Help & resources

Thrive requires macOS 14.0 (Sonoma) or later. Both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs are supported via a Universal Binary.

Audio Unit (AU), VST3, and Standalone. Pro Tools AAX support is planned for a future release.

Quit your DAW and force a plugin rescan from its preferences. Logic Pro sometimes requires clearing ~/Library/Caches/AudioUnitCache if a rescan alone doesn't help. Then add Thrive to a fresh track — existing plugin instances in saved sessions may continue to use the previous binary until removed and re-added.

A single license activates on up to two Macs that you personally own — typically a studio desktop and a laptop. Both machines may not be used to run the plugin simultaneously by different users; the two-machine allowance exists for one engineer moving between workstations. Full terms in our EULA.

Yes. License transfers are supported with a USD $30 administration fee. Contact support@thrivemastering.com to initiate a transfer.

Yes. Full refund within 14 days of purchase, no questions asked. Email support@thrivemastering.com from the address you purchased with — refunds are processed same-day. If you want to try before buying, a fully-functional 14-day demo is available.

User presets are saved to ~/Library/Application Support/Mixing Pro AI/Thrive/Presets/. You can back up this folder or copy it between machines to transfer your preset library.

The demo version is intended for evaluation, not for commercial production work. Once you decide to use Thrive in a production context, please purchase a full license.

Not at launch. Windows support is on the roadmap; no timeline is committed yet.

A psychoacoustic loudness measure defined in ITU-R BS.1770-4. Uses K-weighting (a filter curve modeled on human hearing sensitivity) and gating (silences and quiet passages are excluded from the average). Streaming platforms use LUFS integrated for normalization because it correlates better with perceived loudness than peak or RMS measures.

Thrive shows three time windows:

• Integrated — the gated average LUFS across the entire measurement. This is what streaming platforms use for normalization decisions.
• Short-term — a 3-second sliding-window average.
• Momentary — a 400 ms sliding-window average.

LUFS is a good perceptual measure but not perfect — two tracks at the same LUFS integrated can still sound different in perceived loudness due to spectral content, transient structure, and listening context. The psychoacoustic model is a simplification, not a definitive statement about what your ears will hear.

A linear amplitude measure relative to the digital maximum. 0 dBFS is the loudest a digital signal can be without clipping in a fixed-point system. Peak and Sample Peak are dBFS measures.

dBFS is distinct from LUFS. A 3 dB gain change usually shows as roughly a 3 LUFS integrated change for typical program material, but this relationship isn't guaranteed and isn't linear across all material.

The estimated peak level after upsampling to catch inter-sample peaks that Sample Peak misses. Streaming platforms typically specify a True Peak ceiling (commonly -1 dBTP for streaming; broadcast standards use -1 or -2 dBTP) so decoded audio doesn't clip at the listener's end.

True Peak is always at least as high as Sample Peak for the same signal — often 0.5–1 dB higher, sometimes more.

The difference between Peak (dBFS) and Short-term LUFS, expressed in dB. A measure of instantaneous dynamic range. Higher PSR generally means more dynamic material.

Rough reference values:

• Modern loud pop / hip-hop / EDM masters commonly measure PSR in the 6–10 range.
• Rock and less-compressed pop often 10–14.
• Jazz, classical, and unmastered mixes often 15+.

PSR is not the only dynamic-range measure — see LRA below for long-term dynamics.

Defined in EBU R128. Measures the long-term dynamic variation of a piece — how much the loudness of quiet passages differs from loud passages, in LU (Loudness Units).

LRA is distinct from PSR. PSR is instantaneous; LRA is long-term. A track can have low PSR (heavy peak compression) but high LRA (big loudness swings between quiet verses and loud choruses).

Broadcast standards often specify LRA limits.

These measurements are frequently used interchangeably in casual conversation. They shouldn't be:

• LUFS is a psychoacoustic aggregate. Perceptual. Gated. K-weighted.
• dBFS / dBTP is a linear amplitude measure. Not perceptual. Not gated.
• Headroom is measured in dB — the distance between your peak and 0 dBFS (or a True Peak ceiling). Not a LUFS concept.
• Dynamic range is typically measured in dB (crest factor, PSR, PLR) or LU (LRA). Not directly a LUFS number.

Saying "master to -14 LUFS gives up 6 dB of headroom" mixes two different measurement systems. What's actually being described is "a master 6 LUFS integrated lower than a -8 LUFS master." Whether that quieter master also has more peak headroom depends on the specific mastering approach used to get there — not on the LUFS change itself.

Thrive keeps these numbers distinct because treating them interchangeably produces sloppy mastering advice.

Thrive implements BS.1770-4 loudness measurement directly. Integrated LUFS uses the standard's absolute-threshold gate at -70 LUFS and relative-threshold gate at -10 LU. Short-term and Momentary use the standard's rectangular window sizes (3 s and 400 ms respectively). True Peak uses 4x oversampling for peak detection. If you find any measurement behavior that appears inconsistent with the spec, please let us know — we take measurement accuracy seriously.