DarkStage

Turn Displays Into Tools

Reveal only what you need & remove visual distractions.

Reveal what you need only when it’s needed with no visual distractions.

DarkStage is a professional and fully customizable macOS display, metering and visual monitoring system designed for recording, mixing, mastering and post-production environments.

Black out distracting screens. Revive obsolete devices and use them to show meters, transport status and session position anywhere in the studio. Build dedicated displays for meters, scopes, waveforms and real-time analysis or float a single widget over a vacant part of any screen. DarkStage turns unused or distracting screen space into part of the studio.

DarkStage is a professional and fully customizable macOS display, metering and visual monitoring system designed for recording, mixing, mastering and post-production environments.

Compare Editions

macOS

One-time purchase

Built for professional studio workflows

Actual Screen Recording

Overview

Darkness when you need it. Information when it matters.

If you'd like to listen more than you look, DarksStage is for you.
If you love meters, analytics or the vibe of a vintage oscilloscope, DarkStage is for you.
No more switching off screens manually, or waiting for a sleeping screen to wake or accidental hot corner triggering of the screensaver. DarkStage gives you direct control over what each connected display shows. A screen can become completely black, wake only when you need to make a mix adjustment, display a thin transport triggered border to let you know you're still recording or operate as a dedicated visual monitoring surface or remote control for the DAW

Each display can be configured independently, allowing DarkStage to fit editing rooms, recording spaces, mix rooms, mastering studios and presentation environments.

Core Capabilities

Display Blackout

Turn selected displays into clean, controlled black surfaces without changing your physical monitor arrangement or disconnecting screens. All triggered from custom shortcuts.

Mouse Peek

Grab the mouse to temporarily reveal the screen beneath DarkStage, make your mix adjustment then return automatically to blackout. Targeted sensitivity only wakes the single display you need.

Professional Metering

Full custom control of the look, feel, style and response of your meters. Choose from Bars, LED, Nixie,

Wireless Displays

Revive and old iPad as meters, a recording light for the live room, a warning on the studio door or bars:beats display for the string section to follow.

Are We Rolling?

In the live room, display transport state using borders, counters and visual indicators driven by compatible HUI/MTC/MMC information.

The artist always knows when we’re rolling. No more false starts.

Audio Analysis

View real time spectrum, waveform, scope, polar and related analysis widgets without crowding the main DAW workspace.

Multi Channel Metering

Keep an eye on up to 64 input meters while tracking. Breathe new live into old gear by building a meter bridge for your old console or 4-track. LED, Plasma & VU meters. In any colour size and style you can imagine.

Utilities

Quickly show a tuner to the musician or flash in sync with the metronome Display simple text messages or show a clock. A suite of visualisers and a notepad is included

Pin Any App Window To An Overlay

Any app window can be targeted to display through the blackout and be resized to fit with widgets, Show the video or lyrics or a DAW window.

Dual Stereo Inputs

Each Audio widget features dual inputs to enable any element of a mix to be metered seperatly. Eg, measure pre and post limiter

Button Control Panel

Create a remote button panel to act as a transport or assign any key shortcut combination to trigger the DAW

Display Presets & Looper

Build your ultimate display and move quickly between configurations for recording, editing, mixing. Assign up to 4 presets to a loop to scroll through them via a shortcut

Host 3rd Party Plugin Meters

AU Plugin hosting for displaying your favourite meters and analysis plugins you already trust.

Flexible Audio Routing

Utiliize any core audio device and its channels or virtual busses to tap into any part of your signal or mix chain. Measure LUFS pre final limiting or send your synth the oscilloscope or tuner.

Tap Directly Into System Audio

Take a feed of the system audio for hassle free metering. No change in workflow. No routing. No worries. For OSX 15 and above.

Editions

Four Editions. 30 Day Trial & No Subscriptions.

DarkStage Nothing

Nothing is free to keep after trial

Nothing will help you listen better. Nothing is yours. Nothing is forever.

Free

No cost

Download DarkStage

Includes

• Blackout control for one display

• Programmable shortcut

• One factory audio display preset

• System audio capture

• Lightweight studio operation

Best for

Anyone who needs single display blackout control at no cost. Keep the blackout feature at the end of the 30 day trial.

DarkStage | Blackout

Focused display control.

For studios that need clean blackout, fast screen access and simple visual transport feedback without the complete analysis toolkit.

$19

One-time

Buy Blackout

Includes

• Independent blackout control for connected displays

• Standard Peek

• Transparent Peek

• Cursor hiding

• Configurable display borders

• Saved display setups

• Lightweight studio operation

• Simple clock

• Visualisers

• “Where’s My Mouse” - Locater

Best for

Anyone wanting to blackout displays. Recording rooms, voice-over booths, client displays, projection environments and anyone who primarily needs controlled darkness.

DarkStage | Control Room

DAW following and Audio Analytics

Includes the Blackout toolset and adds professional meters, scopes, analysis widgets, display presets and deeper visual customisation.

$99

One-time

Buy Control Room

Everything in Blackout, plus

• DAW Sync

• Transport-aware border behaviour

• Professional peak, PPM and VU-style metering

• Spectrum RTA

• Waveform display

• Oscilloscope and stereo scope tools

• Polar and stereo visualisation

• Loudness and level monitoring tools

• HUI transport widgets

• Transport counters

• Configurable text and utility widgets

• Widget positioning and sizing

• Widget colour and appearance controls

• Global widget presets

• Factory display presets

• Dedicated layouts for multiple studio tasks

• Single AU plugin meter hosting (beta)

Best for

Mix engineers, Producer/Beat Makers, Mastering Engineers, editors and studios building dedicated visual monitoring displays.

DarkStage | Studio

Wireless, networked and broadcast-ready.

Includes the entire Mix toolset and adds browser-based wireless displays, networked broadcast, video and talkback links, DAW transport remotes and multichannel metering.

$149

One-time

Buy studio

Everything in Mix, plus

• Resurrect old devices — anything with a browser

• Multichannel audio meters (meter bridge)

• Custom Remote Button Panel for DAW control.

• Individual wireless standalone displays over your network

• QR code display syncing

• Common broadcast layout — one display to many devices

• Video link between remote displays

• Push-to-talk between devices

• DAW transport remotes & buttons

Best for

Tracking and live rooms, multi-room studios and engineers who need synced, networked displays across every device.

Comparison

Compare editions.

Display and Visibility

Feature

NOTHING IS Free

DarkStage Blackout

DarkStage

Control room

DarkStage studio

Display Blackout

Programmable Shortcuts

Standard Mouse Peek

—

Transparent Mouse Peek

—

Wireless Displays Via Airplay

—

Cursor Hiding

—

Full Display Presets

1 x Factory

Preset Looper

—

Custom Border Styles

—

Mind Bending Visualisers

—

Where’s My Mouse?

—

Resurrect Old Devices — Anything With A Browser

—

QR Code Display Syncing

—

Individual Wireless Standalone Displays Via Network

—

Common Broadcast Layout — Same Display To Multiple Devices

—

DAW Following Pro Tools , Logic Pro, Ableton, Cubase, FL Studio, REAPER

Feature

NOTHING IS Free

DarkStage Blackout

DarkStage

Control room

DarkStage studio

Display Border

—

Transport Status

—

Big Counter

—

SMPTE / MTC

—

Metronome - Flash / Numeric / Solid Shape

—

Status Text

—

DAW Transport Remotes

—

Utilities

Feature

NOTHING IS Free

DarkStage Blackout

DarkStage

Control room

DarkStage studio

Text Display

Limited

Studio Clock

—

Photorealistic Nixie Tube Clock

—

Tuner

—

Assignable Push Button Panel

—

Metering and Analysis

Feature

NOTHING IS Free

DarkStage Blackout

DarkStage

Control room

DarkStage studio

VU-style metering

—

Photorealistic VU Meters

—

Peak and PPM metering - LED / Nixie / Bar

—

Photorealistic Nixie Counters

—

Spectrum RTA - Line / Filled / LED / Nixie / Bar

—

Waveform Oscilloscope

Limited

LUFS Meters

—

Spectrogram 2D

—

Spectrogram 3D

—

Spatial Spectrogram

—

Rolling Waveform

—

Scope X/Y

Limited

Correlation Meter

—

Polar Sample

—

Polar Level

—

Meter Bridge / Multichannel Input Engine

—

Visualisers

—

Third Party AU Plugins

Feature

NOTHING IS Free

DarkStage Blackout

DarkStage

Control room

DarkStage studio

AU plugin meter hosting

—

Audio Engines & Inputs

Feature

NOTHING IS Free

DarkStage Blackout

DarkStage

Control room

DarkStage studio

System Audio - Requires Mac OS 15 & Above

Any Available Core Audio Device

Any Available Virtual Audio Device

Multichannel Input

—

Workflow

How DarkStage fits into the studio.

Choose a display

Select any connected display and decide whether it should be blacked out, used for transport feedback or turned into a dedicated monitoring surface.

Build the view

Add only the meters, analysis tools and information needed for that display’s job.

Save the setup

Store layouts for recording, tracking, editing, mixing, mastering or client review.

Recall it when needed

Move between studio tasks without rebuilding the workspace or scroll through you favourite displays via the preset looper.

All prices in USD. Taxes calculated at checkout. Payments are securely processed by CREEM our authorised reseller and Merchant of Record.

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Professional macOS tools for studios and DAW workflows.

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