Send Your Mix to a Client in Real Time
By David Payette · audio engineer, professional musician · About →
The cycle that eats your day
You finish a pass. You bounce to MP3. You upload to Dropbox. You send the link. You wait.
Twelve hours later: "Can you bring the snare up 1 dB and make the chorus a little brighter? Also the low end feels a bit heavy on my laptop speakers. Let me know when the revision is up."
You make three changes in four minutes. You bounce again. You upload again. You wait again.
By the third round, the mix feedback loop that should take 30 minutes has consumed three days. And the client still hasn't heard the mix at full quality — they listened to a 192 kbps MP3, through a browser tab, on laptop speakers, after the mix was already cold and out of context.
The file exchange workflow was designed for delivery, not for collaboration. What you need is for your client to hear exactly what you hear, in the moment you're hearing it, so they can give you a reaction instead of a ticket.
What the Auxfeed flow looks like
You're at your desk. The session is open, the mix is playing. You drop the Auxfeed plugin on the master bus. Your client — wherever they are — opens the Auxfeed app on their phone. They tap your session name. The mix is playing on their phone in under 30 seconds.
No bounce. No export. No upload. No file link. The audio going to your monitors is the audio in their ears.
You make a change — nudge the snare, pull 200 Hz out of the guitars. They hear it the instant you hit play again. "Yeah, that's the one." You move on.
A mix revision session that used to span three days now takes 30 minutes. You finish the job. You both get off the call.
The plugin is free. The app is free. No account required on either end.
Free tier vs Pro for this use case
Free tier — peer-to-peer over Wi-Fi — is perfect when you and your client are in the same building: different rooms in a studio facility, an adjacent lounge, the live room vs. the control room. Both devices need to be on the same Wi-Fi network, but no server is involved and nothing leaves your local environment.
Auxfeed Pro is the answer when your client is across town or in another city. Pro adds internet relay: the stream routes securely between your DAW and their phone over the internet, no shared Wi-Fi required. $9.99/month or $79/year — and Pro also adds the full loudness monitoring suite (LUFS, true peak, LRA, platform targets, mid/side monitoring, 3-band EQ) for your own metering workflow.
No account. No time limit. Try free →
What this looks like in practice
A&R review session. A&R is in New York; you're in Nashville. They want to hear three versions of the mix before they decide on a direction. Old workflow: three bounces, three uploads, three WeTransfer links, comments via email 24 hours later when their ears are fresh but the context is stale. Auxfeed workflow: share a session code, get on a Zoom call, play version one. They say "the second drop needs more air." You open a high shelf on the master bus, push 12 kHz 1.5 dB, play it again. They say "that's it." Total time: 45 minutes. Decision made in the room, metaphorically.
Mix revision call with a producer. The session is 90% done. The producer has two notes. Open the mix, load the plugin, share the code. They're on their iPhone, listening through AirPods Pro. You address note one; they confirm it live. Note two is about the bass — they're checking on phone speakers, which is exactly the reference you want them using anyway. They confirm. You're done before the coffee goes cold.
Mastering approval. The mastered track is in your DAW, playing back at the reference level. Client wants to confirm the feel before you deliver the final file. Stream it directly from the mastering session — no intermediate export, no codec-introduced artifacts in the approval stage. They're hearing the master.
Demo critique. A songwriter is reviewing rough production for their upcoming album. Instead of a shared folder full of numbered MP3s, you stream each demo in sequence while you're on the phone together. Reactions are immediate and in context. "Go back to the bridge on that one" — you're already there.
Security
For studio sessions on the same Wi-Fi network, the default setup — empty PIN — is fine. Anyone on the network who knows your session's IP would need to be actively looking for it, and in a studio context that's not a real threat model.
For relay sessions over the internet (Auxfeed Pro), set a PIN in the plugin before you share the session code. The relay connection is encrypted in transit. The PIN keeps the session private to the people you've invited. For client approval sessions, a short numeric PIN is good practice — share it in the same message as the session code.
Auxfeed vs email and file sharing
| Auxfeed | Email / Dropbox / WeTransfer | |
|---|---|---|
| Feedback latency | Seconds — client reacts to a live change in real time | Hours or days — feedback arrives when the session is cold |
| Audio fidelity | Full PCM lossless or high-quality Opus — what your DAW plays | Whatever codec the export used; often 192 kbps MP3 or m4a |
| Shared context | Both parties hearing the same moment at the same time | Client hears a frozen snapshot; you're already three revisions ahead |
| Revision count | One pass, multiple adjustments in real time | Each revision is a new bounce, new upload, new wait cycle |
| Setup | Plugin on master bus, app on client's phone, 30 seconds | No per-session setup, but the feedback loop compounds |
| Cost | Free (Wi-Fi) or $9.99/mo (relay) | Free, but costs you in hours |
The table doesn't capture the intangible: when a client can react to a change as you make it, you get better creative direction. Feedback delivered in the moment is more accurate than feedback delivered from memory.
Frequently asked questions
Does my client need an account?
No. They download the Auxfeed app on their phone — it's free on the App Store and Google Play — and tap your session name. No signup, no login, no subscription on their end. The barrier to getting a client connected is as low as it can be.
My client uses an iPhone; mine uses Android. Does that matter?
No. The Auxfeed plugin runs on Mac and Windows. The receiver app runs on both iOS and Android. Cross-platform combinations work without any configuration differences.
Can I record the session?
The Auxfeed plugin transmits audio — it doesn't record the client's end. If you want a record of what was played during the session, record a separate stereo bus in your DAW as you normally would. The stream itself doesn't create a shared recording.
What happens if Wi-Fi drops during a relay session?
The app will attempt to reconnect automatically when the connection resumes. During an interruption the audio buffers and then skips; it doesn't crash the session or require you to re-share the code. If you're on a spotty connection, PCM codec uses the most bandwidth — switching to Opus in the plugin settings reduces bandwidth requirements without meaningfully affecting perceived quality for a listening session.
Try it free
No account. No time limit. Download the plugin for Mac or Windows, install it in your DAW, and get the Auxfeed app on your client's phone. The first session should take less than five minutes to set up end to end.
For the full step-by-step setup walkthrough, including per-DAW routing instructions, see: How to send your mix to a client in real time →