InterMaster

GLUE: one knob

Turn AMOUNT and the mix sits together and sounds finished. Underneath are three bands: a slow leveller on the bass, a smooth glue on the mids and a fast tamer on the highs, each with a little saturation. The further you turn it, the fuller and denser it gets. 100% is the place to start and 200% the most, and it sounds right anywhere in between, so you set it by ear instead of hunting for a sweet spot.

At 0% GLUE is switched out altogether: the input passes untouched and costs no CPU.

EQ: shape it first

Three small knobs over GLUE's meters, LOW, MID and HIGH, for the broad moves a whole mix needs: more weight or less, a fuller or leaner middle, a little more air or a little less. Each is off at its centre. Halfway is a gentle setting, and the rest of the turn goes on to the most it gives. Turned left, a knob undoes what it does turned right.

The EQ comes before GLUE, so GLUE hears what you have done and works with it. The input meter reads before the EQ, so turning a knob does not move it, and the EQ adds no latency.

Land it in the bracket

Turn GAIN until the input meter's RMS sits in its bracket. That's where GLUE was tuned to work at the AMOUNT you've set, about -21 to -9 dB RMS at 100%, and the bracket moves as AMOUNT turns. GLUE's LOW, MID and HIGH meters have brackets of their own, so you can see at a glance that it is working where it should.

WIDTH: set by AMOUNT

WIDTH has no knob of its own: as AMOUNT turns, the mix opens up with it, and WIDTH's ACTIVE switch turns that part off. A mono fold-down is unchanged at any setting, and on a mono track the panel says there is nothing to widen.

LIMITER: seal the ceiling

The limiter is InterSilica's, with every control it has there. THRESHOLD sets where limiting starts and CEILING the most that comes out, so CEILING is the output level and there is no OUT knob. Lock the two and they move together, so you can pull THRESHOLD down to limit harder without getting louder. Release is automatic.

At zero latency nothing is clipped and loud hits do not duck. The loudest peaks may pass CEILING by up to 2 dB, which is why CEILING starts at -2.0 dB: the output stays under 0 dBFS. Switch on HI-QUALITY and the gain is in place 1.5 ms before each transient arrives, so CEILING holds exactly, for a ceiling nearer full scale. TRUE PEAK holds the ceiling on the peaks between samples too, and turns HI-QUALITY on to do it.

Under the GR and OUT meters is the output's loudness in LUFS, over the last 3 seconds. Click it for the whole song or set since you last reset it, and double-click to reset. It measures while InterMaster's window is open.

LEVEL MATCH: compare the sound

The louder version always seems better. Switch on LEVEL MATCH, beside ACTIVE in the header, and InterMaster evens out the level it adds or takes away, so switching it on and off in your DAW compares the sound, not the loudness. It follows the knobs as you turn them, worked out from their settings and never from the music, so it cannot pump.

It goes amber while it is on, with the amount beside it, so it is hard to leave on by mistake. Turn IN down and it brings the level back up, by 12 dB at most, and then peaks can go over CEILING: switch it off before the show. It is close, not exact, so trust your ears over a small difference.