Dotec-Audio DeeMonitor

Emulate monitors, and tweak mid, side, left and right channels with this utility plugin,

Utility tools, while nowhere near as flashy or sexy as the synths or processors they sit next to in your plugins folder, are equally as essential for achieving a professional mix. Techniques such as balancing your signals’ mono and stereo components, isolating left or right channels, flipping an out-of-phase recording’s polarity and even simple gain automation are all invaluable manoeuvres in the modern producer’s box of mixing tricks.

So, to help you with all these tasks and more, we’re giving away a completely -exclusive PC/Mac mixing utility plugin: DeeMonitor, brought to you by Japanese coding experts Dotec-Audio. DeeMonitor presents you with a breadth of monitoring features within one interface, including L/R solo, L/R polarity invert, M/S balance, and output trim. However, the true trick up this plugin’s sleeve is its ability to ‘transform’ the sound of your speakers or headphones, mimicking the sound of three classic speaker types: Yamaha NS-10, Auratone 5C and a Genelec-a-like algorithm taken from Dotec-Audio’s DeeSpeaker plugin.

But why on Earth would you want to listen to your mix through virtual limited-range speakers? Well, although it’s important to get a great mixdown on bigger monitor speakers or high-fidelity headphones, the majority of music fans listen to tunes over weedy systems such as laptop or phone speakers, hyped earbuds, cheap radios and the like, meaning it’s vital that your mix – especially the midrange balance – sounds fantastic on all those systems. With DeeMonitor on your master bus, you’ll improve how your mixes sound on these less-than-ideal systems without having to set up multiple pairs of speakers or headphones in your studio.

If you’re dee-lighted by DeeMonitor’s versatile selection of features, you should make a beeline for Dotec-Audio’s website and explore the rest of their classy effects plugins. There’s DeeMax, a flavoursome maximiser; DeeComp, an easy-to-use compressor; DeePanPot, a ‘true’ panner; and the brand new DeeFat, a one-knob route to instant fatness. Head on over to the company’s website for more info. dotec-audio.com