+5 min
Plugins
Optional
Mixing, writing and sound, on your own music
The sound engineer beside you.
Learn as you create.
Built to work beside
Ableton LiveLogic ProFL StudioCubase
Making music on your own means doing every job yourself: writing, recording, sound design, mixing. Sounds Pro is the expert in the room. It hears what you are making, explains the plugins and instruments you already own on your own sound, and gives you the next step, like a coach beside you.
Ask for a rolling bassline or a warm chord progression and hear it through your own synth. Find the right sound in your own sample folders by describing it. Get past the loop that will not go anywhere. Train your ears ten to fifteen minutes a day. Every explanation comes with something to hear.
Sounds Pro is in development, for the Mac first. Join the waitlist to hear when you can try it.
Open in Ableton
Pro-Q 3 on the vocal bus
Sounds Pro hears the vocal and explains the plugin you have open, on this sound.
Low cut80 Hz, 12 dB per octave
Removes rumble under the voice. The vocal has nothing useful below 100 Hz, so this only tidies. Try 120 Hz and listen for thinness.
Band 2−3 dB at 320 Hz
This is where the vocal sounds boxy. A gentle cut here clears room without making it harsh. Too wide and you lose warmth.
Band 4+2 dB at 8 kHz
Air. The bus already has a bright reverb on it, so go lightly here or the s sounds will sting.
Beforevocal, bar 17
After
Compare plays the original, then your version, on a loop.
Train, learn, make, create. A little every day.
Short sessions on your own music. Your plan fits the time you have.
No generic courses
No forum threads
No guessing which knob did it
No staring at the same eight bars
Everything is in one place. Fifteen minutes of Listening is the core session: it is where your ears get trained. Got longer? Add five minutes each of Plugins, Your track and Create.
15 min
Listening
Core session
+5 min
Your track
Optional
+5 min
Create
Optional
Any time
I'm stuck
One button
Twenty minutes a day is enough. Every tool remembers where you were. Your home page plans the day: say how long you have and it lists what to do and for how many minutes.
Why Sounds Pro works
The knowledge that makes a mix sit.
YouTube tutorials
Preset packs
A mixing course
Sending it to a mix engineer
Tutorials, presets, courses and mix engineers all work better once you can hear what is wrong and name it. That is a small body of knowledge: how a signal chain works, what each type of plugin is for, and the dozen moves that fix most mixes. Sounds Pro teaches it on your own music.
A vocal chain, explainedin order
1Gainget the level right before anything else
2Subtractive EQremove what should not be there
3Compressioneven out the loud and quiet words
4Tone EQnow shape the character
5De-essertame the s sounds the brightness woke up
6Reverb and delayon a send, so you keep control
Mix moves
The handful of decisions that fix most mixes: low-cut everything, carve space, sidechain, parallel, bus glue. One a day, on your track.
Plugin families
Every plugin you own is one of a few types. Learn the family and every new plugin is familiar in minutes.
Problems you can already hear
Muddy, boxy, harsh, thin. You can hear these now. Sounds Pro teaches you which frequency each one lives at, so you know where to reach.
It sounds like a lot. You learn it a step at a time.
Starting out
›
Home producer
›
Mixing with intent
›
Release-ready
You work up from Starting out to Release-ready, a little every day. At your own pace, on the music you were already making.
Know what every plugin on your mix is for, and every other part of making music gets easier.
Twelve ways in. One pair of ears.
Each tool is built around one thing you can do today, on your own music, with the plugins and sounds you already own.
Open in your DAW
Serum · Lead pluck
1
Plugin explainer
Sees the plugin you have open and explains every control on the sound it is on. EQ, compressor, synth, reverb, whatever you own.
Understand this knob
Hear the difference
Ratio 2:1 or 8:1?
ABBoth
2
Listening
Two versions of a real track. Say which is compressed harder, which has the low cut, which is wider. Ten to fifteen minutes a day.
Train the ear
Listening on the master
Low end is crowded
3
Your mix
Hears your mix as you work, or a bounce you drop in. Says what it hears in plain words, then points to the move with the plugins you own.
Hear what to fix
Your mix against theirs
Theirs: 3 dB lighter below 100 Hz
4
Reference track
Drop in a track you love. It maps the sections, splits drums, bass and vocals, and shows how your mix compares, section by section.
Learn from the best
Deep house
120–125 bpm · offbeat hats · sub bass
5
Style guides
Pick a style and it lays out the elements: tempo, groove, sounds, how the arrangement builds, typical mix choices. Then suggests instruments you own.
Know the style
Rolling bassline · A minor
Piano roll
6
Basslines and chords
Ask for a bassline or a progression. See it, hear it through your own synth, try busier or darker, then drag it into your DAW.
Hear it, then drag it in
Search your own sounds
“A warm, round bass”
7
Your library
Catalogues your samples, MIDI, presets and plugins by listening to them, on your computer. Describe a sound and it finds it in what you already own.
Nothing uploaded
Lead vocal · take 4
Level good · a little boxy
8
Vocals
Recording level, mic distance, the room, a simple vocal chain, picking the best take. For singing over your own chords.
Sing over your songs
Eight bars, nowhere to go?
Three ways forward
BreakdownNew chordOld idea
9
I'm stuck
Looks at where you are and offers the next moves, sounds you forgot you had, or an old sketch that fits. Hear each one first.
Get moving again
Today's move
Carve space for the vocal
10
Mix moves
The dozen moves that make most mixes sit, one at a time, with a before and after on your own track.
One move a day
Signal chain
Gain › EQ › Comp › EQ
11
Signal chain
Where things go, in what order, and why the order changes the sound. Gain staging first, because it removes half the problems.
Order matters
Ask
Why does my kick disappear on the chorus?
12
Ask
Any question, answered with your track, your plugins and your sounds in view. Every term in plain English, with something to hear.
About your track
Beside your DAW
One app. A small listener in your DAW.
Sounds Pro is an app on your Mac. Put its listener on your master, and on any track you want it to hear in detail. Everything you see and do is in the app.
Start on the master
One listener on the master hears the whole mix: balance, loudness, width, which section you are in, and how it compares with your reference.
Add it to any track
Put a listener on the kick, the bass, the vocal. Each one reports to the app under its track name, so it can tell you where parts get in each other's way.
It never touches the sound
Audio passes straight through, unchanged, with no delay and very little computer power. Nothing in your session changes unless you change it.
One place to look
The listener's window is a small strip: connected, what the track is, a meter, and Open in Sounds Pro. On one screen, the app shrinks to a slim panel beside your DAW.
Parts straight into your synth
Put the MIDI listener on an instrument track and generated basslines and chords play through your own synth while you change them. Drag them in when they are right.
Private by design
Your music and your sound library are analysed on your Mac. Nothing is uploaded unless you choose. It says when it has measured something and when it is going on a name.
Like a personal trainer
A coach beside you. Every day.
G
Your plan
Say what you want: finish songs you can sing over, or mixes that sound pro. It suggests a weekly rhythm that fits.
H
What can I hear now?
See what your ear can already pick out, worked out from your own listening results.
B
Before and after
This month's mix against last month's, with a measurement and with your ears.
M
Your mistakes, fixed
A round of the listening tests you got wrong, whenever you like.
N
My notebook
Save any explanation or move as you go. It becomes your own manual for your own plugins.
P
On your phone too
Listening sessions work on the phone with headphones. Everything else needs your Mac.
The sound engineer beside you.
Write, record, shape and mix your music with an expert beside you, on your own tracks, with the plugins and sounds you already own. Learn as you create.