ARTEMIS

1 · What Artemis is

Artemis turns the interface you already own into a professional monitoring console. It sits between your hardware and your DAW as a virtual interface named Artemis that mirrors your real one — same inputs, same outputs, same channel names.

• You monitor through Artemis — up to four channel strips with real plugin chains (your AU plugins), long-throw faders, cue mixes and talkback, at the low latency of your hardware buffer.
• Your DAW records through Artemis — every hardware input passes through untouched unless you say otherwise. Flip a plugin's REC light and that plugin prints to the DAW; leave it dark and the DAW gets the clean signal while you monitor wet.
• Your fader never touches the print. Pull your monitor down, cut it, solo something else — the DAW keeps recording at unity, like a real console split.

2 · Installing

1. Run the Artemis installer. It places the app in Applications and the audio driver in the system's HAL plug-in folder, then restarts the audio server (system sound blinks for a second or two — that's normal).
2. macOS may warn that the installer is from an unidentified developer: right-click → Open the first time.
3. Launch Artemis. Grant the microphone permission when asked — that's macOS's name for any audio-input access; without it your inputs stay silent.

3 · First launch

Artemis wakes like a console after power-up: faders at zero, channels clean. Pick your interface under Setup ▸ Playback Engine. The header shows your sample rate and buffer, the amber LCD shows your true monitoring path latency, and the green LED says the engine is live.

Your license

Artemis is licensed with a small file, Artemis License - Your Name.artemislicense. It arrives by email when you buy, and it's always in your account — sign in with the email you bought with; there's no password. The first launch asks for it: click Locate License… and choose the file, or simply double-click the file in Finder. Artemis keeps a copy in ~/Library/Application Support/Artemis, so updates and new versions never ask again. The same file works on every Mac you own — no activation, no machine lock, nothing phones home.

Without a license Artemis runs for five minutes per launch (the header counts down), then goes silent until a license is located. Artemis ▸ License… shows who it's licensed to, locates a new file, or removes the current one. Beta licenses expire three months after they were issued.

Undo

Every move on the console is undoable: ⌘Z steps back, ⇧⌘Z forward, and the Edit menu names the step ("Undo Fader: Channel 1 (−15.0 → 0.0 dB)", "Undo Load Insert: …", "Undo Insert Settings: …", "Undo Recall Template …"). A fader drag is one step, and so is a knob turn or preset change inside a plugin's window.

4 · Setting up your DAW

1. In your DAW, set the playback engine / audio device to Artemis.
2. Your DAW sees exactly your interface's inputs and outputs, with your interface's channel names.
3. The DAW owns the sample rate. Set your session to any rate your interface supports and Artemis follows, hardware included.
4. Tell Artemis which output pair your DAW mixes to with DAW MAIN OUT in the routing matrix (usually 1-2).

5 · Channels

Each strip is one mono voice — a vocal, a guitar, a talkback-adjacent producer mic.

• INPUT — pick any hardware input from the plate label, or NONE to unassign.
• Fader — long-throw, +12 to −∞, log taper. Option-click snaps to 0.
• CUT — mutes the voice in your monitors. The DAW keeps recording.
• SOLO — the voice alone in the mains; cue mixes are never touched by solo.
• PAN — position in the stereo mains.
• The meter reads the voice post-chain, pre-fader.

The OUTPUT section is the master: long-throw stereo fader, DIM, CUT, stereo meters. Option-click the master to unity.

6 · Inserts & the REC light

Up to ten insert slots per channel, loaded from your Audio Unit plugins.

• Click the empty slot — the selector opens right there, like a console insert menu: plugin types on the left, manufacturers below, live search on top. Type a few letters, hit return, done.
• Click a loaded plugin's name — its own window opens.
• ⌘-click the name — bypass (the name dims).
• The chevron on the right edge changes or removes it.
• The REC divot on the left is the money switch: dark means the DAW records the signal clean while you monitor through the plugin; lit red means that plugin prints — the DAW records it wet, through a dedicated print chain that never touches your monitor path.

7 · The routing matrix

ROUTING MATRIX at the master foot opens it. It edits like a session I/O window: stage every change, then OK commits everything at once. Cancel (or clicking away) discards. Default stages the shipped layout: channel 1 on input 1 to the mains, talkback on input 1 to the mains, DAW to the mains, cues unassigned, MAIN on outputs 1-2, DAW MAIN OUT 1-2.

• INPUTS — each channel and talkback takes one hardware input, or NONE. Anything can be unassigned.
• MIXES — free toggles: which of MAIN / CUE 1 / CUE 2 each voice, the talkback and the DAW return feed.
• OUTPUTS — MAIN and each cue own one hardware output pair; assigning a pair steals it from its previous owner.

8 · Cues & talkback

Each cue is an independent headphone world with its own LEVEL and a tilt EQ — darker to the left, brighter to the right — for taming a harsh cue feed without touching the mix.

TALKBACK lives at the bottom of the master module: pick its input in the matrix, set LEVEL, and hold TALK to speak. It's momentary, gated, and never prints.

Hands-free: Artemis ▸ Talkback Control… sets a global hotkey — it works while your DAW is in front, and the DAW never sees the key — and MIDI-learns any button, footswitch or expression pedal (heel off, toe on). ⌃⌥⌘-click the TALK button to learn a MIDI control without opening the sheet. A USB foot pedal that types a key works through the hotkey with no MIDI at all.

MIDI mapping

Any plugin knob and any console control can live on a MIDI controller. Plugins: ⌃⌥⌘-click the insert (it reads KNOB?), touch the knob in the plugin's window, then move your MIDI control — bound. The mapping is remembered for that plugin on this Mac, so it's on it every time you load it, in any slot or template. Console: ⌃⌥⌘-click a fader, pan, cue knob, CUT, SOLO, DIM or the master, then move a control. The same click again cancels. A knob only takes over a value once it crosses it, so nothing jumps. Artemis ▸ MIDI Mappings… lists everything and clears it. A template that maps a plugin differently from your own mapping asks which to use.

9 · Templates

Setup ▸ Templates. Save the whole console — routing, chains, REC states, cues, fader positions — under a name. Recall brings all of it back. Overwriting an existing name warns first. Launch is always a fresh console; templates are how you get to work.

10 · Latency, explained honestly

• The amber LCD is your monitoring truth: how far behind your ears run, in samples and milliseconds, including your plugin chain. Lower your buffer or lighten the chain (lookahead limiters and linear-phase EQs cost the most) to shrink it.
• Recording placement is compensated. Artemis measures its full record path and reports it to the DAW, which slides every take back into place. Your printed audio lands where you performed it — the only offset left is the air between you and the microphone (about 1 ms per foot).

11 · When something goes wrong

Send us the evidence

Help ▸ Send Report… opens an email to Four Letter Records with your engine logs attached and a rig snapshot filled in. Tell us what you did, what you expected, and what happened instead — then send. That's it.

Quick fixes

ARTEMIS · Four Letter Records · fourletterrecords.com