The All in One Mixing and Mastering Plugin: Every Module Inside the Cryo Mix Plugin

TL;DR

• The Cryo Mix mixing and mastering plugin ships as three pieces: a mixing plugin for your channels, Nova as a intelligent copilot, and a master plugin for the master bus.

• The mixing plugin holds six module groups in EQ, Dynamics, Pitch, Character, Stereo, and Space, with several subsections.

• Everything runs natively on your machine, so there is no bounce, no upload, and no render wait between asking for a change and hearing it.

• Nova takes plain-language requests and builds the chain underneath, So requests across languages, scenes, subcultures, and genres translate well into direct chains and mix edits.

• Right now we are currently in beta, building this to be better every single day.

What an all in one mixing and mastering plugin is

An all in one mixing and mastering plugin is a single plugin that contains the processing stages a mix engineer would normally load as separate inserts. At minimum that means EQ and compression. The more complete ones add gating, de-essing, saturation, stereo width, and reverb, so one instance can take a raw track from recorded to finished.

The category grew out of the hardware channel strip, the fixed signal path on a mixing console: preamp, filters, EQ, dynamics, in that order, on every channel. Software versions kept the layout and added things a console never had.

Most of them stop at the console feature set. What they usually leave out is everything that happens after the strip: pitch, modulation, imaging, and space. That is why a "complete" channel strip still ends up sitting in a chain with four other plugins behind it.

The Cryo Mix mixing and mastering plugin, explained

It is the plugin version of what we have been running in the browser since we started. On cryo-mix.com you upload stems, the mix and master happen in the cloud, and you download a finished track. That works, and it still works, but it puts a round trip between you and every decision.

The plugin removes the round trip. It runs natively on your machine. You open your DAW, load it, and there is virtually no wait between asking for something and hearing it.

The design goal was not "another channel strip with a nicer skin." It was to cover the whole chain, including the parts channel strips normally skip, and then to make the chain reachable by describing a sound rather than by knowing the name of the tool.

Setting it up in a session: two plugins, two jobs

Two plugins ship together, and they do different jobs.

The mixing plugin goes on every channel you are working on. Not just the ones that need obvious processing: putting an instance on each channel is what lets the instances communicate with each other and analyze your audio as a whole session rather than as isolated tracks. A single plugin looking at a vocal in isolation can only tell you about that vocal. Instances that can see the rest of the session know what the vocal is competing with.

The master plugin goes on your master bus and handles the finishing pass.

That is the whole setup. Load, play, and start describing what you want.

Every module inside the mixing plugin

Six groups, each with its own set of stages. Here is the full inventory in one place.

EQ: a correction curve without a reference track

Let it analyze your take for a moment, no reference track needed, and it builds a correction curve on its own. From there, one aggregate Correction knob dials in how much of that curve applies with a single sweeping move, or you can go granular and shape high-pass, low-pass, and the low, mid, and high bands individually.

A dedicated air control adds top-end shimmer on its own dial, the kind of shine that usually means reaching for a separate exciter. Toggle before and after on any stage to hear exactly what changed.

Dynamics: serial compression the way an engineer actually stages it

This is the deepest module in the plugin, and it is built around the idea that different parts of a signal want different treatment.

A leveler rides your level automatically in real time, with a response control you can push anywhere from fast to smooth depending on how much movement you want to preserve. Compression itself runs in two full stages, Peak for transients and Level for body and movement, and each stage gets its own ratio, attack, and release. You can clamp a spike hard and fast while letting the sustained part of the note breathe on a slower curve.

From there: upward compression to lift quiet detail instead of only squashing loud peaks, a thickening stage for density, a transparent clipper, a gate, a ducker, de-essing, and a dynamic resonance tool that quiets harshness the moment it appears, without you touching an EQ band by hand.

If your source is clipped before it ever reaches the plugin, no dynamics stage will undo that. Our guide on audio clipping covers what to fix at the recording stage instead.

Pitch: correction you watch against your own waveform

Correction runs chromatic or locked to a key, and you watch it work directly against your waveform instead of guessing from a number. Add unison shift for a doubled, widened vocal, or automatic harmony that builds real harmonic layers off your lead take rather than stacking a generic interval on top of it.

If you are not sure what key you are in, the free BPM and key detector will tell you before you set the mode.

Character: four saturation circuits, blended

Four full saturation circuits (tube, tape, transformer, console), each modeling a different kind of harmonic behavior. Every circuit gets its own dry-to-wet blend, so you can push it as far as you want without losing the original signal underneath.

Beyond that: a destroy stage for anyone who wants it broken on purpose, a bit crusher, a second exciter for top-end presence, and a detail lift stage built specifically to bring back the transient clarity that saturation tends to soften.

Stereo: full designers, not one rate knob

Most channel strips treat stereo effects as an afterthought: one knob for rate, one for depth, done. That is fine until you want a specific width or movement and the tool does not have the range to get there, so you reach for a third-party plugin to finish one small idea.

Width control sits at the front. The chorus lets you pick voice count from two up to eight, choose between silk or linear motion, and shape rate, depth, delay, and stereo spread independently. The phaser works the same way: choose how many stages the sweep runs through, four up to twelve, then dial in sweep rate, depth, and center frequency alongside range, resonance, and stereo spread. Flanger, tremolo, and auto-pan round out the rest with the same level of control underneath.

Worth remembering that width you add here can partly collapse when a listener hears the track in mono, so check both.

Space: place the source in a room you built

Four standard algorithms (room, hall, plate, spring) cover most of what you reach for day to day.

Designer mode goes further. You place the source and the mic on an actual 3D floor, drag them around a real room, and shape width, depth, and height directly, along with wall damping so the room sounds as live or as dead as the take needs. Mic height and axis adjust how that position is heard, tail tone shifts dark to bright, and pre-delay sits right there alongside everything else. No separate plugin, no separate window.

Nova turns a plain-language request into a chain

That is a lot to hold in your head while you are mixing. You do not have to.

Nova already knows every stage on the list. You describe what you want the record to feel like, and Nova works out the combination underneath. You do not need to know the fix is called upward compression or dynamic resonance suppression. You say the vocal disappears in the quiet parts, or that the top end is spiky, and the chain gets built.

It is not mapping your words onto a generic preset. Describe a sound the way people in your scene actually talk about it, and that is what gets built, not a flattened one-size version of it.

Every move stays visible and adjustable. Nova sets the controls, and the controls are still yours.

What an equivalent chain normally costs

Assembling this set of tools from individual plugins, at professional quality, realistically runs into four figures, and that is before the years most engineers spend learning what each tool is actually good at.

The point of the table is not that one row wins. It is that most people end up paying for two or three rows because no single row covered enough.

All in one plugin or separate plugins: where each one wins

Both, honestly, and the split is usually about where you are in a project.

Use an all in one plugin when you are writing, tracking, or getting a rough idea to sound finished quickly. Speed of decision matters more than surgical control at that stage, and switching between six windows to test one idea kills momentum.

Use separate plugins when you have one specific problem that needs one specific tool: a notch at an exact frequency, a compressor whose particular release curve is the sound, a de-esser you have trusted for a decade. Ours does not ask you to give those up. It sits in the same session as everything else you use.

The case against all in one plugins that we think is fair: you are buying one company's opinion of what each stage should sound like. If your sound depends on a specific 1176 emulation, an all in one plugin is not going to replace it. What it will replace is the eight other plugins you loaded around it because you needed something in each slot.

Real time in your session, not a round trip to the cloud

The plugin runs natively on your machine, so processing happens in your session rather than in the cloud. You are not waiting on a bounce or a render to hear whether something worked. It happens while you are still playing the track.

The browser tool at cryo-mix.com is still the right choice in plenty of cases: you are on a machine that cannot run plugins, you want a full stem mix and master handed back finished, or you are working on spoken word and just need it to sound clean. The plugin is for when you want the same processing where the rest of your session already lives.

Common mistakes when switching to an all in one plugin

Loading it and turning everything on. Having twenty stages available does not mean the track wants twenty stages. Start with EQ and dynamics, and add character or space only when the track asks for it.

Only loading it on the tracks you think need work. The instances communicate with each other, so a session where half the channels are missing an instance gives the plugin half a picture to work from.

Skipping gain staging because the plugin has a leveler. A leveler manages what you feed it. Feed it something already crushed or already clipped and it will faithfully manage a damaged signal.

Mixing into the reverb before the balance is right. Space makes almost anything sound better on first listen and then hides the fact that the vocal is buried. Get the dry balance first.

Only checking width in stereo. Chorus, phaser, and width settings that sound huge on headphones can partly cancel in mono. Check both before you commit.

Using the mixing plugin to master. That is what the master plugin is for. Mixing and finishing are different jobs, and the tools are split that way on purpose. Check the finished master against streaming levels before you upload anywhere. Streaming platforms normalize playback loudness, so a louder master does not mean a louder stream (Spotify's own loudness guidance is worth reading once).

Assuming beta means finished. It does not. Report what breaks. That is what the beta is for.

Frequently asked questions

What is an all in one mixing and mastering plugin?

It is a single plugin that contains the processing stages you would otherwise load as separate inserts: EQ, compression, gating, de-essing, saturation, stereo imaging, and reverb. One instance can take a track from raw to finished, which means fewer windows, one interface to learn, and one purchase instead of a dozen.

What is the Cryo Mix mixing and mastering plugin?

It is an all in one mixing and mastering plugin that runs natively inside your DAW. It ships as two pieces: a mixing plugin you load on every channel in your session, and a separate master plugin for the master bus. The mixing plugin contains six module groups (EQ, Dynamics, Pitch, Character, Stereo, and Space), covering automatic EQ correction, two-stage compression, pitch correction, four saturation circuits, full chorus and phaser designers, and a 3D reverb room designer. Nova, the built-in assistant, builds the chain from a plain-language description of the sound you want.

Why does it need to go on every channel?

Because the instances communicate with each other and analyze your audio together. A plugin looking at one track in isolation can only tell you about that track. Instances that can see the whole session know what each element is competing with, which is what makes the analysis useful rather than generic.

Can one plugin really replace a full mixing chain?

For most independent artists on most tracks, yes. The stages that make up a standard chain are well defined, and there is no technical reason they need to live in separate windows. Where it will not replace a chain is when your sound depends on a specific emulation or a specialist tool you already know intimately. Most people keep two or three favorites and let ours handle the rest, which is the outcome we designed for.

Do I need to know mixing terminology to use it?

No. That is the point of Nova. You describe what you want the record to feel like, and it works out which stages to use. You never have to learn that the tool you needed was called upward compression or a dynamic resonance suppressor. The controls stay visible, so you can learn them over time if you want to.

What can you use it on?

Vocals, beats, instruments, full mixes, and spoken word. The Pitch and Dynamics modules are aimed squarely at vocal work (correction, harmony, de-essing, leveling), Character and Space suit instrument and beat processing, and the master plugin handles glue and finishing. Leveling, de-essing, gating, and dynamic resonance suppression are as relevant to a podcast or voiceover as they are to a vocal take, and Cryo Mix has supported spoken word from the start.

Does it use more CPU than separate plugins?

Not necessarily. A single instance running only the stages you have engaged can be lighter than five separate plugins each with their own overhead. What does add up is a large session with a fully engaged instance on every track, the same as it would with any processing.

How do I get beta access?

The plugin is in beta now. Request early access through the Cryo Mix site and we will add you to the queue. Beta users get direct input into what ships in the release version.

Bottom line

An all in one mixing and mastering plugin is worth it when it actually covers the whole chain, not just the console half of it. That is what we built the Cryo Mix mixing and mastering plugin to do: EQ, dynamics, pitch, character, stereo, and space on every channel, a master plugin for the finishing pass, running in real time in your session, reachable by describing a sound instead of naming a tool.

It is in beta, it will not replace the one plugin you have loved for ten years, and we would rather tell you that now than after you install it.

Start mixing your track online while the plugin beta opens up, or request early access and we will get you in the queue.