- Product: Dragon Fader
- Developer: Ayaic
- Type: LUFS Leveler
- Version: 1.0.0
- Format: VST3, AAX
- Requirements: Windows 10 or later
Dragon Fader is a premium LUFS leveler designed to beautifully “ride” any audio signal. While modern levelers rely on AI, Dragon Fader uses one of the most transparent compressor/expanders ever created to deliver flawless, natural results—while keeping you in complete control. Packed full of advanced features and powerful side-chain capabilities, it goes far beyond standard compression to give you total creative freedom over your level-shaping.
Rides like an engineer
Loudness, not peaks
Dragon Fader listens in LUFS, the way streaming services measure, and moves a fader exactly as you would by hand. Even vocals and speech without the sound of a compressor.
Real automation
Every move, editable in your DAW
WRITE puts each fader move into your DAW as automation, READ plays it back. Touch the fader and your hand takes over. What you hear while setting up is exactly what gets written.
Timesaver
The whole song in one pass
Load the source file of the track and Dragon Fader computes the complete fader curve before you press play. No more riding a vocal by hand, pass after pass.
See it first
The whole curve before anything is written
Edit the curve right inside the plugin, with undo: drag, paint, insert points. FLATTEN takes the movement back by 25 to 100 % until only the big line remains. Export the curve as CSV or as a gain track WAV.
Smart listening
Hears what matters, ignores the rest
Detector filters shape only the measurement, never the sound, and LISTEN lets you hear what it reacts to. Rider Path Dual keeps small fluctuations calm but catches big jumps fast. Rider Gate Program leaves breaths unlifted.
Sidechain
Music makes way for the voice
Feed the voice into the sidechain, and the music fader rides down under it automatically. It can be written as automation. The sound of the track itself stays untouched.
Values window
Every reading in one window, in your colours
A double click opens a separate window with every reading: AES-17 RMS, peak hold, integrated LUFS and loudness range, for sum, L and R, input and output. Drag it as large as you like, the text grows with it. Colour every group and every single tile, and save your own schemes for all instances.
Features
- Whether you are a Producer, Mix/Mastering Engineer, Musician or Singer/Songwriter, the Dragon Fader will help you shape your audio levels around a target LUFS.
- Automatically adjusts gain to meet target LUFS (Loudness Units Full Scale) while preserving the dynamic character of the source.
- Uses a highly transparent design to avoid coloration, ensuring the processed audio sounds as close as possible to the original.
- Offers powerful side-chain options for creative ducking, expansion, and dynamic shaping beyond standard compression.
- Goes far beyond basic compression, allowing you to sculpt dynamics in ways that suit your artistic vision.
- Delivers smooth, musical level changes without the harshness or unnatural compression often found in AI-driven tools.
- Four modes: FREE, INT, WRITE and READ. INT analyses the source file of the track in advance.
- Target from -50 to -10 LUFS, measured to BS.1770. Fader range from -20 to +30 dB.
- True peak brickwall limiter, four times oversampled and checked against a sixteen-fold reference. No extra headroom needed.
- Seven Level Planes, shared by every instance. Quick Set picks one with a click.
- The same latency in every mode, so your DAW never rebuilds when you switch.
- 106 factory presets. Stereo or mono, sidechain mono or stereo.
Dragon Fader is ideal for mastering engineers, producers, and mixers who want to automate loudness compliance while maintaining dynamic integrity and creative freedom. In short, it combines precision loudness automation with musical, transparent dynamics control, making it a strong choice for professional audio workflows where natural sound quality is paramount.