akaVSTs
Three macOS DAW plugins I build and play — and use in my own music today. They load as VST3 / AU instruments in Ableton, Logic, Bitwig, or any host (and run standalone too), built with JUCE 8 and C++17, Apple Silicon native. Each one is made to be recorded live: immediate, hands-on parameter control, dedicated FX pages, and master sections built around tension and performance.
Instrument · VST3 / AU / Standalone · Ableton-ready
akaBleep
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 8.0.4 · C++17 · VST3 / AU / Standalone · macOS 11+ universal (Apple Silicon + Intel)
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Instrument · VST3 / AU / Standalone · Ableton-ready
akaEnzyme
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.
akaEnzyme 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 8.0.4 · C++17 · VST3 / AU / Standalone · macOS 11+ universal (Apple Silicon + Intel)
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Sampler · VST3 / AU / Standalone · Ableton-ready
aka-i4
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 8.0.4 · C++17 · VST3 / AU / Standalone · macOS 11+ (Apple Silicon + Intel)
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