InstrumentsVST3 / AUJUCEmacOS
akaVST
Three instruments, built one at a time and documented as they go: an acid voice wrapped around a 64-step sequencer, a four-layer lo-fi synth sharing one voice pool, and a sampler that resamples itself. JUCE and C++17, for macOS — VST3, AU, and Standalone. They're at v0.1, v0.4, and v1.0, and the pages say so: what's finished is listed, what's queued is listed, and none of them are finished.
In simple terms
Three musical instruments I built for macOS that load inside Ableton and other music software: an acid voice wrapped around a 64-step sequencer, a four-layer lo-fi synth sharing one voice pool, and a sampler that resamples itself.
They are real audio plugins written in C++, shipping as VST3, AU and standalone apps. Not presets, not sample packs.
They are at v0.1, v0.4 and v1.0, and the pages say so. What is finished is listed, what is queued is listed, and none of them are finished.
The impact. I perform with them, which is a harder test than shipping them. The design rule I now apply to everything came from here: on an instrument a control in the wrong place does not read worse, it makes you play something else.
How these get made
One window, not a rack
Each of these exists because the thing it does was possible already, and miserable. Wiring a synth to a sequencer to a fistful of utilities gets you an acid line; it does not get you something you can perform. The instrument is the part where the wiring disappears.
Character over emulation
None of these model a specific circuit. Enzyme evokes the Protein’s lo-fi bite with bitcrush, sample-rate reduction, and waveshaping rather than reproducing a wavetable engine. The reference is a target, not a spec.
Shipped states, honestly
These are at v0.1, v0.4, and v1.0, and the pages say so. What is finished is listed, what is queued is listed, and where a README overpromises against the build, the build wins.
Instrument · Acid synth + sequencer
akaBleep
v0.4.0VST3 · AU · Standalone · macOS 11.0+ · Apple Silicon and Intel · 39 presets
A hypnotic-techno acid voice and 64-step P-lock sequencer in one plugin — built to be performed. Loads as akaBleep.
akaBleep is a monophonic instrument for the “bleep-bloop” lineage of hypnotic techno — the Dozzy / Surgeon / Plastikman school where one acid line, slowly mutating over sixteen bars, is the track. It folds the whole loop into one window: a voice that squelches, a sequencer that locks a different sound to every step, a patch bay to set it breathing, and a master FX chain to smear it into the room. One plugin, on one MIDI track in Ableton, that you play live.
- Acid voice. Two multi-mode oscillators (saw / square / sine / FM) with sub and ring mod, summed into a tanh drive stage and a ladder filter.
- Three envelopes. Amp ADSR, filter ADSR with ±5 octaves of sweep, and the exponential pitch-decay env that makes the genre’s acid “bloop.”
- 64-step sequencer. Four pages, variable length, and Elektron-style parameter locks — ~40 parameters P-lockable per step, so step 3 can be a sub thud and step 11 a screaming chirp from one voice.
- Live parameter locks. Hit REC and twist any knob while it plays to lock that value to the current step — record moves live, exactly as you perform them. Plus per-step chords, velocity, gate, and probability so the line never repeats the same way.
- Generators + host sync. Four-on-the-floor, off-beats, Euclidean 3/5/7, and random seeds; runs standalone or phase-locks to the Ableton transport.
- Patch bay. Drag-to-wire modulation — LFO, filter env, noise, or velocity into pitch, PW, cutoff, resonance, or amplitude — to keep a static loop breathing.
- Dedicated FX page. Chorus → phaser → bitcrush → ping-pong delay → reverb, each stage P-lockable per step, with a live spectrum analyzer and presets — the fast route from clean bleep to ruined dub-techno smear.
- Presets. 39 genre-curated factory patches plus a user store and favourites.
Signal flow
┌─ osc 1 ─┐
MIDI ─▶┤ osc 2 ├─▶ mix ─▶ tanh drive ─▶ ladder filter ─▶ amp env ─▶┐
│ sub │ │
└─ ring ──┘ LFO · filter env · noise · velocity ─▶ patch bay │
▼
out ◀─ reverb ◀─ ping-pong delay ◀─ bitcrush ◀─ phaser ◀─ chorusJUCE · C++17 · VST3 / AU / Standalone · macOS 11.0+ · Apple Silicon and Intel
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Instrument · Lo-fi multi-timbral synth
akaEnzyme
v1.0.0VST3 · AU · Standalone · macOS 11.0+ · Apple Silicon and Intel · 18 presets
A 4-layer lo-fi multi-timbral synth inspired by the Waldorf Protein — stacked, split, and mangled live. Loads as Enzyme in your plugin list.
Enzyme reimagines the Waldorf Protein’s 8-bit tabletop character as a modern plugin: four independent layers sharing a single 8-voice pool, routed by a hardware-style Multi engine, then smeared through a switchable FX rack and a dedicated lo-fi / “sample-breaking” mangle section. The grit comes from bitcrush, sample-rate reduction, and drive waveshaping. It ships as a signed universal VST3/AU that passes Apple’s auval and drops straight into Ableton, Logic, or Bitwig — designed to be stacked, split, and mangled fast, live.
- Four layers, one pool. Independent A/B/C/D layers share a single 8-voice pool with global voice-stealing — a hardware-style Multi engine, not four separate synths.
- Five Multi modes. Single, Layered, Round-Robin, Random-Robin, and MIDI-Split with three key-split points — stack a pad, split the keyboard, or cycle layers per note.
- Per-layer voice. Two PolyBLEP / 2-op-FM oscillators, sub + ring, a ladder filter, three envelopes, drive, glide, and a per-layer “Dirt” grit (Static / Crackle / Geiger / Click / Burst).
- Dedicated FX page. Two switchable series slots (1-of-9: chorus, flanger, phaser, tremolo, drive, compressor, EQ, delay, reverb) plus a lo-fi / mangle block — bitcrush, sample-rate reduction to 64×, and a free-running stutter.
- Arpeggiator. Host-synced Up / Down / Up-Down / Random / As-Played, up to 4 octaves, gate and swing — and it feeds the Multi engine, so it follows your layer routing.
- Built for the stage. Ableton-style QWERTY play from anywhere in the editor, ±2-semitone pitch bend, click-free master gain, and an output bus guarded by a DC blocker + soft clipper so extreme settings never spike the master.
- Production-ready. Signed universal VST3/AU that passes auval on both architectures, reports correct tail/latency, and smooths automation — it behaves like a finished instrument in any host.
JUCE · C++17 · VST3 / AU / Standalone · macOS 11.0+ · Apple Silicon and Intel
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Instrument · Sculpting sampler
aka-i4
v0.1.0VST3 · AU · Standalone · macOS 11.0+ · Apple Silicon · 5 presets
A sculpting sampler inspired by the Torso S-4 — built for live resampling and performance. Loads as i4.
i4 takes one sample (or sixteen) and runs it through a series of sound-sculpting engines, lets you modulate any of it, and resamples the result straight back into the instrument. Built for performance: granular textures, resonant tones, destruction, and space — all under a 4-slot modulation matrix, in Ableton or standalone. Tape is the master clip; the sixteen pads sum in right after it, so every pad runs the full chain too.
- Sculpt, then resample. One sample (or sixteen pads) runs through a chain of engines and resamples straight back into the instrument — mangle your own output and play it back.
- Tape. A varispeed tape-style source — scrub, rotate the loop, glide between speeds, reverse, freeze, keylock, and sound-on-sound layering.
- Mosaic. A granular cloud: grain rate, size, contour, spray, warp, detune, and scale-quantized grain pitch.
- Ring. A 48-band resonator bank — tune, pitch and detune the partials, tilt and tone the spectrum, inject waves and noise, quantize to a scale.
- Deform + Vast. Deform: drive / saturation, compression, bit-crush, spectral tilt, a noise layer, and a gate. Vast: a synced delay and reverb in one — feedback, spread, damp, decay, size, and an infinite freeze.
- Performance. Tempo-synced Beat Repeat (what you hear is what resamples), Tape Stop spin-down, a 30-second Loop Recorder that drops onto a pad, and a one-knob master filter (lowpass → bypass → highpass) for live tension.
- Modulation. Four mod slots (Wave LFO / Random / ADSR) route to ~50 destinations across every engine; right-click any knob to assign it.
Signal flow
Tape + 16 Pads ─▶ Mosaic ─▶ Ring ─▶ Deform ─▶ Vast ─▶ Beat Repeat ─▶ Master Filter ─▶ out
└▶ Loop Recorder ─▶ new PadJUCE · C++17 · VST3 / AU / Standalone · macOS 11.0+ · Apple Silicon
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