USER MANUAL

v1.2

1. What MONKEY MASTERING is

MONKEY MASTERING is an all-in-one automatic mastering plugin for macOS and Windows, shipped as VST3 (Mac and Windows), AU (macOS only) and as a Standalone application (Mac and Windows). In one window, and with a single decision on your part, it combines every tool a modern master needs: a 5-band parametric EQ, a compressor with four characters, a limiter with true-peak control, saturation/clipper with oversampling, a de-esser, sidechain, stereo image with Mid/Side, dithering, stem separation and a virtual monitoring system with 21 profiles.

The engine does not replace your judgement. It starts from a professional configuration based on the track type you are processing (kick, vocal, pad, full mix…) and on the music style (Pop, Drill, Techno, Reggaeton, Classical…), and gives you quick, readable controls to fine-tune the rest.

You can use MONKEY MASTERING in three ways:

• Per-track insert while you mix — a fast, musical starting point on every channel.
• Pre-master bus — glue the full mix before final mastering.
• Master Final — final loudness, clipping, limiter, dither and streaming target for release.

And it tells you what it did to your audio. Three tools that go together — the Honesty Stack: THE DAMAGE RECEIPT (what the chain took away, measured), Δ NULL (the processing alone, audible) and THE HONEST NO (the plugin refusing to process a track that already meets the target). See §24.ter.

2. Design philosophy

MONKEY MASTERING has a clear opinion by design. Here is what that means:

• Defaults with judgement. Every track type × style combination loads the settings an experienced engineer would dial in. You do not start from zero.
• One plugin. One decision. Instead of ten plugins in a chain, you pick a track type, a style and a mode. The rest is handled.
• Transparent when it should be, coloured when it helps. Four compression characters, a soft clipper with 4× oversampling and adjustable DRIVE, and style-dependent EQ curves give you character without giving up clarity.
• Real measurement. Loudness measurement conforming to BS.1770-4 / EBU R128, true-peak readout, a PROOF panel with a per-platform verdict, level-matched A/B comparison, real-time spectrum. You never fly blind.
• Your mix, your call. Every automatic decision can be overridden in EXTRAS. The automatic spectral analysis suggests; you decide what gets applied.
• Release-ready. You pick the destination and the plugin sets the loudness target and the true-peak ceiling. The PROOF panel then tells you, with numbers, whether your master meets it.
• The Honesty Stack — three tools, one package. THE DAMAGE RECEIPT shows you what the chain took away from your audio, Δ NULL lets you hear the processing on its own, and THE HONEST NO turns down the job when your track already meets the target. Being able to audit the plugin is a feature, not an add-on. See §24.ter.

3. System requirements

Verified DAWs

4. Installation

macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel)

1. Download MONKEY MASTERING.pkg from your Lemon Squeezy purchase email.
2. Double-click to run the installer. The VST3 goes to /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3/ and the AU to /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components/.
3. Manual install alternative: copy MONKEY MASTERING.vst3 to ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3/ and/or MONKEY MASTERING.component to ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components/.
4. Open your DAW and rescan plugins. MONKEY MASTERING appears under Mastering / Monkey Mastering.
5. First launch: paste your licence key → Activate. Done. Still no key? The 14-day trial starts automatically with the complete set of Pro features.

Windows 10/11

1. Download MONKEY MASTERING Setup.exe from your purchase email.
2. Run the installer. The VST3 goes to C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3\.
3. Manual install: copy MONKEY MASTERING.vst3 to that folder.
4. Open your DAW, rescan VST3, activate the licence.

5. Getting started

5.1 Where it goes — and how to use it on every track while you mix

MONKEY MASTERING is a mastering plugin that works by measuring. You play your audio, it listens for about 20 seconds and builds its chain from what it actually heard — not from a preset that guesses. Then it tells you, with numbers, whether the result meets the platform you are sending it to.

It is a plugin (VST3 on Mac and Windows, AU on Mac) and it also runs on its own, as an application, with no DAW. You insert it like any other plugin, in one of these two places:

Track by track, while you mix

1. Insert MONKEY MASTERING on a channel (a kick, for example).
2. Set Mode to TRACK.
3. Set Track Type to KICK and pick the style of the song.
4. MONKEY MASTERING applies an EQ, compression and saturation recipe specific to a kick and tuned to the style. Fine-tune the knob row (LEVEL / THRESHOLD / RATIO / ATTACK / RELEASE / MIX / CEILING) if you want.
5. Repeat for snare, vocal, bass… Keep one instance on the master in PRE-MASTER or MASTER FINAL.

5.2 Your first master — 3 phases, 6 steps

Three phases that contain six steps. The plugin walks you through them the first time you open it, and you can repeat that walkthrough whenever you like from the “...” menu.

PHASE 1 — Tell it what it is listening to

01

What are we mastering?

Pick the Track Type and the Music Style. That is all the context the engine needs to know what is “right” for your material.

02

ANALYZE

Play the loudest part of the track and press ANALYZE. Give it about 20 seconds. It is measuring your real audio — the loudest part is the one that will have to deal with the limiter, and that is why it is the part worth measuring.

PHASE 2 — It masters itself

03

Applying is automatic

When the analysis ends the whole chain sets itself and the dot on the CHAIN plate stays solid gold. You do not have to press anything.

And if your mix was already fine, it says so instead of processing it. That is the Honest No: a line in the PROOF panel telling you there was nothing worth touching. The WHY? button — top right of the chain, next to REF TRACK — opens the reasons, explained.

PHASE 3 — Check it and deliver it

04

Where is it going?

Pick your destination in PLATFORM. That sets the loudness target and the true-peak ceiling the master has to respect — and it is the question answered by the next step.

No Target and Generic are not platforms, they are shortcuts: No Target touches nothing (use it while you are working) and Generic is a safe middle ground for when you do not yet know where the track will end up.

05

The verdict

Play the whole track once and read PROOF. The seal on the right is the answer: it reads COMPLIANT, in green, when the master meets the destination you chose. Here green is earned — in this plugin nothing is green for decoration.

The seal says	Which means
NO TARGET	You have not picked a platform yet, so there is nothing to measure against.
MEASURING	Keep listening. Let the track run.
COMPLIANT	It meets the target and stays under the ceiling. Ready to send.
OVER TP	True peak is above what the platform allows.
Δ ±x LU	How far the loudness still is from the target.

The two small green numbers under the big figures are the distance to the target (loudness) and to the ceiling (true peak) — which is why they only appear under those two.

Want to hear exactly what the plugin changed? Δ NULL, in the A/B row under the EQ, plays the difference only: your audio subtracted from the processed signal. If you can barely hear anything, it has barely done anything.

06

Export

Bounce from your DAW as you always do — the plugin prints exactly what you heard. Or press REC, in the section just above PROOF, to write the file from the plugin itself.

One thing that is not obvious: Virtual Speaker, Codec Preview and Δ NULL colour what you hear and never reach the file. They also switch themselves off while your DAW renders, so a bounce sounds the same with them on or off.

5.3 Key tips

Before you stack many instances

6. The interface, section by section — EXPERT

This is the whole plugin, opened in EXPERT — with every section unfolded. Read this chapter once and you know where everything is; BASE (§6.bis) is this same window with most of it folded away.

The window reads top to bottom in numbered sections. The numbering lives on the strip down the left edge, which works as an index and only lists the sections that exist in the active mode. The map that follows is the one for MASTER FINAL, which has twelve; in TRACK and PRE-MASTER DE-ESSER and SIDECHAIN also appear, and PLATFORM, REC and PROOF disappear — the rail rearranges itself, without you touching anything.

Hover over a number — or tap it, if you are on a touch screen — to see what that part of the plugin does. Below the map, each section is explained in detail.

•HeaderYour view (BASE / EXPERT), your licence, the integrated loudness, the language and the master on/off. 01SETUPPreset, mode, and what you are mastering: track type and music style. 02SMART EQFive bands drawn over your real spectrum. Drag any of them. 03METERSHow hard it is compressing, and the input and output levels. 04COMPRESSORThe compressor. The analysis sets these seven knobs — you can still move them. 05MID/SIDEStereo width, and separate compression for the centre and the sides. 06IMAGINGBass to mono below a frequency, and width per band. 07STEMSSplits the mix into vocals, drums, bass and the rest. Heavy on the computer — see §5.3. 08EXTRASDe-esser, sidechain, filters, clipper and the advanced compressor controls. 09VIRTUAL SPEAKERHear your master as a phone or a laptop would play it. It never reaches the file. 10PLATFORMWhere it goes. Sets the loudness target and the true-peak ceiling. 11RECWrites the result to a file straight from the plugin. 12PROOFThe verdict, measured. COMPLIANT in green means it meets the destination you chose.

EXPERT view. The twelve sections unfolded and, on the left, the index that numbers them.

6.bis BASE — the same interface, folded v1.2

BASE is not a second interface. It is the window you have just read about (§6) with most of its sections folded. It hides nothing, disables nothing, switches nothing off and is missing no control — a folded section is one click away from being open, in the same place and in the same order.

Folding and unfolding a section

Every section header carries a ▶/▼arrow. One click on the header opens the section in place; another click folds it back to a single line. Two things survive the folding, and they are the reason folding is safe:

• The readout stays in view on the header row (W 100%, B<110 · M100 · H112 EFF, STEMS OFF, GR −2.2 dB): you know what a section is doing without having to open it.
• The ON/OFF switch is still in charge. It controls the processing independently of the folding, and switching a section on unfolds it automatically.

What BASE leaves unfolded

Exactly what you need for the six steps in §5.2, and nothing more:

• Open: the PRESETrow, the mode tabs, the Track Type and Music Styleselectors, the CHAIN plate with the big ANALYZE (plus REF TRACK and WHY?), the A/B comparison with Δ NULL and UNDO, the meters, 09 VIRTUAL SPEAKER, the 10 PLATFORM, 11 REC grid and the full 12 PROOF panel.
• Folded: 02 SMART EQ, 04 COMPRESSOR, 05 MID/SIDE, 06 IMAGING, 07 STEM SEPARATOR and 08 EXTRAS — each one on a single line, with its header, its readout and its switch.

Read the two lists together and you have the argument: what stays open is the master; what folds away is the fine-tuning.

Switching view, and what switching view does not do

You switch with the plate in the plugin header or from the preset “...” menu, where BASE and EXPERT are marked with the active view. Switching view does not touch a single audio parameter: it folds and unfolds. Four consequences worth knowing:

• The engine is untouched. Folding is an interface gesture; it does not bypass or simplify any processing. The DSP works exactly the same in both views, and both offer exactly the same features.
• BASE does not force any mode. The TRACK / PRE-MASTER / MASTER FINAL tabs are always there, in both views: BASE cannot take capability away from you.
• The header plate tells you where it takes you, not where you are: in BASE it reads EXPERT and in EXPERT it reads BASE. The tooltip makes clear which one you are in.
• The view is NOT saved with the session. It lives on each machine, together with the rest of your local preferences. Parameters travel with the song; the view travels with you. That is why loading a preset no longer rewrites your interface, and undoing a parameter no longer moves your view. The UI scale lives in the same place (75–150%), next to BASE / EXPERT, About and Tour.

Guided first-run tour

The first time you open MONKEY MASTERING on a machine the plugin asks you first whether you want to start in BASE or in EXPERT — and only then starts the tour, so that the tour explains the interface you chose. The tour has 6 steps, one goal at a time: 1 what are we mastering (Track Type and style) → 2 ANALYZE with the loudest part → 3 the automatic APPLY (the CHAIN LED) → 4 where it goes (PLATFORM) → 5 the verdict (PROOF) → 6 export (REC or bounce). Click anywhere to move on, or use SKIP / ESC to close it — once closed it does not come back.

7. Modes and signal chain

MONKEY MASTERING offers three modes. Same plugin, different personality:

All three modes respect the Track Type + style + streaming target selection and adapt their recipe accordingly.

8. Track Types — 16 options

The Track Type tells MONKEY MASTERING what you are processing. This choice shapes the EQ curves, the compressor character, the de-esser behaviour and the macro defaults. It lives in 01 SETUP, the first section of the window (§6).

The full list of the 16, grouped by family, is in Appendix 37.1.

The Standard tier includes 8 of the 16 track types; Pro unlocks all 16 (see §30).

9. Music styles — 24 options

The style tells MONKEY MASTERING where the song lives. It controls the tonal balance, the target loudness, the bass weight, the air, the compression density and the colour of the saturation.

The full list of the 24 is in Appendix 37.2.

The style affects the initial EQ curve, the compressor attack/release, the saturation drive, the fallback target LUFS and the default stereo width. Changing style without touching anything else can transform the sound radically — try it.

The Standard tier includes 12 of the 24 styles; Pro unlocks all 24 (see §30).

10. PLATFORM — where your master is going

PLATFORM is section 10. Here you pick where the master is going: eight platforms and two utilities, No Target and Generic.

The loudness target and the true-peak ceiling of each plate — the 8 platforms and the 2 utilities — are tabulated in Appendix 37.3.

Picking a destination only moves the limiter ceiling and tells the integrated LUFS meter which reference line to show. It does not touch your EQ, the compressor, the width or IMAGING: the tweaks you made by hand stay where you left them.

The Standard tier includes 3 platforms (Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube) plus the two utilities, No Target and Generic; Pro unlocks all 8 platforms (see §30).

10.bis Raw export v1.0

The ● REC button in Master Final mode captures the processed audio straight to disk while the host plays. You master the project, press REC, pick the format, start playback and you get a file of the mastered output — with no need to bounce externally from the DAW.

How it works:

1. Put the plugin in Master Final mode (the REC button only appears there).
2. Press ● REC → pick the format (WAV 16 / WAV 24 / FLAC / MP3 128–320, macOS) → pick the destination file.
3. Play the track in your DAW from the start; the plugin records its output to disk in real time.
4. When playback ends, press ■ STOP; the file is closed and the buffer is flushed.

11. 5-band parametric EQ v1.0

A fully visible, musical EQ with five bands designed for mastering. On screen it is section 02, SMART EQ – 20 Hz – 20 kHz:

Each band offers ±12 dB. The initial curves come from the Track Type + style seed; every band can be tweaked live by dragging its handle on the EQ display.

Use the HP / LP cuts in the input stage (before the bands) to remove rumble (< 30 Hz) and ultrasonic artefacts (> 18 kHz).

12. Compression and compression modes

The MONKEY MASTERING compressor offers four character modes. The style preset picks one automatically; you can override it. It is section 04, and its header is a plate showing the active character:

The amount of compression is set from the main knob row — THRESHOLD, RATIO, ATTACK, RELEASE and MIX — and the Track Type + style seed fills in all five for you. In the EXTRAS area (Pro) you get direct control of the compressor threshold (TH), the knee (KNEE), the detector filter (SC HPF) and the program-dependent release (AUTO REL) — see §19.

12.1 Pro compressor controls v1.1

v1.1 extends the compressor with the four controls every human mastering engineer reaches for. The defaults preserve the previous sound exactly — old sessions load unchanged.

The four compression modes seed these controls automatically (Glue: knee 8, auto-release, SC HPF 60 Hz · Punch: knee 2, MIX 60%, SC HPF 100 Hz · Transparent: knee 12, auto-release · Distorted: knee 0, fully wet), and ANALYZE also sets all four from the measured crest factor and sub energy.

13. De-esser

A split-band de-esser covering 4–12 kHz (default 7.5 kHz). It switches itself on in exactly two track types: Lead Vocal (7.5 kHz, threshold −16 dB) and Backing Vocals (8 kHz, −18 dB). On any other track type it starts OFF — switch it on by hand if the source is sibilant.

Listen to the sidechain alone in EXTRAS to confirm you are catching esses and not cymbals or breath.

14. Sidechain redesigned v1.0

Classic sidechain ducking — the “pumping” effect where the bass or the pads dip every time the kick hits. In v1.0 the section was simplified to three knobs, all automatable from your DAW:

The trigger always comes from your DAW’s external sidechain input. Route the kick (or any trigger signal) to MONKEY MASTERING’s sidechain input in your DAW: in Ableton Live, expand the device title bar and pick the source in the sidechain routing selector; in Logic Pro, use the Side Chain menu at the top right of the plugin header.

15. Stereo Width and Mid/Side PRO redesigned v1.0

The Width macro on the main panel controls the stereo image from narrow (50%) through natural (100%) to hyper-wide (140%). MONKEY MASTERING uses Mid/Side processing: it preserves mono compatibility by leaving the mid channel intact and shaping the side channel with EQ and gain.

The dedicated MID/SIDE section (Pro) is section 05 and it was redesigned in v1.0 around three knobs:

The output ceiling is handled by the true-peak limiter and the platform target (§17).

• Styles that benefit from wider sides: Ambient / Cinematic, Trance, R&B / Soul, Pop choruses, EDM drops.
• Styles that want tight mono: Drill, Phonk, Techno Pure, Dembow, Lo-Fi / Chill.

15.bis IMAGING — per-band stereo image PRO v1.2

Master Final only. IMAGING is section 06, between MID/SIDE (05) and STEM SEPARATOR (07), and it works only on the sidechannel, per band. The signal is encoded to Mid/Side once, only the side is processed and the mid passes through intact — which is why the module is mono-safe by construction: the imaging module does not touch your mono sum. The card shows the module’s measured mono delta live (MONO Δ).

Position in the chain: after the global WIDTH knob (full-band, which runs first — the two multiply) and before the true-peak limiter. Zero added latency (minimum-phase IIR only). The MID/HIGH split at 2.5 kHz is a complementary 1st-order pair (6 dB/oct slopes) that reconstructs the signal perfectly at 100%. The defaults are entirely neutral: with BASS MONO off and both widths at 100% the module is a hard bypass — old sessions sound identical.

Picking a music style loads a measured starting point (never more than 115% width, and the factory seeds never widen the mids). The per-style seed table is in Appendix 37.5.

If a style seed widens the highs, that same seed returns the global WIDTH to 100% — blind full-band widening is replaced by per-band widening. ANALYZE seeds by measurement, not by faith: BASS MONO is only switched on when the measured correlation below 150 Hz justifies it (otherwise it stays OFF), and no widening is added if your mix is already wide.

16. Clipper with oversampling 4× OS v1.0

A soft clipper with 4× oversampling (tanh curve, polyphase IIR oversampling) placed before the limiter, active in Master Final. It shaves the peaks musically so the limiter does not pump. A single control: DRIVE (0–12 dB, the CLIPPER knob in the EXTRAS area). At 0 dB the stage is transparent; as you raise DRIVE you push the signal against the curve — from a gentle peak rounding to obvious saturation for lo-fi / drill / phonk.

Latency: about 3 samples from the 4× polyphase IIR oversampling. It is not reported to the host: the plugin reports 0 samples of latency unless the Stem Separator is on (see §22). Three samples is far below a millisecond and does not shift your timeline audibly.

17. True-Peak Limiter

Final stage. A brick-wall limiter with look-ahead and true-peak detection per ITU BS.1770. The ceiling follows the streaming target and, since v1.0, the limiter keeps a 0.3 dB true-peak safety margin under the platform ceiling — extra insurance against inter-sample overshoots when the platform re-encodes your master to a lossy codec. Use LEVEL to push the signal into the limiter, not the ceiling.

18. Dithering

Active only in MASTER FINAL. TPDF (Triangular Probability Density Function) dither applied at the output when bit-depth reduction happens (24 → 16 or 16 → 16 for streaming). Inaudible on modern material, mathematically correct for preserving resolution in quiet tails.

19. EXTRAS — the expert area PRO two rows v1.2

EXTRAS is section 08 and it exposes the internal parameters the MONKEY MASTERING engine normally decides for you, in two rows:

Use the EXTRAS area when the automatic result covers 95% of the way and you want to push that last 5%. Leave it folded when you want speed.

20. Reference Track PRO

Load a commercial track you want your master to sit next to. MONKEY MASTERING analyses its spectral balance, its loudness and its dynamic range, and offers a match button that biases the EQ curve and the target LUFS towards the reference.

You get the most out of it with a reference from the same style, ideally a release from the same platform you are targeting.

21. Automatic spectral analysis v1.0

Press ANALYZE on a representative section (chorus, drop, the densest part). MONKEY MASTERING listens and suggests:

• The most likely Track Type (FullStem, Kick, Vocal…) PRO.
• The closest music style PRO.
• EQ band offsets to rebalance.
• Compression amount (threshold, ratio, knee, MIX and the detector filter).
• A width recommendation.
• A loudness target.

APPLY is automatic v1.2: when the analysis ends, the chain applies itself and the CHAIN LED stays solid gold — unless your track already meets the target, in which case MONKEY MASTERING says so instead of processing (the Honest No). After that you can fine-tune individual modules section by section, and the internal parameters from EXTRAS.

22. Stem Separator PRO

Real-time separation of the incoming stereo mix into four soft-stems: Drums, Bass, Vocals, Other. Technology: 4096-point FFT with a 1024-sample hop (75% overlap) + Harmonic/Percussive Source Separation + Mid/Side masking. The 5120 samples of latency below are one FFT window plus one hop — they are not the window size.

• Latency: 5120 samples (~116 ms @ 44.1 kHz) with the Stem Separator ON — reported to the host, which compensates automatically. Off, the plugin reports 0 samples. Those are the only two values MONKEY MASTERING ever reports.
• CPU: moderate. Switch it off if you do not need it.
• Use it to send different saturation / EQ curves to the four soft-stems inside EXTRAS, or to quickly remix / rebalance a finished mix.

23. Virtual Speaker section 09

Monitoring emulation of 21 playback systems. Virtual Speaker is monitoring only — it does not colour the bounce, and the plugin leaves it out automatically as soon as the host renders offline. It occupies section 09. It is what you check before deciding on delivery, and it sits apart from the processing sections because it never reaches the file.

The 21 profiles, by category, and what each headphone-class profile simulates are listed in Appendix 37.4.

Every profile — headphones included — is a generic class curve (frequency response, imaging and small-speaker compression), never the simulation of a specific commercial model.

Cycle through four profiles while the master plays. If the bass disappears on Earbuds Premium, your sub is tilted too far towards 40 Hz. If the vocal turns harsh on the TV, take 1 dB off 2–4 kHz.

24. LUFS meter

Loudness measurement conforming to ITU BS.1770-4:

• Momentary (M): 400 ms window, instantaneous loudness perception.
• Short-term (S): 3 s sliding window, ideal for comparing chorus with chorus.
• Integrated (I): running average since playback started. This is the number that matters for streaming.
• Loudness Range (LRA): the dynamic range of your master in LU. Pop lives around 5–8 LU; classical between 12–20 LU.

Press RESET to start a fresh integrated measurement from the beginning of the song.

In MASTER FINAL mode the loudness engine also feeds the PROOF panel — the complete pre-release verification described in the next section.

24.bis The PROOF panel — verify your master v1.0

The PROOF panel is section 12, the last one, in MASTER FINAL mode — directly below 11 REC and one section below 10 PLATFORM, which is the destination it is checking against. It is a loudness measurement suite conforming to ITU-R BS.1770-4 / EBU R128 — the same standards broadcasters and streaming platforms use — and it answers one question in one glance: is this master ready for the platform I selected?

The implementation passes the official EBU Tech 3341 test vectors, the reference signals the EBU publishes for validating loudness meters. In other words: the numbers you read here are the numbers a broadcast-grade meter would read.

What each number means (in plain language)

The verdict

At the very bottom, next to the VERDICTline, the panel stamps a seal with the verdict against the platform you selected:

• NO TARGET (gold): you have not picked a destination, so there is nothing to judge against. Go down to PLATFORM and choose one.
• MEASURING (gold): there is no valid integrated measurement yet. Press RESET and play the whole track.
• COMPLIANT (green): integrated loudness is within ±1 LU of the target and max true peak is at or under the platform ceiling. Export with confidence.
• Δ +2.3 LU (red): true peak is fine, but the integrated loudness deviates from the target and the seal prints how many LU (“+2.3 LU” = you are 2.3 LU louder than the target). Adjust LEVEL.
• OVER TP +0.4 (red): true peak overshoots the platform ceiling, and the seal prints the overshoot. Fix this one before release: it is the difference between a clean and a crunchy stream.

Step by step: verify your master before release

1. Put MONKEY MASTERING in MASTER FINAL mode on the master bus and pick your destination in PLATFORM (section 10).
2. Rewind the DAW to the very start of the song.
3. Press RESET on the PROOF panel. All measurements restart from zero.
4. Play the whole track once, start to finish, without stopping, looping or skipping. Integrated LUFS, LRA and Max True Peak are running measurements — they need the complete song to be honest.
5. When playback ends, read the verdict. A green COMPLIANT seal → bounce/export from your DAW. A red seal → apply the fix (usually a small LEVEL adjustment for the LU deviation; TP is handled by the limiter ceiling, so a red TP usually means something after MONKEY MASTERING is touching the signal), then RESET and play through again.

24.ter The Honesty Stack — what the plugin admits v1.1

Three features exist for one purpose only: to let you audit what MONKEY MASTERING did to your audio, including the part you might not have wanted.

Δ NULL — listen to the difference, not the result

The Δ NULL button replaces the monitored output with processed minus dry. What you hear is exactly and only what the plugin added or removed: the EQ move, the compression, the saturation, the limiter’s gain work. If Δ NULL is silent, the chain is doing nothing. If it sounds like distortion, it is distortion. It affects monitoring only — never the export.

THE DAMAGE RECEIPT — what the chain took away from your audio

A row under the meters that prints what the chain took away from your audio, measured against a second BS.1770 meter fed with the raw input: loudness gained, dynamic range lost, samples pushed into saturation, hard limiting events. The TR % figure is measured transient retention — the median loss per hit between the pre-limiter take and the master, with n = the number of hits measured. Below 8 hits it falls back to a PLR-ratio estimate and says so, labelled (PLR est.): an estimate is never dressed up as a measurement. Play the track to populate it.

THE HONEST NO — “you do not need me here”

When ANALYZE finishes and your track already meets the selected target, MONKEY MASTERING refuses to process it instead of adding gain to look busy. Press WHY? to see the measured reasons. That is why APPLY sometimes looks like it did nothing: it did do something — it decided not to.

24.quater THE EXIT RECIPE — your master in plain text v1.1

Open the PROOF panel in Master Final and a RECIPE button appears next to RESET and REPORT (it is also in the “...” menu as Export Exit Recipe...). It writes a Markdown file (.md) that describes, in plain language and with exact numbers, everything the plugin is doing to your audio at that moment — so that this master can be rebuilt with any EQ, compressor and limiter on the market.

25. A/B comparison

Instant, loudness-compensated A/B between the processed and the dry signal. MONKEY MASTERING compensates the loudness so that you judge character, not level — an honest comparison, because “louder” always sounds “better” for the first three seconds. Essential for honest decisions.

Two memory slots, A and B. Save the current settings to A, tweak, save to B, compare.

26. Real-time spectrum

A real-time FFT analyser (2048 points) of the input signal, overlaid on the EQ display, scaled from −80 to −10 dB: you see what is entering the chain while you adjust the EQ.

27. Preset manager

MONKEY MASTERING ships with 32 factory presets (including the new Beatport Ready in v1.0). You can load them with the < >arrows, or use the name label to open a searchable list.

Factory presets

Available in every tier (Standard + Pro). Modifications to factory presets live in memory only — they are not written to the factory file. Reload the preset to restore its original values. See §37 Factory preset reference for the full list.

User presets PRO

Pro users can save, delete, rename, import and export their own presets. A saved preset captures the complete plugin state: Track Type, Music Style, streaming target, Comp Mode, EQ gains, threshold / ratio / attack / release, Mid/Side, sidechain amount, the EXTRAS parameters and every active module.

User presets are stored in:

macOS:   ~/Library/Application Support/MONKEY MASTERING/Presets/
Windows: %APPDATA%\MONKEY MASTERING\Presets\

28. I/O meter

Stereo input and output meters with peak hold. Use them to confirm that your signal enters MONKEY MASTERING with enough headroom (recommended: peaks around −6 dBFS) and to watch the output climb towards the ceiling.

29. Resizable UI and languages

UI scale is a four-step setting in the “...” preset menu: 75% · 100% · 125% · 150%. The window is not free-resizable by dragging — the fixed steps are what keep the layout pixel-correct. Change the UI language from the header menu. Since v1.0 both settings — UI language and UI scale — are remembered across sessions and hosts: set them once, keep them everywhere. Above 125% the PROOF panel folds to its compact form automatically.

Where each preference lives. The parameters travel with the song, inside your DAW project. The view preferences — scale, BASE / EXPERT and the PROOF folding — travel with you: they are saved on each machine: loading a preset does not rewrite your interface, and the scale stays on the computer you work from.

The interface and every tooltip follow that language: hover any control for a one-line explanation.

30. Licence and tiers

One purchase = one licence = up to two simultaneous activations (your laptop + your studio machine). To move the licence to another computer, press DEACTIVATE in the plugin, on the machine you are leaving behind (§30.3, step 4). If that is not possible — the old machine is sold, broken or already wiped — write to support@monkeymastering.com from the address you bought with and we will free the activation for you. You never lose a machine you have paid for.

30.1 Tier badge and activation dialog

The badge in the header (top right, between the BASE / EXPERT view plate and the INT loudness readout) is the licence tier badge: TRIAL, STANDARD or PRO — always gold. Green and red are exclusive to the PROOF verdict, so the badge never changes colour: only the word inside it changes. The outlined border and the small ▾ on the right show that the badge is interactive.

• Click the badge to open the Activate Licensedialog. Paste your key and press ACTIVATE; the badge switches to STANDARD or PRO instantly.
• For STANDARD / PRO already active, the same dialog shows DEACTIVATE (frees one of the two simultaneous seats so you can move the licence to another machine) or Cancel.
• Hover any control in the plugin to see a descriptive tooltip (output level, threshold, platform, A/B, etc.). The UI is covered with tooltips as contextual reference.

30.2 No expiry — offline licence forever

Your licence does not expire, and the plugin does not need the internet to keep working. It is summarised inside the plugin itself, under the OFFLINE FOREVERheading, in the About dialog (preset “...” menu → About):

• No expiry date. The build you install today processes audio forever.
• No iLok, no dongle. Activation is a licence key, nothing else.
• No subscription. One purchase, permanently yours.
• No periodic online reauthorisation. After the single activation the plugin never “calls home” again; your studio machine can stay offline for years.

30.3 When the trial ends — and how to activate

1. Buy a licence at monkeymastering.com. The key arrives by email from Lemon Squeezy.
2. Open the plugin on any track and click the tier badge in the header (the gold TRIAL pill with the ▾ chevron).
3. Paste the key → ACTIVATE. You need an internet connection for this step only. The badge stops reading TRIAL and turns to STANDARD or PRO, and processing resumes immediately.
4. Changing machines? Click the badge again → DEACTIVATE to free one of your two seats, and activate on the new computer with the same key. If the old machine no longer exists and you cannot press DEACTIVATE on it, write to support@monkeymastering.com and we will free the activation.

30.4 Going from STANDARD to PRO

You can upgrade at any time, and you only pay the difference between the two editions — never the full PRO price a second time. Write to support@monkeymastering.com from the address you bought with and we will send you the upgrade link.

There is nothing to download and nothing to reinstall. It is the same plugin you already have: the edition is decided by the key, at the moment you activate. So the whole upgrade is a single step:

1. Click the tier badge (it now reads STANDARD).
2. Paste the new key and press ACTIVATE.
3. The badge turns to PRO and every PRO control — EXTRAS, Mid/Side, IMAGING, Space/Reverb, Stem Separator, reference matching, your own presets, 24-bit/FLAC/MP3 export — unlocks in the same session, without closing the plugin.

Your projects, sessions, presets and settings are untouched. The new key comes with its own two activations, so repeat step 2 on your second computer.

30.5 If you lose your key

Nothing is lost, and a computer that is already activated keeps working: the plugin never asks for the key again.

• Your key is in your purchase email. Search your inbox — and your spam and promotions folders too — for “Monkey Mastering” or “Lemon Squeezy” (the sender is our payment provider).
• If checkout took you to the thank-you page, the key was shown there too, with a button to copy it.
• Still nothing? Write to support@monkeymastering.com from the address you used at checkout, or quote your order number, and we will send it again.

The plugin stores your licence locally, in a protected file, but it never shows you the key again — so the place to look for it is your purchase email, not the plugin.

31. Ableton Live — step by step

1. Preferences → Plug-Ins → VST3 folder → add the folder above if it is custom.
2. Click Rescan.

1. Browser → Plug-Ins → VST3 → Monkey Mastering.
2. Drag it onto a channel.
3. Set Mode = TRACK, select Track Type + style.

1. Drag MONKEY MASTERING onto the Master.
2. Mode = MASTER FINAL, Track Type = FullStem, pick style + streaming target.
3. Play the loudest section and wait for the integrated LUFS to settle.

1. File → Export Audio/Video.
2. Rendered Track = Master.
3. Sample Rate = 44.1 kHz (streaming) or 48 kHz (video).
4. Bit Depth = 16 bit (if you are rendering the final WAV for Spotify) — MONKEY MASTERING’s dither engages automatically.
5. Normalize = OFF.

31.bis Monkey Engineer — free Extension for Ableton Live v1.0

Monkey Engineer is a free companion Extension for Ableton Live that automates the boring, error-prone part of preparing a mastering session — so the plugin can do its job on a properly prepared set.

Requirements

• Ableton Live 12.4.5 beta or later.
• Extensions enabled in Live’s settings (Live’s Extensions platform is currently in beta and its API may change between Live versions).
• MONKEY MASTERING installed as VST3.

What it does

32. Logic Pro — step by step

1. Logic Pro → Settings → Plug-in Manager.
2. Look for Monkey Mastering; the status must be OK.

1. Channel strip → Audio FX → Audio Units → Monkey Mastering → Stereo.
2. Mode = TRACK, pick Track Type + style.

1. Master channel (Stereo Out) → Audio FX slot → Audio Units → Monkey Mastering.
2. Mode = MASTER FINAL, FullStem, style, streaming target.

1. File → Bounce → Project or Section.
2. PCM → WAV → 16-bit if it is final for streaming.
3. Normalize = OFF.
4. Confirm the bounce goes through MONKEY MASTERING (insert on Stereo Out).

33. Per-track and master bus workflow

Recommended workflow for a complete song:

1. Mix: balance levels, pan, fix phase, remove mud, place reverbs.
2. MONKEY MASTERING per track on the key channels (kick, snare, bass, lead vocal, pad). Mode = TRACK. Specific Track Type. A consistent style across every instance.
3. MONKEY MASTERING pre-master on the master bus. Mode = PRE-MASTER, FullStem. Leave 3–6 dB of headroom at the output.
4. Re-mix. Check that your faders still make sense with MONKEY MASTERING printing glue on the master. Often the bass comes down 1 dB and the vocal goes up 0.5 dB.
5. Final master. Switch the pre-master instance to MASTER FINAL. Pick the destination in PLATFORM. A/B against the dry mix and verify afterwards with the PROOF panel: RESET → full playthrough → green COMPLIANT seal (§24.bis).
6. Check the translation. Cycling through Virtual Speaker profiles (Earbuds Premium, Car, Flat TV, Open-Back Headphones) confirms the master holds up everywhere.
7. Bounce. Export to 16-bit WAV / 44.1 kHz for Spotify/Apple Music/Tidal. 24-bit for mastering archives / CD.

34. FAQ — Frequently asked questions

35. Support and issue reporting

Found a bug, a crash, a preset that misbehaves, a confusing message? Tell us — every report makes the plugin better.

What to include in your report

• Plugin version (header — e.g. v1.2).
• OS + version (e.g. macOS 14.4, Windows 11 23H2).
• DAW + version (e.g. Ableton Live 12.0.5).
• Steps to reproduce — the shorter and more specific, the better.
• Expected vs. actual behaviour.
• If it crashes: the crash log (macOS: Console → Crash Reports; Windows: Event Viewer).
• If it is audio-related: a short 10-second WAV excerpt showing the problem, if possible.
• A screenshot of the plugin UI at the moment of the problem.

36. What’s new in v1.2 August 2026

• IMAGING module PRO — per-band stereo image in Master Final: BASS MONO (24 dB/oct Linkwitz–Riley high-pass on the side, 20–250 Hz), WIDTH MID and WIDTH HIGH (50–130%, split at 2.5 kHz). Mono-safe by construction (the mid channel is never processed), MONO Δ measured live, per-style seeds, measurement-guided ANALYZE seeding, amber correlation warning. See §15.bis.
• QUICK MASTER (SIMPLE mode) — one-screen mode: platform grid, big ANALYZE, PROOF verdict, REC. SIMPLE/FULL plate in the header; forces Master Final; saved with the session; the engine is untouched. See §5.bis.
• Guided first-run tour — 5 steps (platform → ANALYZE → automatic APPLY → verdict → REC); relaunched from the “...” menu → Tour... EN/ES.
• Virtual Speaker: 4 headphone-class profiles — Open-Back, Closed-Back, Earbuds (Unsealed) and Flat Studio Headphones join the strip (21 devices in total). Generic class curves — never a specific commercial model — and monitoring only, like every profile. See §23.
• Embedded UI fonts — the interface typefaces now live inside the plugin binary, so the UI looks identical on any machine (with no dependency on system-installed fonts).

Before that: v1.0 (July 2026)

• PROOF panel — measurement conforming to BS.1770-4 / EBU R128 in Master Final (below REC): integrated LUFS, Short-term, Max True Peak (inter-sample 4×, dBTP), PLR, LRA, stereo correlation and the PROOF seal against the platform you picked (COMPLIANT, OVER TP or the LU deviation). The per-platform table lives in the MASTER REPORT and in THE EXIT RECIPE. RESET-and-full-playthrough workflow. It passes the official EBU Tech 3341 test vectors. See §24.bis.
• Loudness engine upgrade — per-platform auto-gain now uses real K-weighted measurement (BS.1770); masters land on the exact target LUFS (Spotify −14 / Apple Music −16 / YouTube −14 / Tidal −14 / SoundCloud −14 / Beatport −10). The limiter keeps a 0.3 dB true-peak safety margin under the ceiling.
• REC export — alerts you if a disk write fails mid-take (disk full); Pro raw export covers WAV / FLAC / MP3.
• Workflow polish — loudness-compensated A/B comparison, undo with Cmd/Ctrl+Z, UI language and scale remembered across sessions, Spanish tooltips throughout the UI when the language is ES.
• Trial — 14 days with the complete set of Pro features. The licence is offline forever: no iLok, no subscription, no periodic online reauthorisation.
• Validation — it passes Apple’s official auval and Tracktion’s pluginval at the strictest level (10).
• Monkey Engineer — new free companion Extension for Ableton Live (Live 12.4.5 beta+, Extensions enabled): guided master-chain setup with auto-configuration, set readiness check, per-track headroom check via offline render. See §31.bis.

Also in v1.0 — export and delivery

• Beatport target — 6th streaming platform, tuned to −10 LUFS / −1 dBTP for lossless DJ-store delivery. New factory preset Beatport Ready (#32).
• Raw export PRO — the REC button in Master Final captures the output to WAV 16-bit / WAV 24-bit / FLAC in real time, thread-safe (no blocking on the audio thread). MP3 was added on macOS.
• User presets PRO — save / delete / rename / import / export your own presets as portable .mmpreset JSON files.

Also in v1.0 — the base engine

• 5-band parametric EQ — fully visible, per-band control with Sub / Low / Mid / High / Air.
• Clipper with 4× oversampling — tanh soft clip, polyphase IIR oversampling, DRIVE 0–12 dB.
• Automatic spectral analysis — more accurate Track Type + style detection, per-module APPLY.
• Stem Separator — real-time 4-stem HPSS + M/S masking, 5120 samples of latency (~116 ms @ 44.1 kHz) reported to the host.
• Virtual Speaker — studio, consumer, club and other device emulations. (21 today — see §23.)
• Factory preset expansion — including the full electronic expansion (32 factory presets).
• UI scale — from 75% to 150% in four steps (moved to the “...” menu in v1.2).

37. Appendix — catalogues and preset parameters

Everything above explains what each control does. This appendix is the other half: the flat lists you look things up in — every track type, every style, every destination, every monitoring profile and every factory preset, in one place.

37.1 · Track types — all 16

What each one changes is explained in §8. The Standard tier includes 8 of the 16; Pro unlocks all 16 (§30).

37.2 · Music styles — all 24

What the style drives is explained in §9. The Standard tier includes 12 of the 24; Pro unlocks all 24 (§30).

37.3 · PLATFORM — targets and ceilings

How the destination works, and why it is section 10 and not section 1, is in §10.

Below, the plates in the order they appear on screen. No Target and Generic are utilities, not platforms.

37.4 · Virtual Speaker — the 21 profiles

What Virtual Speaker is for — and why it can never reach your file — is in §23.

Headphone-class profiles v1.2

37.5 · IMAGING — per-style seeds

The module is described in §15.bis. Picking a music style loads these measured starting points:

37.6 · Factory presets — all 32

MONKEY MASTERING ships with 32 factory presets covering general mastering, per-style recipes, urban and Latin styles, the electronic expansion and the addition of the Beatport DJ store.

General mastering — 1 to 10

Style and workflow — 11 to 20

Urban and Latin — 21 to 28

Electronic expansion and DJ store — 29 to 32 v1.0

38. Basic troubleshooting

While installing and activating

While you work

Where to go next