Plumb

Quick start

1. Drop a file onto the window (or click to browse). WAV, AIFF, FLAC, ALAC, MP3, AAC, OGG, CAF — anything you'd actually bounce.
2. Plumb analyzes the whole file in seconds and lights up the dashboard.
3. Pick your delivery target (top right) — Streaming −14, Apple Music, Spotify Loud, CD, broadcast, podcast, or "Mix — ready for mastering?".
4. Read the flags badge: green = ship it, red = the exact reason it'll get turned down, clipped, or bounced back.
5. Press space to listen. Every meter follows the audio live.

Hover anything with the ? toggle on and Plumb explains what the number means and why you'd care. The whole app is self-documenting.

The stats row

• True Peak — inter-sample peaks (dBTP): what DACs and lossy codecs actually hit, not just sample values. Over the ceiling = distortion after encoding.
• Integrated — whole-file loudness (LUFS, BS.1770-4): the number streaming platforms normalize by.
• Loudness Range — LRA: how dynamic the track is start-to-finish.
• Momentary Max — the loudest 400 ms moment (and short-term below it).
• PLR — peak-to-loudness ratio: overall crest. Low PLR = heavily limited.
• PSR — 10th-percentile peak-to-short-term ratio: how squashed the loud parts feel. The honest "did I over-limit it" number.
• Clipped — runs of consecutive full-scale samples: the fingerprint of hard clipping, per channel.
• DC Offset — waveform asymmetry that eats headroom.

The modules

Everything below the stats row is a module — show/hide any of them with the toolbar chips, drag by an edge to rearrange, resize from any corner, or pop one out into its own live window (great for a second display).

• Waveform — the transport. Click to seek, drag to analyze just a section (the numbers re-run for the selection), loop it, scroll-zoom with the zoom toggle. The amplitude-density strip below shows where the level lives.
• Spectrogram — log-frequency, flat terrain, or rolling live.
• Spectrum — Welch-averaged file curve plus live playback overlay; L/R or M/S; click legend names to hide lines.
• Tonal balance — load a reference and each band shows the range where the reference sits and where your track lands inside it. Live marker while playing.
• Sound field — goniometer (polar / rays / lissajous), phase correlation, stereo width, L/R balance. Mono-safety at a glance.
• Loudness meters — momentary / short-term / integrated bars with zone colors keyed to your target, like a hardware loudness meter.
• Loudness graph — loudness over time; red where you're above target.
• Levels / VU / Scope — peak+RMS bars, classic needle VU (0 VU at −20/−18/−14), and an oscilloscope, all live during playback.
• Distribution / PSR graph — histograms of loudness and dynamics; see the shape of the master, not just the average.
• Codec preview — encodes to AAC and re-measures true peak, so you know if Spotify/Apple's encoder will push you over.
• Statistics — the full RX-style table, L/R per channel, with pass/fail notes against the current target.

A/B against a reference

Click + ref and load the commercial track you're chasing.

• A/B buttons appear in the transport — or just hit X to swap.
• B plays loudness-matched, so you compare quality, not volume.
• Switching is crossfaded — no pops, no gaps.
• Tonal balance, spectrum overlay, and the stats table all pick up the reference so you can see the differences, not just hear them.

Album mode

Drop several files (or a folder) and every track gets a tab, plus an album view: per-track table, album loudness, loudest/quietest track, spread, and outlier flags — the "is the EP consistent" check in one screen. Click a row to jump to that track.

Presets & layout

The presets menu has ready-made workspaces — Everything, Just the numbers, Graphs, Meters, Visualizers, Loudness, Tonal/spectral, In-depth, Mastering, Mixing. Rearrange whatever you like and hit + save to keep your own named preset. Your layout persists between launches; reset layout brings back the default.

Exporting

export ▸ opens the export dialog:

• Scope — this file, or the whole album.
• Format — PDF / PNG / SVG report (with the waveform and your logo'd header) or CSV for spreadsheets.
• Reports carry the full metric table and the pass/fail summary — made to be sent along with a master or attached to delivery notes.