Synchain Frequently Asked Questions

• What is Synchain?

  Synchain is a music and audio collaboration platform you use in the browser. Teams work project by project, and one project holds the Creative Space real-time hi-fi room, the project files, the team calendar and the discussion board — from raw DAW audio all the way to delivery. One thing to clear up first: Synchain has nothing to do with blockchain, crypto or supply-chain software — the name comes from audio sidechaining: keeping your sound in step with your team.

• What is the real difference from sending music through Zoom or Discord?

  The audio chain in those voice-call apps is tuned for the human voice: noise suppression, echo cancellation and automatic gain treat music as noise, so what comes out the far end is muffled, smeared and pumping. Synchain gives DAW audio a lane of its own: you insert a VST3 plug-in in the DAW, your session audio goes straight into the room, the microphone travels a separate path, and each path gets its own choice of noise-suppression algorithm. You can also set every member's volume individually, the bitrate of the whole chain and the buffer size — knobs that give you room to move where a general-purpose voice app gives you none.

• How does VST3 direct connect work?

  Insert the Synchain Bridge plug-in on a bus or a stereo track in your DAW and press Start; it opens a WebSocket service on 127.0.0.1, on your own machine. Creative Space in the browser connects to that local service and streams the audio on to everyone else in the room. The full path is DAW → plug-in → local WebSocket → browser → realtime audio server → collaborators, with no virtual cable routing anywhere. The plug-in sends one buffer block at a time, exactly as the DAW hands it over, so it never piles up extra latency; the master volume on the plug-in only touches the copy being streamed out, never the sound running through your DAW track.

• Which DAWs can I use?

  Any VST3 host can load Synchain Bridge — Reaper, Ableton Live and Cubase, for example. The plug-in carries manufacturer code Snch and plug-in code Snb1, so your DAW picks it up as a brand-new plug-in. The prebuilt release today is a Windows x64 VST3 bundle; macOS support is planned.

• Is Synchain free?

  It is. Signing up, creating projects, using Creative Space and downloading the VST3 plug-in are all free of charge during the closed beta.

• What do I need to install on my side?

  Nothing at all on the web side: open a browser, sign in, and you are in the project and in Creative Space — which is exactly why a client or a partner can join with zero setup. The Synchain Bridge plug-in is only needed when you want to push your DAW session audio into the room.

• Where are my files and data stored?

  Account and project data live in Supabase (a Postgres database that handles authentication as well); uploaded audio, images and other files live in Cloudflare R2. Real-time audio and video is relayed through the LiveKit servers we host and never written to disk. Uploads and downloads all go through short-lived presigned links, which keeps the transfer safe.

• How do I get started?

  Sign up, create a project, then generate an invite link to bring your collaborators in. Once you are inside the project, open Creative Space and you can collaborate in real time straight away. If you need the other end to hear what is playing in your DAW, download the VST3 plug-in from the download page, install it and insert Synchain Bridge in your session.

• How are teams and projects organised?

  The project is the unit in Synchain: one project holds its members, its file tree, its calendar, its discussion board and its Creative Space room. Members are admins, members or viewers; a viewer can only look, and cannot make changes or enter the room. You can be in several projects at once and switch between them freely from the Dashboard.

• What are the browser requirements?

  A modern browser with JavaScript support is enough, with no plug-in or extension to install. Real-time audio and video use the browser's own WebRTC, and the DAW audio bridge additionally needs the browser to reach a WebSocket service on your machine, so a current desktop browser is the safe choice. The interface itself is available in Chinese, English and French.