Puts music somewhere else in a building. An effect, so it goes on a track that already has music on it.
This page is the manual. It is kept up to date here, so there is nothing to re-download when something changes. Last updated 6 August 2026.
THALM places music in a real space, the next room, down the hall, out in the street. Hear the whole thing free in your browser first, no install and no account. When it fits, one purchase unlocks every format on your machine.
It is an effect, not an instrument
THALM goes on a track that already has music on it. It does not make sound of its own.
The two modes
What it is actually doing
Not a preset and not a filter you set by ear. It works from where things are: how far apart the listener and the music are, how many walls are between them, how many floors, how open the door is, and how far outdoors you have got. Open the door from shut to ajar and the top end comes through the gap, because that is what a gap does.
The twenty named places on the map, "The next room", "A corridor", "The stairwell", are starting points that seed those numbers. Inside the car is a car, not your car, so move off them.
Using a real room
You can load a recording of an actual space and THALM will filter through the real room, still applying the distance and the walls on top.
Final Cut Pro
Put THALM on a clip's audio, open the Inspector's AUDIO tab, and click the small controls button on the THALM row to open the real interface. The plain slider list Final Cut shows by default is a fallback, not the plug-in.
One instance per clip.
Worth knowing, and tested: once you have a room you like, use Save Audio Effects Preset. It appears in the Effects Browser and you can drag it onto any other clip, in any project. A recorded move comes with it and plays on the new music.
Where does a recorded move live?
Inside the plug-in, not as keyframes on the timeline. That is deliberate and it is why a whole move travels inside a preset instead of being a lane of points that has to be stretched to fit.
The move happens at the wrong moment
The route is glued to the clip, not the timeline. Put the music clip at the head of the film and the route runs from the head. Slide that clip twenty seconds in and the route starts twenty seconds in with it.
That is correct behaviour: it means the move stays locked to the same moment in the music however you move the cue about. The working rule is place the clip where it belongs first, then record the move against the picture. Do it in that order and it is right by construction.
Does it survive an export?
Yes, and that is measured rather than assumed. Exporting the same timeline twice, once with THALM bypassed, and comparing the two shows the move landing at the same moment in the master file as on the timeline, with the same shape.
Does it survive handing the project to someone else?
Within Final Cut, yes. Export XML, import into a fresh library, and the plug-in, its settings and the recorded route all come back intact. Taking that XML into Resolve or Premiere will not carry an Audio Unit, but no audio plug-in's settings survive that. It is the format, not THALM.
DaVinci Resolve
Fairlight page, then in the mixer click the + in a track's Effects section. THALM is under VST. You can also find it on the Edit page under Effects > Audio FX > VST Effects.
Not showing up in Resolve or Premiere? It is almost certainly in the wrong folder. Those
apps only read /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3/, the one at the top level of your disk.
The installer puts it there for you. See the Install tab.
Where is my licence key?
In your Gumroad receipt email, and on your Gumroad library page. There is a separate key for each instrument, so if you bought the Collection you have three of them.
It is silent and asking for a key
That is normal. Every instrument stays silent until it is unlocked. Paste the key on the first screen and press UNLOCK.
Do I have to activate every format separately?
No. One activation covers the AU, the VST3 and the AAX on that machine.
If your DAW blocks the internet check, activate once in the Standalone app and the plug-in versions unlock along with it. All formats share the same activation.
Does it phone home? Do I need to stay online?
No, and no. It checks the licence once, when you first activate. After that the activation is written to a file on your own machine and it never contacts a server again. You can take the machine permanently offline and it keeps working.
On macOS the record lives at ~/Library/Tunary Instruments/THALM/license.json. The
installer never touches that file, so updating never costs you your activation.
My key was rejected
Send me the key you are using and the email address you bought with, and I will sort it at my end. james@tunary.io
The easy way
Download the installer from your Gumroad library and double-click it. It puts the Audio Unit, the VST3 and the AAX where every host looks for them, and you can untick any format on the Installation Type screen. macOS will ask for your password, which is normal for the shared Plug-Ins folder.
Installing by hand
Use the folders at the top level of your disk, not the ones inside your home folder. In Finder press Shift Cmd G, paste the path, and drag the file in.
Tunary /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components//Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3//Library/Application Support/Avid/Audio/Plug-Ins/The one that catches people. There is a similar folder inside your home folder that starts
with ~. Logic and Final Cut read both, but DaVinci Resolve and Premiere Pro only read
the top-level one, so a plug-in put in the home-folder version simply never appears in them.
Quit your host first
Fully quit your DAW or editor with Cmd Q before installing, then reopen it. Hosts only look for new plug-ins when they start.
What it runs on
macOS 11 Big Sur and later, Universal, so native on both Apple Silicon and Intel. Signed and Apple notarised, so macOS opens it with no security warning. Windows is VST3, 64-bit, Windows 10 and up. The AAX for Pro Tools is Mac only, and it comes in the Mac installer rather than the zip, because it has to go into a folder the zip cannot write to.
Windows says "Windows protected your PC"
The Windows builds are not code-signed, so SmartScreen warns on first run. Click More info then Run anyway. You do it once. A Windows signing certificate runs to several hundred dollars a year, which is a lot for a small label, so for now that warning is the honest trade.
Also, before you unzip: right-click the zip, choose Properties, tick Unblock, then extract. Windows tags anything downloaded and copies that tag onto every file inside.
Where does it show up in my DAW?
Under Tunary Instruments, not under the product name.
Not there at all in Logic? Logic Pro > Settings > Plug-in Manager, search for it. If it is unticked, tick it. If it failed validation, select it and click Reset & Rescan Selection. Usually it just means Logic was open while you installed.
Pro Tools
THALM is an effect, so it goes on an insert slot of an audio track that already has sound on it. Everything works there: settings survive saving and reopening a session, automation writes and plays back, and a bounce prints the movement into the file.
Not there in Pro Tools? It only scans plug-ins when it launches, so quit it fully with Cmd Q and reopen. That is nearly always it.