Flow Mixing Suite

Introduction

Modern music producers have asked Softube for two things: a faster workflow while using pro audio plug-ins and options that help inspire their creativity to take their productions further. Flow® Mixing Suite is designed to quickly handle demanding production tasks for the key parts of your production, like vocals and drum bus, while providing creative inspiration and trying new things when you are in that mind space.

The Sound

With Flow Mixing Suite, you get the tools the pros use — tools from Tube-Tech® and Chandler Limited®, along with modernized studio staples — in a robust mixing environment full of tailor-made mixing chains, or flows, that fit every need.

The Flows

In psychology, the concept of "flow" refers to being in a mental state of immersion. This is when time slows down, you are deeply focused, and your body and mind are one with your work. In Flow® Mixing Suite, we aim to let the music producer stay in that flow state, in the production mindset. To work faster, save time, and get the best results possible, while enjoying the process.

We believe that the tools we use in audio production should be designed in a manner that enables the operator to trust their own decisions, motivative them to learn, give them opportunity to practice, and to make them sometimes leave their comfort zone to grow. In Flow Mixing Suite, you always see what the tools are doing, there are no black-box processing or secrets. While working, you get to see how professional signal chains are laid out, both for bread and butter mixing tasks, as well as creative and inspiring sound creation.

To ensure that the sound is modern, and that the workflow meets the requirements of today's music producers, we engaged a community of music producers, the Flow Producer Collective, to help us understand what is important to them. Their expertise and insights have been captured in what we call Flows: Custom built signal chains that use high-level macros to control the parts of the chain, along with contextual information. Additionally, Flow Packs made by professional music producers are available for download

Flow Designers

See the Flow Mixing Suite web page for information about how and by whom the Flows have been desgined.

User Interface

Input Panel

The input and output panels are included in every Softube plug-in. To read more about extra functionality of these, please see the Extended Features manual.

Input Volume

Sets the input level to the Flow. The Flows are designed to operate with an input level that measures around -10 dB peak.

Try to keep your input level around -10 dB peak.

Output Panel

A/B/C/D

Switch between different settings (states)

Gain Difference Metering

The orange gain difference meter measures the difference between the LUFS-S on the input and output and shows it as a meter. This makes it easy to manually or automatically gain compensate for the Flow.

Gain Match Input

Matches the LUFS-S on the input to the LUFS-S on the output to make it easy to compare the difference in sound. Use the Bypass button in the Flow to get a glitch free comparison.

Gain Match Reset

Resets the output level to 0.0 dB.

Pre Fader Metering

Lets you monitor the output level before the output gain. This is useful if you use Gain Match Input to A/B compare the audio, but you still want to see what the final output level will be. After comparing, press Gain Match Reset to reset the output level to 0 dB.

Output Volume

Sets the level of the output.

You probably want to compare the audio before and after Flow, and the easiest way to do this is by clicking Gain Match Input to level match the input and output, and then use the Bypass functionality in Flow to get a glitch-free smooth bypass.

Flow Controls Panel

The Controls panel on the left consists of the Flow Controls, which are unique for each Flow, along with the Flow Selector, with which you can select a different Flow.

Flow Selector

Click on the name of the Flow to open the Flow selector, where you can choose between many different Flows for different purposes. Flows can be edited but cannot be saved. If you want to save your edits, you should create a preset. See below. If you are currently editing a User Preset, this is shown by the text "User Signal Chain" below the name.

Flows

These are built-in Flows made in-house from the inspiration of gathering information about current music production from the Flow Producer Collective.

Flow Packs

Flow Packs are optional Flows that are available for you to install. They are a bit more specialized than the built-in Flows, for example focusing on a certain genre, or a producer's secret tricks. More Flow Packs will continuously be available for download.

User Presets

Here you will find your own signal chains. Flows have more functionality than User Presets, but cannot be edited, which makes User Presets important if you want to save your own signal chains.

New

Choosing this option enables you to build your own signal chain from scratch. Click the '+' sign to start adding plug-ins and right-click any plug-in parameter to create a macro for that control.

Read more about this in the Designing Flow Controls section.

Tip: You can start building your own signal chain from an existing Flow. Click the Softube menu bar that shows the current preset and choose 'Add Preset'. This will create a new user preset that includes all the settings from the Flow.

Flow Controls

A Flow Control is a very powerful control that can adjust several parameters in several plug-ins with a single turn. Hovering a control will give you a description of its intended use, as well as an overview of which plug-ins and parameters it controls.

Hovering a Flow Control within a Flow will display a Flow guide help text, and also mark which plug-ins it is controlling with a colored line underneath each controlled plug-in.

Apart from adjusting the control, there are many more tricks to it:

• Click the control to cycle through each plug-in that it controls.
• Hover the control to read description and see which plug-ins it controls.
• Right-click the control to open the Flow Control settings.

The control is color coded to easily understand which type of function it has:

• Blue is tonal changes, such as EQ.
• Orange is dynamic changes, typically compressors.
• Yellow is distortion or saturation.
• Dark green is stereo image and widening processing.
• Light green is pitch correction.
• Magenta is delay or echo.
• Purple is reverb or ambience.
• Gray means that the control no longer corresponds to the settings of the individual plug-ins, if you for instance adjusted a parameter in a plug-in directly.

For more information about how to design and use Flow Controls, see the "Designing Flow Controls" section.

Frequency Analyzer

Behind the signal chain is always a frequency analyzer available. The frequency analyzer displays the output (blue in foreground), input (blue in background). The frequency analyzer can be customized by selecting the following options from the cogwheel in the upper right corner of the analyzer:

In/Out

Shows or hides In/Out curve visualizations.

Mode

Fast, Slow (default), Hold Average, Hold Peak. Sets the update speed of the analyzer.

Channel Conf

Input/Output (default), Left/Right, Mid/Side or Sidechain.

Tilt

Tilts the frequency spectrum 0 dB (default), +3 dB (pink noise tilt) or +6 dB (brown noise tilt). With a +3 dB setting, the frequency spectrum will be flat for a pink noise signal, which corresponds better to how our ear perceives frequencies.

Smoothing

Sets the frequency smoothing of the spectrum, from completely off, to 1 semitone (1/12 octave, default) up to 2 octaves smoothing.

Block Size

Sets the frequency resolution and update speed of the spectrum.

Plug-ins Panel

At the bottom of the user interface are the included plug-ins. Click on a plug-in to open it, click and drag the menu bar below to view all plug-ins, and hover a plug-in to read information about it.

Disable turns off the plug-in and saves CPU. This is not intended to use as a "smooth" way of bypassing a plug-in.

Remove deletes the plug-in from the signal chain.

Sidechain: You can connect an external sidechain to Flow Mixing Suite. This can be used by enabling external sidechain in the respective plug-ins that have a sidechain input. Please refer to the respective plug-in manual for how to enable external sidechain.

Preset Browser: On the top left of the open plug-in is the Preset Browser where you can load/save presets for each plug-in. For more information about the Preset Browser, please see the Preset Collection manual.

Customizing the Signal Chain

You can customize the plug-in signal chain to your liking.

Saving Your Changes: You can add, remove and move plug-ins and Flow Controls but your changes are not saved when you're in a Flow. If you want to save your changes you should save them as a User Signal Chain (also referred to as User Preset).

Add Plug-ins: Click the plus sign that appears when hovering beside a plug-in in the Plug-ins Panel.

Move Plug-in: Click and drag the plug-in.

Remove Plug-in: Click 'Remove' below the plug-in in the signal chain.

Designing Flow Controls

It is possible to both start from scratch, or edit an existing Flow. In this guide we describe how to start from scratch.

Start a new Flow

1. Open the Flow selector and press NEW to start with an empty Flow.
2. Press the + icon to add a plug-in to that Flow.

Create a Flow Control

1. Right-click a Flow Control to open the Mapping menu. It will show a list of the latest adjusted plug-in parameters, as well as a list of all available plug-in parameters.
2. Make sure you are in the "Mappings" tab (we'll get to the "Style" tab later).
3. Click Map next to the parameter to map that parameter to the Flow Control. The parameter is now mapped to the Flow Control.

Mappings

Shows which parameters are mapped to the Flow Control. Use to add, remove or edit parameter macros.

Map/Unmap

Add/remove the selected parameter to the Flow Control

Gear icon

Open the advanced mappings menu

Trash can icon

Delete the Flow Control.

Last Touched/All

Shows either a list of last touched parameters, or a large list of all current parameters in the Flow's plug-ins.

Style

Sets the style (name, color, visualization) for the Flow Control.

It is possible to map several parameters as you want to a single Flow Control.

Advanced Mapping

Click the gear menu next to Unmap to open the mapping graph. It shows how changes on the Flow Control will affect the parameter, and you can use it to invert the parameter, adjust the max and min ranges, as well as making non-linear curves between the Flow Control and parameter.

In the mapping graph, you can do the following: * Double click to add a mapping point. * Double click that point to snap the Flow Control to the current point. * Right-click a point to remove it * Drag the point to move it. Option/Alt + Drag locks it to either the X or Y axis. Shift + Drag snaps the movement to the parameter's quantization (if applicable).

Continuous/Stepped

The icon to the left changes between a continuous and a stepped mapping.

Top slider

The horizontal slider above the node graph controls the value of the Flow Control.

Side slider

The vertical slider to the right of the node graph controls the mapped parameter. If the parameter is quantized, holding shift will snap the slider to the quantized values.

It's possible to type in values of the Flow Control and the mapped parameter by double clicking the sliders. If the parameter is linked (can be toggled via the link icon), changing the Flow Control will snap the mapped parameter to the corresponding value of the curve in the node graph.

Plus sign

Add a new control point at the current position.

Style a Flow Control

The "Style" tab lets you style the Flow Control:

Name

Sets the name of the Flow Control.

Description

Sets the short description of the Flow Control.

Color

Sets the color of the Flow Control.

Visualization

Sets the type of visualization that Flow Mixing Suite and Flow Studio will use for the Flow Control.

Not all visualizations are possible for all plug-ins, for example the "Reverb Waterfall" plot requires a plug-in in the Reverb category to work. Most visualizations are only applicable for Softube plug-ins.

Appearance

Choose whether the Flow Control is normal, centered around 12 o'clock or a two-way switch.

Omni Mode

Sets if the Flow Control should be a part of the Flow Studio hardware's Omni knob or not. Only applicable for Flow Studio.

Save Your Work

When you are done, save your work as a preset. It will appear under "User Presets" in the Flow Selector.

Third Party Plug-in Support

Flow can host selected third-party VST3 plug-ins alongside Softube's own. Before you can load them, they have to be scanned.

Please note that Flow Mixing and Mastering is only loading VST3 plug-ins, regardless which plug-in format Flow Mixing and Mastering is using. That means that you need to have installed the VST3 versions of the plug-ins to use them in Flow.

1. Open the plug-ins menu (clicking on the + icon) and press Scan for Third Party Plug-ins at the top of the menu. This will open the scanner menu.
2. Press Scan For Plug-ins to start the scan. This will scan for all eligible plug-ins.
3. When the scan has finished, a list of scanned plug-ins is presented below, and the plug-ins are ready to be used in the Flow Mixing and Mastering Suites. Softube's own plug-ins are not included in the scan. They are already known to Flow and appears in the plug-in list without scanning.

Scan for plug-ins

Scans everything, from scratch. The existing list is thrown away and every VST3 plug-in on your computer is looked at again. Use this the first time or whenever you want a clean slate. This can take a while to complete, depending on the size of your VST3 library.

Scan for new only

Only looks at plug-ins that are not already in the list, and leaves everything else exactly as it is. Use this one after installing a new plug-in and you don't want to wait for a full scan.

Rescan

Appears next to an individual plug-in that failed the scan when you hover over it, and scans just that one plug-in, replacing its previous result. Useful after updating a single plug-in, or to give one that failed another try.

Rescan failed

Goes through everything that didn't scan successfully last time and tries again. Handy when a plug-in failed for a reason you have since fixed, such as an authorization that hadn't been completed.

"Not eligible" means that the plug-in has not been allowed by Flow Mixing and Mastering. At the moment, only a handful of vendors are being added to Flow.

Use Third Party Plug-Ins

After scanning, the plug-ins that successfully scanned are available from the regular plug-in menu in Flow Mixing Suite. It is possible to search both for the name of the plug-in as well as the name of the manufacturer.

Compact mode: In Settings > Other > Show a Compact List you can set if the list of plug-ins should show plug-in vendor and large thumbnails or be compact with smaller thumbnails.

Mapping Third Party Plug-in Parameters to Flow Controls

Third party plug-ins can be mapped to Flow Controls in the same way as Softube plug-in parameters. However, we can only map parameters that the plug-in expose to its host (the DAW or Flow Mixing). There are cases where a plug-in's parameters are only controllable through their plug-in UI and not the DAW, and these parameters are not possible to map to a Flow Control.

Only parameters that are automatable through a DAW are possible to map to a Flow Control.

Plug-in UI and Thumbnails

Before a third party plug-in has been loaded, it is using a generic icon unless that plug-in supports VST3 thumbnails.

Third party plug-ins are opened in a separate window, unlike Softube's plug-ins. As soon as the plug-in has opened, Flow tries to take a picture of it to use as a thumbnail. macOS will ask for permission to capture the screen, it is important that you allow that if you want VST3 UI thumbnails in Flow Mixing, Mastering and on Flow Studio.

Sadly, in some cases it won't be possible to take screenshots even with permission. It's technical and depends on processes, window types and hardware acceleration.

If you want to re-take the thumbnail screenshot, click the camera icon below the plug-in thumbnail.

Flow Mixing Suite will try to take a screenshot of the loaded third-party plugins, this is done in a 2 step process, on MAC this require screen recording permissions. Support for this varies by DAW and plugin.

The Scanner

The scanner looks through the VST3 folders on your computer, tries to load the selected third-party VST3 plug-ins and saves the load result. Softube's own plug-ins are not included in the scan. They are already known to Flow and appear in your plug-in list without any scanning.

The scan does not run inside Flow itself. It runs in a separate small program, the Softube Plug-in Scanner, which is installed together with Flow. It is run as a separate process to avoid crashing the DAW if a third-party plug-in crashes.

If the scan buttons are greyed out and say Scanner not installed, the helper program is missing from your system. Reinstall Flow from Softube Central to get it back.

Version Mismatch

Flow and the scanner have to be of matching versions to work together. If they aren't, no scan is started and you get a warning telling you which of the two is the older one:

• Update plugin to scan plugins — Flow is older than the scanner.
• Update scanner to scan plugins — the scanner is older than Flow.

This normally happens when only one of them has been updated, so the fix is to run the updates in Softube Central until both are current. Flow Mixing and Mastering will continue to run as normal, the only error is that the scan simply won't run and you won't be able to scan for new plug-in until the versions are in sync.

Plug-ins That Don't Respond

Some plug-ins take a very long time to open, or stop responding altogether. Usually because they are waiting for something, like an authorization dialog or a licence server.

To keep one plug-in from holding up everything, the scanner gives each plug-in five seconds to respond. A plug-in that hasn't answered by then is closed and the scan moves straight on to the next one. This is why a scan always finishes and the progress never freezes.

A plug-in that was closed this way is listed as failed. It is not necessarily broken — it simply didn't finish in time, and you need to rescan it. Before doing so, please fo the following:

• Open the plug-in once in your DAW and complete any authorization or registration it asks for.
• Make sure it is fully installed and up to date.
• Then use Rescan on that plug-in, or Rescan failed to retry everything at once.

If it keeps failing after that, the plug-in most likely isn't compatible.

Allow All Plug-ins

There is an option to bypass the current allow list for VST3 plug-ins. In the plug-in's Settings menu (next to the green Softube logo), scroll down to Advanced Settings > Scan for all installed third-party VST3 plug-ins and check the box.

This feature is unsupported.