New Music Gear Monday: Softube Flow Studio Control Surface

One of the biggest workflow challenges in modern production is the disconnect between the mouse and the music. You have a gut feeling about what a track needs, but by the time you’ve clicked through all the menus and parameters, that spark of creativity is gone. That’s exactly the problem that Softube is addressing with its new Flow Studio, a compact hardware control surface designed to get your hands back on the sound and keep them there.

The Flow Studio is built around four touch-sensitive “analog feel” potentiometers, a large central Omni Knob, and a 4.3-inch high-resolution color display.

The unit is housed in anodized aluminum and is roughly the size of a paperback book, so it will fit in just about any setup without need to rearrange much on your desk.

Three Modes

The unit operates in three modes that you can switch between on the fly.

DAW Mode gives you immediate control over track volume, pan, solo, mute, and up to six sends in all major DAWs including Pro Tools, Logic, Ableton, Cubase, and FL Studio, with no mapping required.

Flow Mode is where things get interesting, as each knob becomes a macro control that simultaneously adjusts multiple parameters across an entire signal chain. Turn a knob and your dry vocal goes from flat to polished in one move.

Detail Mode lets you step into any individual plugin within that signal chain for more precise adjustments when refining the sound is needed.

Signal Chains Included

Flow Studio ships with the Flow Studio Suite, which includes over 100 professionally designed signal chains. These are called Flows, and cover vocals, guitars, synths, drums, and more, and were built by professional sound designers and music producers, so they are production-ready starting points rather than generic presets.

On top of that, you get 25 Softube software effects as perpetual licenses, including compressors, EQs, reverbs, delays, guitar amp sims, tape processors, and even a low-latency vocal tuner.

If you already own Softube plugins, the experience gets even better, as the hardware supports over 80 Softube titles and over 300 dedicated Flows. An optional Flow Suites subscription can expand that further to 65+ plugins and 145 additional signal chains.

Built for Speed

The onboard low-latency processing means you can use it for live monitoring and vocal tracking without any noticeable delay, which is a real plus if the artist is in the room and you need to keep the session moving.

The color-coded RGB LEDs shift to match whatever mode you’re in, so there’s no guessing what you’re controlling at any given moment.

The Flow Studio sells for $399 and works on both Mac and PC. You can find out more here, or watch the video below for more detail.