7 ms·

A framework for audio software development

122 points by fipar 4y ago

wvdk 4y ago
Those testimonials are convincing ;)
- bouhappy 4y ago
  Humor is all over the place. Makes me question whether I should "sudo" their installer...
  - yellowapple 4y ago
    You absolutely should. What's the worst that can happen?
yurishimo 4y ago
The beginners page[0] 404's. I've always been interested in learning how to write an audio plugin. As someone who loves playing with digital music production, I think there is a lot of room for innovation here still by outsiders who might not be new to programming, but could be new to audio. The untrained ear can be a great tool to discover new and interesting sounds that could be the backdrop of the next generation of music. 0: https://cabbageaudio.com/docs/beginners/index.html https://cabbageaudio.com/docs/beginners/index.html
- radiojasper 4y ago
  Yeah it seems they switched documentation software and now the links are borked. The correct link is https://cabbageaudio.com/docs/introduction/ https://cabbageaudio.com/docs/introduction/
- junon 4y ago
  Unfortunately Steinberg has a death grip on this space and the SDKs are horrendous. Not to mention the extremely commercialized VST UI framework scene. It's a sad state, and it's been a sad state for years and years.
  - b20000 4y ago
    what is the problem? there are lots of frameworks that shield you from the VST SDK.
    - junon 4y ago
      It's not about the SDK being shit. It's about Steinberg having monopolistic licensing over all of it.
  - SyneRyder 4y ago
    There's also the CLAP plugin format which might have a chance, supported by Bitwig and with Avid & Reaper adding it - seems lots of people want to escape Steinberg licensing if they can. https://u-he.com/community/clap/ https://u-he.com/community/clap/ EDIT: ahh, I see Oskenso already mentioned it. I guess the u-he link is another introduction to it though.
- bckr 4y ago
  I just started learning myself, and this weekend got VS Code to launch Reaper as a debug target so I can read print statements from my VST built with JUCE. This is where the fun begins. Open to helping anyone else get to this point as well.
- jcelerier 4y ago
  plugging in my library for audio (and media) plug-ins: https://github.com/celtera/avendish https://github.com/celtera/avendish ; here are the docs: https://celtera.github.io/avendish/ https://celtera.github.io/avendish/ I think that in C++ it's the simplest possible way to write them :)
strangeattractr 4y ago
Having played around with Csound a fair bit, it has some pretty good functions for creating instruments and sounds but the API for arranging in it is genuinely horrible to use. Sticking the Csound guts in a plugin and arranging in a DAW makes a lot of sense to me.
- b20000 4y ago
  it will never be polished like a VST plugin is, written in C++
  - rorywalsh 4y ago
    You think? This looks pretty good to me. https://www.kia.com/us/en/movement/our-instrument https://www.kia.com/us/en/movement/our-instrument
    - b20000 4y ago
      average plugins for average car buyers
- TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
  Csound has a lot of readymade oscillators, filters, and reverbs but most of them sound pretty mediocre, because they're made by academics, not professional plugin developers. There is a world of difference between a simple four pole filter and a really good juicy Moog filter emulation. Csound has the former, but it only has poor attempts at the latter. The original point of Csound was to have unlimited anything connected in unlimited ways. But you need a code front end to generate the Csound code to handle any kind of non-trivial complexity, and that's a huge project in its own right. So Putting Csound into VSTs makes no sense at all. You may as well just write raw C++ and package it using JUCE. The code will be faster and more efficient and just as cross-platform. And if you want to use readymade C++ libraries for basic building blocks they're not hard to find.
  - severak_cz 4y ago
oskenso 4y ago
JUCE[0] - https://juce.com/ https://juce.com/ is another fantastic framework for audio plugin dev. there's also experimental clap[1] extension generator[2] [0]: https://juce.com/ https://juce.com/ [1]: https://www.bitwig.com/stories/clap-the-new-audio-plug-in-standard-201/ https://www.bitwig.com/stories/clap-the-new-audio-plug-in-st... [1]: https://github.com/free-audio/clap-juce-extensions https://github.com/free-audio/clap-juce-extensions
- b20000 4y ago
  after JUCE got acquired by ROLI, everything went downhill from there.
  - tomduncalf 4y ago
    You may already be aware, but it’s no longer owned by ROLI, they sold it to PACE who it seems are investing in it more heavily
    - lioeters 4y ago
      It's the first I'd heard about it, apparently it happened in April 2020. Kinda weird that PACE works with intellectual property and licensing, and not in audio software development themselves. > JUCE Announces Acquisition by PACE > The JUCE team is delighted to announce the acquisition of JUCE by PACE Anti-Piracy Inc. > PACE specialises in software IP protection and secure licensing, and has been making developer tools for software creators for over 35 years. As PACE’s tools are used by a large number of world-class audio software publishers the company understands the importance of JUCE as a foundational piece of industry software infrastructure. https://juce.com/discover/stories/juce-announces-acquisition-by-pace https://juce.com/discover/stories/juce-announces-acquisition...
      - hules 4y ago
        > Kinda weird that PACE works with intellectual property and licensing, and not in audio software development themselves. A lot of their customers use JUCE, so there is a connection even if not very strong. What is also good (in my opinion) is that they are not a big player of the audio software. If JUCE had been acquired by, for example, Steinberg, I would be very worried.
zelphirkalt 4y ago
I have been interested in coding stuff for making sound or modifying sound of a given file for a while. Never have done any coding for sound tools. Any pointers, where I could start? Hopefully not too math heavy?
- capableweb 4y ago
  Think you're gonna have to be a bit more specific what kind of sounds you want to make, or how you'd like to modify them. The space is very wide in general, when it comes to "generating sound". Also, a lot of sound generator/modification will involve quite a bit of math, but with the right environment, you can make it more around trying different things and seeing what sounds good, rather than writing algorithms with text. A very easy way to get started would be to use something like NoiseCraft, here is one example of what you could do: https://noisecraft.app/608 https://noisecraft.app/608 Then if you'd like to create more advanced stuff (or rather, faster at creating more advanced stuff, NoiseCraft can do a lot in the right hands), Max for Live is a pretty solid environment: https://www.ableton.com/en/live/max-for-live/ https://www.ableton.com/en/live/max-for-live/
  - zelphirkalt 4y ago
    I would like to be able to output sound files like some *.wav or so directly from a programming language, writing code, which works with frequences, amplitude, channels, creating effects like ramp off or other things one can see in tools like audacity. This is probably more mathematical than using existing tools. I definitely want to touch the code, and I would like to have an understanding, so that I could do it in almost any programming language. Perhaps there is something beginner friendly, that also explains the math behind it for non mathematic / physics degree owners? Maybe I should look for something like "sound processing/generation from scratch".
    - capableweb 4y ago
      Overtone is pretty great for being a programming environment where you can hear the results live as you evaluate code (https://github.com/overtone/overtone https://github.com/overtone/overtone) It's using SuperCollider under the hood (https://supercollider.github.io/ https://supercollider.github.io/) which describes itself as "A platform for audio synthesis and algorithmic composition" You can pretty much achieve anything in terms of programmable music composition with Overtone/SuperCollider.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
blantonl 4y ago
The testimonials at the bottom of the page. So great.

122 points by fipar 4y ago

wvdk 4y ago

Those testimonials are convincing ;)

bouhappy 4y ago
Humor is all over the place. Makes me question whether I should "sudo" their installer...
- yellowapple 4y ago
  You absolutely should. What's the worst that can happen?

yurishimo 4y ago

The beginners page[0] 404's. I've always been interested in learning how to write an audio plugin. As someone who loves playing with digital music production, I think there is a lot of room for innovation here still by outsiders who might not be new to programming, but could be new to audio. The untrained ear can be a great tool to discover new and interesting sounds that could be the backdrop of the next generation of music. 0: https://cabbageaudio.com/docs/beginners/index.html https://cabbageaudio.com/docs/beginners/index.html

radiojasper 4y ago
Yeah it seems they switched documentation software and now the links are borked. The correct link is https://cabbageaudio.com/docs/introduction/ https://cabbageaudio.com/docs/introduction/
junon 4y ago
Unfortunately Steinberg has a death grip on this space and the SDKs are horrendous. Not to mention the extremely commercialized VST UI framework scene. It's a sad state, and it's been a sad state for years and years.
- b20000 4y ago
  what is the problem? there are lots of frameworks that shield you from the VST SDK.
  - junon 4y ago
    It's not about the SDK being shit. It's about Steinberg having monopolistic licensing over all of it.
- SyneRyder 4y ago
  There's also the CLAP plugin format which might have a chance, supported by Bitwig and with Avid & Reaper adding it - seems lots of people want to escape Steinberg licensing if they can. https://u-he.com/community/clap/ https://u-he.com/community/clap/ EDIT: ahh, I see Oskenso already mentioned it. I guess the u-he link is another introduction to it though.
bckr 4y ago
I just started learning myself, and this weekend got VS Code to launch Reaper as a debug target so I can read print statements from my VST built with JUCE. This is where the fun begins. Open to helping anyone else get to this point as well.
jcelerier 4y ago
plugging in my library for audio (and media) plug-ins: https://github.com/celtera/avendish https://github.com/celtera/avendish ; here are the docs: https://celtera.github.io/avendish/ https://celtera.github.io/avendish/ I think that in C++ it's the simplest possible way to write them :)

strangeattractr 4y ago

Having played around with Csound a fair bit, it has some pretty good functions for creating instruments and sounds but the API for arranging in it is genuinely horrible to use. Sticking the Csound guts in a plugin and arranging in a DAW makes a lot of sense to me.

b20000 4y ago
it will never be polished like a VST plugin is, written in C++
- rorywalsh 4y ago
  You think? This looks pretty good to me. https://www.kia.com/us/en/movement/our-instrument https://www.kia.com/us/en/movement/our-instrument
  - b20000 4y ago
    average plugins for average car buyers
TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
Csound has a lot of readymade oscillators, filters, and reverbs but most of them sound pretty mediocre, because they're made by academics, not professional plugin developers. There is a world of difference between a simple four pole filter and a really good juicy Moog filter emulation. Csound has the former, but it only has poor attempts at the latter. The original point of Csound was to have unlimited anything connected in unlimited ways. But you need a code front end to generate the Csound code to handle any kind of non-trivial complexity, and that's a huge project in its own right. So Putting Csound into VSTs makes no sense at all. You may as well just write raw C++ and package it using JUCE. The code will be faster and more efficient and just as cross-platform. And if you want to use readymade C++ libraries for basic building blocks they're not hard to find.
- severak_cz 4y ago

oskenso 4y ago

JUCE[0] - https://juce.com/ https://juce.com/ is another fantastic framework for audio plugin dev. there's also experimental clap[1] extension generator[2] [0]: https://juce.com/ https://juce.com/ [1]: https://www.bitwig.com/stories/clap-the-new-audio-plug-in-standard-201/ https://www.bitwig.com/stories/clap-the-new-audio-plug-in-st... [1]: https://github.com/free-audio/clap-juce-extensions https://github.com/free-audio/clap-juce-extensions

b20000 4y ago
after JUCE got acquired by ROLI, everything went downhill from there.
- tomduncalf 4y ago
  You may already be aware, but it’s no longer owned by ROLI, they sold it to PACE who it seems are investing in it more heavily
  - lioeters 4y ago
    It's the first I'd heard about it, apparently it happened in April 2020. Kinda weird that PACE works with intellectual property and licensing, and not in audio software development themselves. > JUCE Announces Acquisition by PACE > The JUCE team is delighted to announce the acquisition of JUCE by PACE Anti-Piracy Inc. > PACE specialises in software IP protection and secure licensing, and has been making developer tools for software creators for over 35 years. As PACE’s tools are used by a large number of world-class audio software publishers the company understands the importance of JUCE as a foundational piece of industry software infrastructure. https://juce.com/discover/stories/juce-announces-acquisition-by-pace https://juce.com/discover/stories/juce-announces-acquisition...
    - hules 4y ago
      > Kinda weird that PACE works with intellectual property and licensing, and not in audio software development themselves. A lot of their customers use JUCE, so there is a connection even if not very strong. What is also good (in my opinion) is that they are not a big player of the audio software. If JUCE had been acquired by, for example, Steinberg, I would be very worried.

zelphirkalt 4y ago

I have been interested in coding stuff for making sound or modifying sound of a given file for a while. Never have done any coding for sound tools. Any pointers, where I could start? Hopefully not too math heavy?

capableweb 4y ago
Think you're gonna have to be a bit more specific what kind of sounds you want to make, or how you'd like to modify them. The space is very wide in general, when it comes to "generating sound". Also, a lot of sound generator/modification will involve quite a bit of math, but with the right environment, you can make it more around trying different things and seeing what sounds good, rather than writing algorithms with text. A very easy way to get started would be to use something like NoiseCraft, here is one example of what you could do: https://noisecraft.app/608 https://noisecraft.app/608 Then if you'd like to create more advanced stuff (or rather, faster at creating more advanced stuff, NoiseCraft can do a lot in the right hands), Max for Live is a pretty solid environment: https://www.ableton.com/en/live/max-for-live/ https://www.ableton.com/en/live/max-for-live/
- zelphirkalt 4y ago
  I would like to be able to output sound files like some *.wav or so directly from a programming language, writing code, which works with frequences, amplitude, channels, creating effects like ramp off or other things one can see in tools like audacity. This is probably more mathematical than using existing tools. I definitely want to touch the code, and I would like to have an understanding, so that I could do it in almost any programming language. Perhaps there is something beginner friendly, that also explains the math behind it for non mathematic / physics degree owners? Maybe I should look for something like "sound processing/generation from scratch".
  - capableweb 4y ago
    Overtone is pretty great for being a programming environment where you can hear the results live as you evaluate code (https://github.com/overtone/overtone https://github.com/overtone/overtone) It's using SuperCollider under the hood (https://supercollider.github.io/ https://supercollider.github.io/) which describes itself as "A platform for audio synthesis and algorithmic composition" You can pretty much achieve anything in terms of programmable music composition with Overtone/SuperCollider.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

blantonl 4y ago

The testimonials at the bottom of the page. So great.