sauce
the first stage, and the one that opens a mix up. this is one of the secrets behind this plugin’s dsp.
mix bus chain
master sauce
No two instances of master sauce agree with each other, and no two sessions agree with themselves. That is the point.
- sauce
- character
- drift
- warmth, mid & air
- limiter
Nothing sits still.
drift is hardware’s own inaccuracy, across four bands — low, mid, presence and high. it is most of why a record that went through a desk feels alive and the same mix in the box does not.
master sauce is the first and last plugin on my mix bus.
drift is my analog feel engine. hardware never sits still. it wanders, it leans, it is never quite the same twice, and that restlessness is most of why a record that went through a desk feels alive and the same mix in the box does not. drift puts it back, across four bands — low, mid, presence and high. no two instances of master sauce agree with each other, and no two sessions agree with themselves. that is the point.
- sauce → drift → eq → character → clip → limiter
- drift: hardware’s own inaccuracy — low, mid, presence, high
- three broad tone bands: warmth, mid, air
- one character knob, 0 to 200%
- soft clipper before the limiter, on by default
- three limiter modes: original, invisible, clean
- live peak, rms and per-band gain-reduction readouts
- au + vst3 on macos, vst3 on windows
character
the knob that does the mastering, and the other secret in here — it is what makes the whole thing come out polished. 0% is your mix; 200% is heavy, glued, thick and forward. everything in between is the useful part.
drift
my analog feel engine. hardware never sits still — drift puts that back, across four bands. no two instances agree with each other, and no two sessions agree with themselves.
warmth, mid & air
three broad bands, ±6 dB each, drawn live on the response curve. big moves that stay musical — not surgery.
limiter
push the drive and it takes the peaks and nothing else. the ceiling holds; the gain-reduction meter tells you exactly how hard it is working.
requirements
- OS (Mac)
- macOS 11 Big Sur or later
- OS (Windows)
- Windows 10 or later
- CPU
- Intel or Apple Silicon / AMD or Intel x64
- RAM
- 4 GB minimum, 8 GB recommended
- Size
- 19 MB installed (AU + VST3)
- Formats
- AU + VST3 on macOS · VST3 on Windows
- Latency
- ~4 ms (original) · ~5 ms (clean) · ~9 ms (invisible) — reported to the host
versions
| version | date | notes |
|---|---|---|
| 0.1.0 | 2026-07-31 | Initial release |
| 1.1.0 | 2026-08-05 | Performance fixes |
| 1.2.0 | 2026-08-10 | New SAUCE section, it took a bit longer to finish. New soft clipper before the limiter, on by default. Three limiter modes — original, invisible and clean. New manual. |
| 1.2.1 | 2026-08-10 | Bug fixes and 50% better performance |
| 1.3.0 | 2026-08-14 | New DRIFT section — the movement and depth of hardware, on by default, with its own setting for the bottom, the middle and the top. New manual. |
| 1.3.1 | 2026-08-15 | More bug fixes and stability improvements |
| 1.3.2 | 2026-08-15 | Presets menu and further optimisation |