polite email. Two minutes.
- Wait for the client to open it. Anywhere from ten minutes to two days.
- Read vague feedback. (“The vocals feel a little buried in the second verse, maybe?”)
- Open the session. Make the change.
- Repeat from step 1.
Three to five iterations is normal. Each iteration is at least an afternoon if the client isn’t sitting on their email. The slow part isn’t the work — it’s the waiting.
A live mix‑review session collapses the loop. You make the change, the client hears it within seconds, they tell you yes or no, you move on. Two iterations can happen in two minutes. Vague feedback (“kick is too loud”) becomes actionable on the spot because you’re both listening to the same playback.
This isn’t a new idea. Working pros have been doing it for two decades, first with ISDN, then with Source‑Connect, more recently with Audiomovers LISTENTO and the various virtual‑studio platforms. What’s new is that you don’t need to pay anyone to do it.
What real‑time mix review actually looks like
Three modes, depending on who’s involved and where they are.
Engineer + remote client, both at desks. You’re in the studio. They’re at their laptop or with headphones on, anywhere with a network connection. You text them a link. They tap it. Audio starts playing on their device. You start FaceTime, Zoom, or just an iMessage thread on the side for talkback. You play the mix. They listen, comment, you make the change. Repeat.
Engineer + remote client, client mobile. Client is on the train, in the car, walking the dog, in a coffee shop. They tap the link on their phone, plug in or pair AirPods, and listen. You don’t need them at a desk. They send back a couple of sentences via text. This is the most common case in 2026.
Engineer + producer + label A&R, multi‑listener. Same setup, multiple recipients on the same link. Each gets their own audio stream. Each comments separately. You hold the master timeline.
The technology has converged on the same shape across every product in the space: the engineer runs a plugin that sends the master bus over the internet; the listener taps a link to receive it. What differs is price, account requirements, what device the listener uses, and what gets bundled around the audio path.
Honest latency
Real‑time mix review is not real‑time tracking. The audio reaches the client somewhere between 80 and 200 milliseconds after it leaves your master bus, depending on the route and the network. That is not tight enough to play in time with each other. It is plenty tight for “play me the second chorus again, the snare felt off.” You hit play; they hear it almost immediately.
For comparison: ISDN was historically about 30 ms one‑way. Source‑Connect tracks at sub‑40 ms in good conditions. Both cost real money per month and are oriented at engineers who actually need to track remote vocals. Auxfeed is in the 80–200 ms ballpark and is oriented at the much larger group of engineers who need to let someone hear the mix and don’t need tracking‑grade latency.
Be honest about this in front of clients. “This is for review, not for tracking.” It saves the awkward conversation later.
Auxfeed setup in 60 seconds
- Install the Auxfeed plugin on your DAW — AU, VST3, or AAX. Free download. Restart the DAW.
- Drop it on your master bus. Post‑fader.
- Tap “Get share link.” The plugin generates a 6‑digit code and a
https://auxfeed.app/s/<code>URL. Tap to copy or to show the QR. - Send the link. iMessage, WhatsApp, Telegram, email, Slack — whatever the client uses. The link is just a normal URL.
- Client taps it. On iPhone, an App Clip drops in and starts playing in seconds; if they install the app, they get background playback and a deep link straight into the stream. On Android, the Chrome page offers “Open in app” (deep links the installed app, falls back to Play Store) or “Listen” (plays in the browser). On a laptop, it loads the web player.
Audio reaches them as soon as you press play in the DAW. They listen. They text back. You change something. They hear it.
That’s the entire flow. There is no signup, no account, no plan. You don’t need to schedule anything. You don’t need to install drivers. You don’t need to give them your phone number or email a calendar invite.
When LISTENTO, Source‑Connect, or Sessionwire are the right answer
Auxfeed is not the right tool for every remote audio job. Be honest about what each tool actually does.
Audiomovers LISTENTO. $24 to $49+/month depending on tier. Mature product, well‑known to clients in major music markets. The receiver app is free, but the sender plugin is paid. If your clients already use LISTENTO regularly and you’re a heavy professional user with multi‑channel routing requirements (5.1, immersive, stem sends), LISTENTO is the established answer. Auxfeed is a credible substitute for the stereo‑review subset of what LISTENTO does, for free. If you primarily use LISTENTO for mid‑session reviews with a single producer or A&R, switching to Auxfeed costs nothing and frees up the subscription.
Source Elements Source‑Connect. $35/month for Standard/Talent, $105/month for Pro/Studio, $25/month for the new RTL Creator tier as of April 2026. Source‑Connect’s value prop is tracking — broadcast voiceover, ADR, session musicians playing in real time across distance with sub‑40 ms one‑way latency. If you’re tracking remote VO talent or session players, Source‑Connect is the right answer and Auxfeed is not. If you’re using Source‑Connect just so a client can hear the mix while you adjust it, Auxfeed does the review half for free. Source‑Connect Now (the free receive‑only tier) is for the listener side; the paid tier is what you’d be replacing.
Sessionwire and Soundwhale. Premium pricing. Both bundle audio + video + screen share + chat into one virtual‑studio app. If you genuinely need video of the client looking at your screen and a live audio path and timecoded chat and you want one app to manage all of it, Sessionwire is the bundle that exists. If your client has FaceTime or Zoom or iMessage and you only need the audio path on top of that, Auxfeed is the unbundle. Most engineers I know already have FaceTime or Zoom; the audio path is the thing that’s hard to get right.
JackTrip. Open‑source. Performance market — sub‑30 ms latency for jamming with another musician across distance. Auxfeed’s 80–200 ms makes it the wrong tool for that. JackTrip is the right tool for that.
Mixlr / vMix / BoxCast. Broadcast tools — public livestream to dozens or hundreds of listeners. Different category. If you’re producing a live broadcast, those are the right answers. Auxfeed is plugin‑native, designed for one‑to‑a‑few client review.
Workflow recipes
Solo engineer + remote artist. The most common case. Artist sleeps in a different time zone, you mix in the morning, send a link mid‑afternoon. They tap it on their phone with AirPods in. You text the changes you’ve made. They listen. They reply with two sentences. You revise. They re‑listen. Average revision round: ten minutes including the time it takes them to walk to a quiet spot.
Engineer + producer + label A&R. Two or three listeners on the same link, each on their own device, each reachable over their own iMessage / Slack / email thread. You can talk to each separately or in a group chat. You hold the master timeline. Auxfeed shows you a listener count in the plugin so you know they’re connected.
Voiceover director + talent. Talent sits in their home booth with the live mix in their headphones; director listens to the same feed via Auxfeed; communication via FaceTime or a phone call on the side for direction. This is the budget alternative to a full Source‑Connect setup. It will not work for tracking — the latency is too high for the talent to time their delivery to a click. It will work for spotting alts, talking through interpretation, and previewing edits as they happen.
Podcast editor + host. Host is in another city. Editor is at the desk. Editor plays back the rough cut in the DAW; host listens via the link and notes timestamps to fix. Or vice versa — editor plays back individual sections to confirm a creative call. Faster than file delivery for the back‑and‑forth phase of any episode.
Mixing in front of a client at the studio with the second listening room being someone’s house. Same setup as one‑on‑one review except the recipient is across town. They get to participate in real time without commuting in.
What this is NOT
- Not a project‑file collaboration tool. No track‑by‑track exchange, no version control, no time‑stamped comments on a waveform. Filepass, Pibox, Boombox, and similar tools own that workflow. Auxfeed is the audio path; if you also need approval gating, payment, comment threading, or session sync, use one of those tools alongside it.
- Not a jamming tool. 80–200 ms latency is fine for review, fatal for playing in time together. Use JackTrip.
- Not multi‑channel. Auxfeed is currently stereo. Engineers working in 5.1 / 7.1.4 / Atmos need a different tool for multichannel review (LISTENTO Multi, Source‑Connect Pro). Stereo Auxfeed will still work fine for a stereo print check.
- Not a video conferencing tool. No video, no screen share, no built‑in chat. Use FaceTime / Zoom / iMessage / Slack alongside.
The deliberate choice is to be excellent at the audio path and let the user keep using the tools they already have for the rest. That’s why Auxfeed is free.
What changes when you’ve used it for a week
A few things that aren’t obvious until you’ve actually mixed this way.
You stop bouncing rough mixes. The act of bouncing was always a substitute for “let them hear it now.” Once you can let them hear it now, the bounce becomes obviously unnecessary for the reviewing phase. You still bounce for the final delivery and the archive.
Vague feedback gets less vague. When the client is hearing the same playback you are, “the vocals feel buried” becomes “right there at 1:42, just on that word.” The shared timeline is the single biggest workflow improvement.
Revision rounds shorten. Average two‑round‑plus pingback time goes from days to under thirty minutes for small fixes. Big creative changes still take their normal amount of time, but the small fixes (level tweaks, EQ moves, ride balance) collapse to almost zero.
You bill differently. Some engineers move from per‑round revision pricing to per‑hour because the rounds become short and frequent. Some keep per‑round and just include real‑time review as a value‑add. Either way, the conversation with the client about scope changes shape.
Frequently asked questions
Does the client need to install anything? On iOS, an App Clip loads the listening UI in seconds without an install. On Android, the link opens in Chrome and they tap “Listen” to play in the browser, or “Open in app” if the Auxfeed Android app is installed. On a laptop, the link opens the web player. No install required to listen on any platform.
Does Auxfeed work over the open internet, or only on the same network? Both. If you and the listener are on the same Wi‑Fi (in the studio), Auxfeed connects directly. If you’re not, the audio goes through the Auxfeed relay (a server cluster we maintain in Hetzner Frankfurt). Same flow, slightly higher latency on the relay path.
Is anyone other than my client listening? No. The 6‑digit share code is private. Anyone with the link can listen, so don’t post it publicly, but the relay does not log session contents and the audio is encrypted in transit.
How long does the link stay valid? Each share code is valid for 30 minutes after the plugin first generates it; the plugin sends a heartbeat to the relay that keeps it alive for the duration of any continuous stream. If you stop the plugin and walk away, the code expires after the heartbeat lapses. Generate a fresh one for the next session.
Can I record the listener’s reactions? Not currently — Auxfeed is one‑way audio (engineer → listener). Talkback is on the v1.1 roadmap.
Does it cost anything? No. The plugin is free. The receiver apps are free. The relay is free. The model is a paid Pro tier for the broadcaster (mid/side/mono/solo monitoring, 3‑band EQ, integrated LUFS, true peak, LRA, platform loudness targets); listening is always free for everyone.
What if I want to use Auxfeed and Source‑Connect at the same time? They run independently. Source‑Connect is your tracking path; Auxfeed is your review path. Different sessions, different listeners, no conflict.
Try it
Download the plugin. Install it. Drop it on your master bus. Tap “Get share link.” Send it to a client.
Sixty seconds. No subscription. No account. The audio goes from your DAW to their AirPods.
That’s the whole pitch.
See also:
- Audiomovers LISTENTO alternative — direct competitive comparison.
- How to check your mix on Bluetooth headphones — same product, different recipient (you).
- Phone as second meter screen — once you’re streaming to the phone for review, the phone also becomes a great meter bridge.