How to Stream DAW Audio to Any Browser in Real Time

A 2026 guide for music producers and mixing engineers who need to share audio with clients, collaborators, or students—without bouncing a single file.

Why stream from your DAW?

There are more reasons than ever to stream your DAW's audio output in real time. Remote work has become standard in music production, and the need to share what you're hearing—right now, not after a bounce—comes up constantly.

• Remote client approvals. Your client is in another city. They want to hear the mix as you work on it, give feedback on the fly, and approve takes in real time instead of waiting for files.
• A&R listening sessions. A label rep wants to hear demos as they're being produced, not after they've been bounced and uploaded to a shared drive.
• Band members reviewing mixes. The guitarist is in Berlin, the vocalist is in Nashville. Everyone needs to hear the same mix at the same time.
• Music supervisors. A supervisor needs to hear cues live during a scoring session to give immediate direction.
• Teaching and mentoring. You're walking a student through a mix. They need to hear exactly what you hear, in stereo, with minimal latency.

The traditional approaches (and their problems)

Before dedicated streaming tools existed, engineers relied on workarounds. None of them were designed for this job.

Zoom or Teams screen share

The most common approach. You share your screen and the audio comes along for the ride. The problem: video call audio is heavily compressed, usually mono, and optimized for speech—not music. The codec aggressively cuts high frequencies and stereo information. Your client is hearing a version of your mix that sounds nothing like what you're hearing.

Bouncing and sending files

Reliable audio quality, but painfully slow. Bounce, export, upload to Dropbox or WeTransfer, wait for the client to download, wait for them to listen, get feedback by text. "Can you turn up the vocal a dB?" means starting the whole cycle again. A single revision can take 20–30 minutes of dead time.

Dedicated hardware streaming

Some studios use hardware encoders to stream audio over the internet. These work, but they're expensive, require dedicated hardware, and are overkill for most mix review sessions.

OBS + streaming platform

You can route DAW audio into OBS and stream to Twitch or YouTube. But the latency is 3–10 seconds (making real-time feedback impossible), and setting up the audio routing is complex. It's designed for broadcasting, not for private mix reviews.

The modern approach: WebRTC plugin-to-browser

WebRTC is the same technology that powers Google Meet and Zoom's web client. It was designed for real-time communication—low latency, encrypted, peer-to-peer. A new generation of audio plugins uses WebRTC to stream DAW audio directly to a web browser, combining studio-quality audio with the convenience of a shareable link.

Here's what makes this approach different:

• Opus codec at 48 kHz. The Opus audio codec was designed for both speech and music. At 256–320 kbps, it delivers transparent stereo audio at full sample rate. It's the same codec used by Discord, Spotify's real-time features, and most modern communication platforms.
• Peer-to-peer = low latency. Audio travels directly from your computer to the listener's browser. No server in between processing or re-encoding the audio. Typical latency is 60–200 ms depending on network conditions—fast enough for real-time feedback.
• DTLS encryption. All audio is encrypted in transit. No one can intercept your unreleased music. No audio data is stored on any server.
• No software on the listener's side. Your client opens a URL in Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge. That's it. No app to download, no account to create, no plugin to install.

Step by step: streaming with dBaton CUE

dBaton CUE is an AU/VST3 plugin for macOS and Windows that implements this WebRTC approach. Here's the complete workflow:

The entire setup takes about 30 seconds from opening the plugin to your client hearing audio.

Audio quality comparison

How does WebRTC plugin streaming compare to the traditional methods?

Supported DAWs

dBaton CUE works with any DAW that supports AU or VST3 plugins on macOS, or VST3 on Windows. This includes:

• Logic Pro (AU)
• Ableton Live (AU/VST3)
• Reaper (AU/VST3)
• Pro Tools (AAX coming soon)
• Cubase / Nuendo (VST3)
• Studio One (AU/VST3)
• FL Studio (VST3)
• Bitwig Studio (VST3)

If your DAW can load a VST3 or AU plugin, dBaton CUE will work.