Calls in sessions and chats

What it is

Every studio session has its own call. Talk with camera and mic, share your screen, and send your music at full studio quality straight from your audio interface or your computer. The session's track and files sit beside the call, and anything someone drops in shows up for everyone, ready to drag into your DAW.

Using it

• Start or join. Open the session and press Start call, or Join call when others are already in. ⌘K finds it too: "join call". The call's Invite link drops people straight into the call. In the Aden app, a live session has Join call: the same call, full screen, and it closes when you leave.
• Add from your phone. In the Aden app, the session's + records an idea, adds a photo or video (from the library or the camera) or any file. Files land in the session's Files tab and in the call for everyone; one you added can be deleted there.
• Start one from your DAW. In the desktop app (menu bar popover, Home and ⌘K), the project open in your DAW has Start session: a session about its track starts now and its call opens. A project nobody saved yet has Save and start session. In the call, Share gives the join link for people who play along and the watch link for visitors. While the session runs, the project and the session's card say Join call.
• Call someone from ⌘K. Type "call senne" (or "voice call with jo", "bel jo") and pick Call Senne Van Heffen: your one-to-one chat with them opens (made if there is none) and you're in its call. On the web and in the desktop app, where the call opens in its own window. "Share screen with Senne" does the same and shares your screen once you're in.
• Start a session with someone from ⌘K. Type "start session with artist Senator" (or "jam with jo", "new session vocals with Jo on Afterglow"). The session starts now in your chat with them: they're invited, its card in the chat lets them join, and its call opens for you with Invite and the session's files beside it.
• Sounds. A short chime when you or someone else joins, a falling one when someone leaves, through the call's speakers.
• Flip your camera. The flip button beside the camera picker (or "flip camera" in ⌘K) shows your camera mirrored to everyone, the way you see yourself: a raised left hand reads as left. Your own view is always a mirror. Remembered for the next call.
• Ask Aden. Stuck on the chords, or don't like a part? Press Ask Aden in the call's controls (or "ask aden" in ⌘K) and say it out loud. Aden knows the session's track, key, tempo and lyrics, and answers with one idea at a time. Chords it suggests land in the session's files as a MIDI clip to drag into your DAW, and in the chat for everyone. In the desktop app it also finds sounds in your libraries by what they sound like. Only you hear Aden.
• Chat in the call. The call's side panel has Files and Chat. Everyone in the call reads it, people who join later see what was said, and a recording keeps it in its moments. While the call is only its bar, a new line shows as a notice.
• Call a chat. Every chat with people in it has a call too: the call button in the chat's header (web and desktop). Like a phone call, it goes straight in with your mic, no camera, and the chat shows "Maxime started a call" so the others can Join call from its header. Nobody else in it for 3 minutes, and you leave on your own (Join again brings you back). Joining from another tab or device moves you there: the old one leaves, with Join here to switch back. When the last person leaves, the chat says who was in the call and for how long ("Mave and Maxime were in a call for 12 minutes"), or "Nobody joined Mave's call". Screens, control, the mix and studio audio work the same. Files, recording and the transcript come with a session: press Start session in the call and one starts now, with the chat's people invited and its card in the chat, and everyone in the call moves into it. A chat linked to a session calls in the session.
• Put it on the calendar. In the session's Video call dialog, pick Aden call. The session's call link then opens the call from the calendar feed, the desktop's upcoming calls and anywhere else the link goes.
• Pick your devices once. Camera, microphone, speakers and studio audio are remembered for the next call. Studio audio can be any input of your audio interface (a loopback channel works well) or everything your computer plays.
• Share files. Drop files on the project panel on the right. They are saved to the session and appear for everyone. Drag a file from the panel into your DAW, or download it.
• Your own mix. Mix sets how loud each person's voice and studio audio play for you, mutes either, or soloes one person. It changes what you hear only.
• Talk without unmuting. While muted, hold Space to talk. ⌘D (Ctrl+D) mutes, ⌘E (Ctrl+E) turns the camera on and off.
• Sharp screens, your sound. In Devices, pick how your screen goes out: Sharp (text and plugin windows crisp, up to 4K) or Smooth (video and animation at 60 fps), and studio audio at 256 or 510 kbps. Both apply at once and are remembered.
• When your connection holds you back. If your screen goes out smaller or choppier than you picked, or your studio audio breaks up on the way, Slow connection (or Computer busy) shows in the call. Open it for what is held back and the fix, such as sending at 256 kbps.
• Record someone on their device. In Mix, the circle beside a person records their studio audio (or their voice) on their own computer, as a 24-bit WAV. They're told; it turns red while it records, and the file lands in the session's files when you stop it, ready for your DAW.
• Lowest latency. In Devices, trade the network cushion for hearing everyone sooner. Best on a wired or strong connection.
• Mark moments. The flag names a moment so you can find it later.
• Thumbs up for a good idea. With your camera on, hold a thumbs up to it and the recording gets a "Good idea" mark right there. Nobody recording yet? Aden asks whether to record the call (at most every few minutes). Your hands are read on your own computer; only the mark goes out. Switch it off in Devices, in the recording bar or with "Mark with a thumbs up" in ⌘K: one switch for calls and recordings.
• Record. On the Max plan, record the call. Everyone sees who is recording. The recording lands in the session's recordings with its moments: who spoke when, screens, studio audio, files and marks. Click any of them to hear that moment.
• Transcript. Open a recorded call's Transcript and press Transcribe: ElevenLabs writes it down, with each line under the name of whoever said it. Then read it, search it, or click a line to hear that moment. Nothing is transcribed until someone asks, since transcripts count against the plan: Max includes 5 hours a month, then €0.50 an hour.
• Lossless takes. While the call records, everyone sending studio audio also keeps a 24-bit WAV of it, untouched by the call's compression. When the recording stops it lands in the session's files ("Ava studio take 14.05"), ready to drag into your DAW.
• Keep browsing. Minimise the call to a bar at the bottom and keep using Aden. The bar is the inverse of the page (light on a dark theme) so it stands out; click anywhere on it to open the call again. While only the bar shows, your camera rests and nobody sends you video; both come back when the call is big again. A screen you share keeps going.
• Your screen with its sound. Sharing your screen sends what it plays too, as studio audio: the sound the browser's picker captured, or in the desktop app everything your computer plays (the call itself left out). Stopping the screen stops that sound. Studio audio from your interface, already on, stays as it is. On a Mac this needs macOS 14.2 or later; the first time, allow Aden to record system audio.
• Show or hide the project. The project panel opens and closes from the header, or with a sideways swipe on the call like the sidebars: away from its edge brings it in, toward the edge puts it away.
• Take control of a screen. When someone shares a screen from the desktop app, press Request control on it. Once they allow it, your mouse, trackpad and keyboard drive their computer: mix their session, turn plugin knobs, type. Shortcuts carry over between Mac and Windows (⌘ becomes Ctrl and back), and text types exactly as you type it, whatever the keyboard layouts. The screen's buttons sit in a bar above it, never over it, so reaching for Stop control never lands on their screen. Full screen gives the other computer the whole view. While you control, the screen comes at 60 fps and your side holds back no video, so the pointer keeps up with your hand. On an iPad or a phone, fingers work too: tap to click, drag to move a fader or a clip, hold to right click, two fingers to scroll, and pinch to zoom in on their screen (only on yours, Fit to screen zooms back out); Keyboard brings up the iPad's keyboard to type. A trackpad, a mouse or a Pencil works as on a computer. The person sharing sees who has control and takes it back with Stop control or ⌘⇧Esc (Ctrl+Alt+Esc on Windows), from the call, the notch or ⌘K. Right after, the notch offers Stop sharing and Leave call, for when stopping isn't enough. While control is on, moving your own mouse pauses theirs until you stop (their own moves never count as yours: the desktop remembers where it put the pointer over the last 300 ms, createPointerTrail), and shortcuts that reach past the screen (quit, switch apps, Spotlight, force quit, the trash, Alt+F4, Task Manager, the Windows key) never land. A request shows in the notch too (Allow / Deny), and on Windows as a notification when Aden isn't in front. With more than one screen, the desktop app asks which one to share.
• Lyrics. In a session's call, the Lyrics tab beside Files and Chat is the session's notes, the same ones as on the session page: write in them together. Press the pen to have the call write down the lyrics people sing: each person's microphone is heard, the lines that are lyrics land in the notes, and a new version of a line goes right under it as "or: …". It's one switch for everyone in the call, and the call's moments say who turned it on or off. Pro includes 1 hour a month and Max 5, then €1 an hour; the pen says so when the plan has none. While it listens it also marks the ideas you call good ("oh, that's a really good idea", "keep that"), named after what you said ("Octave jump in the chorus"), at the moment you said it, so you find them again on the recording.
• Draw on a screen. Press Draw above someone's shared screen and draw on it: everyone in the call sees it, each person in their own colour, and it fades a moment after you lift the pen, so there is nothing to clear. The person sharing sees it over their screen in the call and, when they share from the desktop app, on their real screen. Escape stops drawing. It works with or without control.
• Stay in your DAW. Pop out floats the call in a small window that stays on top: faces, the session's files to drag in, and your controls.
• Open the same project. In the desktop app, the call shows the DAW project you have open and warns when someone's computer lacks one of its plugins ("Jonas is missing EchoBoy"), so you can freeze or bounce those tracks before sending the project.
• A window of its own on the desktop. In the desktop app every call opens in a floating window you can drag anywhere, on the call alone (not the whole session or chat page), in a window Aden keeps ready, so it opens at once. On a Mac it shrinks to a bar (who's in, mic, leave) while your DAW is in front, and grows back when you click it or come back to Aden.
• The notch. In the desktop app, the notch shows who's in the call and your mic. Drop files on it to share them in the call; files others share show up there, ready to drag into your DAW.
• Share files in a live session, no call needed. While a session you're in is live, drop files on the desktop's drop zone and pick Share in the session. Everyone in it gets them in their drop zone (on a Mac it opens under the notch; elsewhere a notification opens it), ready to drag into their project.
• Big and small, like Discord. Nobody sharing, everyone is the same size in a grid. Click any camera or screen to show it big with the rest in a strip; the grid button brings everyone back. Hover a tile for full screen (or double-click it) and pop out, which keeps it in a small window on top of your DAW.
• Back in the call after a restart. When the desktop app has to quit for a permission (Screen Recording's "Quit & Reopen") or an update, it reopens the call, joined, and every popped-out window, if it comes back within five minutes.
• Share. Share in the call's header: Copy join link brings people with Aden into the call; Copy watch link is the session's share link, and copying it lets followers watch.
• Invite anyone to a chat's call. In a chat's call, Share → Copy join link (or "copy join link" in ⌘K). No session needed, and the people you send it to need no account: they open the link, type their name and press Join call. Everyone in the call sees "Jo asks to join" with Let in and Deny. People already in the chat skip the asking and land in the call. Guests talk, show their screen and chat; if someone starts a session from the call, guests leave and are told to ask for the session's link.
• Ask to join from the watch link. Watching on the share link, press Ask to join the call (name and email first, the first time). Everyone in the call sees "Jo asks to join" with Let in and Deny. Let in, you join from the browser with your mic and camera, no account. Guests talk, show their screen and chat, but don't see the session's files or record.
• Send someone into your DAW. In the call's mixer, Send to plays a person on another output. Send them to a virtual audio device (BlackHole, free) and pick it as the input in FL Studio or any DAW.
• Let followers watch. In a session's call, open Invite and turn on Followers can watch. People who aren't in the call see what's on the stage (a shared screen, or whoever is talking) and hear the call: on the session's share link (Copy link for followers) and on the session in the Aden app. Everyone in the call sees Followers in the header. It counts as live streaming for your team (paid plans).
• Keep the live recording. Following records the call. When you stop it, or end the session, choose whether to keep that recording. Leaving the call keeps it.