The Sound Board

Hello all! I'm finally ready to (soft) launch the plugin I've been working on for the last year and a half. Introducing:

Big Talk Button
http://www.bigtalkbutton.com

Big Talk Button brings classic console-style talkback to your DAW - no subscription required!

Engage the giant Push to Talk Button to instantly un-mute your mic and dim your outs. Trigger the Push to Talk Button via mouse, computer keyboard or MIDI controller. Enjoy Global Key keyboard control - your trigger key works even when you're in a different application like a web browser, Zoom, or text editor. Customize your dim level. Always know when the Push to Talk Button is engaged via the Menu Bar Status Icon.

It's currently Mac-only, and is Silicon-compatible. It has been tested on Pro Tools, Reaper, Cubase, Digital Performer, Logic Pro and Ableton Live, and should work with any DAW that can take AAX/VST3/AU plugins.

Use code "Launch10" for 10% off the already-low $39 price. Buy it once, own it forever.

Please ask me many questions about it!

Brilliant idea, good luck!

Great, slick professional tool for those who need it. Congrats on the release, Laura!

That's very clever.

I was about to suggest adding a pre-built TouchOSC template, so that you don't have to use a mouse to hit the talkback button, but you already allow for MIDI or QWERTY keyboard entry, which is even better. Way better, in fact. Color me impressed.

Thank you Thomas and Guy! Mike, I have TouchOSC in my "Version 2 List" but tbh I don't know what it is, I just made a note of it at some point. I do intend to make a mobile device companion app ("Little Talk Button"), but we'll see if anyone even buys this thing first, lol.

Forgot to mention there's a 7-day fully functional trial available, too!

soundbylaura wrote: ↑Aug 13, 2025 1:26 pm Mike, I have TouchOSC in my "Version 2 List" but tbh I don't know what it is, I just made a note of it at some point.

TouchOSC is an iPad app that lets you have a bunch knobs and buttons and sliders on your iPad screen that control the knobs and stuff on a plugin or DAW or whatever. It's especially useful for knobs, or banks of faders, so you don't have to do a bunch of clicking around to dial in a mix or EQ setting.

It's pretty cool, and I made a template when I released Hip Hop Creator, which had a 4x4 array of pads (like a drum machine), so it made it so you could play those pads on the iPad. You can see me do that in this video here (cued up to when I use the iPad with TouchOSC):



I eventually dropped support for that, though, since I don't think anyone used it. It's one of those things that looks cool in a demonstration, but wasn't really that useful in real life. (Mind you, Hip Hop Creator wasn't exactly flying off the shelves in the first place, so there's that possible explanation as well.)

There was also a lag of 100ms or so, unless it was plugged in with a cable. I'm not sure if that's still the case. (Connected via cable - fast response. Bluetooth - lag.)

If you decide to go this route, it's pretty easy to implement, since you don't have to buy anything, and no licensing is required. You'd just make a GUI template with just your one button, and you're done. Users would have to have the TouchOSC app on their end, then just install your template.

soundbylaura wrote: ↑Aug 13, 2025 1:26 pm I do intend to make a mobile device companion app ("Little Talk Button"), but we'll see if anyone even buys this thing first, lol.

Probably more work, but way better than TouchOSC in my opinion. Me, personally, I wouldn't use TouchOSC, since there are a few steps to that, but I'd consider a single app specific to your plugin.

Although ... me personally, I wouldn't use an app, either, since I would just use one of the keys on my QWERTY keyboard. It doesn't get any easier (or more reliable) than that! Especially when I consider that one downside to an app is that if your phone goes to sleep (I don't even know how to make my phone not go to sleep), you have to keep waking it so you can hit the talkback button.

On a semi-related note - One challenge about using a QWERTY keyboard for the talkback button is you can't use the "best" keys for it (Spacebar, Enter, etc), since those get used already by Pro Tools or whatever DAW. So as a user, we have to assign it to F5 or some other weird key. Which takes a little more effort to find, when you want to talkback.

So ... maybe everybody already knows this trick, but what I do is take a piece of colored masking tape and put that on the desired key. Easy to see, or even without looking, I can feel which key has the masking tape on it. I've been doing that lately with a couple "weird" keys (especially F8 = Play/Pause for Netflix/YouTube/iTunes/Whatever) and it works wonders.

With Big Talk Button, if the user's got a MIDI keyboard, when they go to "learn" a trigger key, they can enter in the letter "a" and that will map the trigger to all of the MIDI keys so they can just mash whatever's closest.