Channel 1.0.6

Player mode by default: Every new window loads your plugin in-process in the unsandboxed app, exactly the way conventional hosts do. No security dialogs, no extra processes — just your plugin, your devices, and your MIDI, ready to play.

Plugin Test Mode on demand: Switching a window to Plugin Test Mode is what launches the sandboxed extension container and engages the live rebuild watcher. If a plugin ever asks macOS to lower security settings, that question now arrives precisely when it has context — you're testing your own code.

Microphone permission only when you need it: Channel never asks for microphone access at launch. The first time you choose a hardware input device is the moment the request appears — until then the input side stays closed and nothing prompts.

Duplicate I/O protection: Two windows monitoring the same input on the same output pair would double at the speakers and could feed back. Channel now detects the overlap and keeps one window on the monitor return — the second is muted automatically while its plugin still processes and meters, and the notice beside the Mute switch explains why (with a dot on the Channel Strip button if the strip is out of sight). Unmuting takes over monitoring and mutes the other window, and to run both windows live into the same output you give them different inputs. Audio returns the moment the overlap ends.

Mode switching is a hosting switch: Toggling between Player mode and Plugin Test Mode moves the whole session — plugin, channel strip, device routing, and MIDI — into the other engine. A momentary audio dropout on the switch is expected; everything comes back restored.

Minify replaces Plugin Only: One click shrinks the window to just the plugin editor (toolbar included); Unminify returns the window to exactly where it was. Minify is a layout shortcut and is independent of the mode.

Plugin Test Mode input audio bridged from the app: macOS never grants microphone access to a custom extension container, so Channel captures your input device in the app and streams it to the test host. Input device and pair switching work exactly as they do in Player mode, and None still closes the input while MIDI instruments keep rendering. The bridge runs on a 128-frame capture buffer and pushes audio straight into the test host with no extra hops — roughly 3-5 ms of added input latency.

Unloading a plugin returns the window to the Player-mode default.

Multiple windows, each hosting its own plugin with independent routing

Per-window MIDI routing with multi-select port menus and an All Ports switch

MIDI port filter in Settings, with a live MIDI event log

Minify: shrink any window to the plugin's exact size

Parameters HUD listing every parameter of the loaded plugin with live values

Bookmark your plugin build folders and load any discovered VST3 or AU straight into the detail view

Live rebuild watcher: recompile in your IDE and Channel reloads the plugin automatically — in every Plugin Test Mode window that has it loaded

Channel strip with input device, output device, and master fader

Output-pair routing, so you can capture Channel's output on a specific interface pair (e.g. back into Logic Pro)

Integrated Apple Help Book with deep link commands

Automatic updates via Sparkle