Getting started

This page covers installing FieldAssist, opening a recording, and playing it back. Reviewing and editing a take is covered in the review editor.

Install

FieldAssist ships as a platform package. See the releases page for the latest build.

• macOS — open the DMG and drag FieldAssist to Applications. The package is self-signed, so the first launch needs Open Anyway in System Settings → Privacy & Security.
• Windows — install the MSIX after trusting the bundled certificate.
• Linux — install the .deb, or unpack the tarball and run install.sh.

macOS builds include an Install CLI Tools menu item that places the field-batch and field-play commands on your PATH.

Open a recording

There are three ways to open audio:

• File → Open… and choose a file.
• Drag and drop a file onto the window.
• Run field-play <file> from the command line.

FieldAssist opens WAV, AIFF, CAF, FLAC, OGG, MP3, M4A/MP4, and MKV files. The codecs on offer include AAC, ADPCM, ALAC, FLAC, MP1, MP2, MP3, PCM, and Vorbis.

Opening a recording builds a composition over it: the file stays untouched on disk and edits are recorded separately.

Play

Press Space to play or pause. The transport sits under the waveform, and the header shows the playhead position, the sample under the pointer, and the current selection.

Use the layout picker and Monitor control in the status bar to choose how channels are labelled and what monitor processing runs on the listen path.

Read the status bar

The status bar reports the file’s sample rate, bit depth, channel count, duration, and size. A muted error and warning control sits to its right; select it to open the Messages tab, which collects script output, warnings, and load problems.

If something goes wrong on open

When a file cannot be fully probed or a referenced file is missing, FieldAssist collects everything into a single load-problems sheet, grouped by category. Selecting OK dismisses the sheet and cancels the open, so you can fix the source and try again.