Loading and triggering the cart wall

A "cart wall" is radio-station terminology for a grid of pre-loaded audio clips you can fire instantly — station IDs, sound effects, sponsor jingles, news stings. The Studio module has a 16-pad cart wall on every session.

How to load a pad:

1. **Click an empty pad** — the pad highlights and offers "+ Load."
2. **Pick a file from your computer** OR drag one from your file browser onto the pad. MP3, WAV, AIFF, FLAC, OGG all work.
3. **Label the pad** — short text (e.g. "Intro," "Bumper," "Applause"). Shows up under the pad.
4. **Pick a color** — for fast visual scanning during a live read.

Optional pad settings:

- **Loop** — for backing tracks or ambient beds that need to keep playing under speech.
- **Trigger mode** — Play-on-click (default) or Hold-to-play (only plays while mouse is down). Hold mode is great for whoosh / sweeper effects timed to a specific phrase.
- **Hotkey** — assign a keyboard shortcut so you don't have to mouse to the pad during a live read. Default keyboard layout: 1-8 = top row, q-i = second row, a-k = third row, z-, = bottom row.
- **Volume offset** — per-pad gain so the louder clips don't blow out the level relative to the quieter ones.

The cart wall during a live session:

- All 16 pads stay visible on screen so you can fire them without leaving the session view.
- A pad that's playing lights up; the duration counts down. Multiple pads can play simultaneously.
- The cart wall's master output is its own mixer bus — separate volume from mics and beds — so you can ride the cart wall level independently.

Importing from a previous session:

If you have a cart wall set up for one show (e.g. your weekly podcast) and want the same setup for a different show:
1. Open the source session → cart wall menu → "Save layout."
2. Open the target session → cart wall menu → "Load layout" → pick the saved layout.

Saved layouts live at the org level so anyone in your org can load them.

Tip — pre-loading sponsor reads:

For ad-supported shows, pre-load each sponsor's 30-second read on its own pad. During the show, fire the pad at the right moment. Each pad's playback is captured into the multitrack recording so the host doesn't have to read the ad live every episode.