Alternatives
Products that do what MegaDSP an effects plugin for DAWs with 50 effects does
Hey HN, I am creating megaDSP, a huge DAW plugin for all platforms, with the goal of it being a free, open-source, and semi or fully autonomous github project that evolves around community feedback. It currently has more than 50 audio effects that can be combined together in effects chains, and also supports "snapshots" where you can seamlessly switch between different effects chains (for live use, like a fancy guitar pedalboard for example). I would really love if you have a moment to test it out, give thoughts, etc. There are many, many plugins out there in the world, but many of them are…
- 1AA
I’ve recently released my solo project Audiocube I wanted to make a 3D DAW, where spatial audio, physics, and virtual acoustics are all directly integrated into the engine. This makes it easy to create music in 3D, and experiment with new techniques which aren’t possible in traditional DAWs and plugins. I’d love to get any feedback on this software (Mac/Windows) to make it better. You can download it for free through the website. Thanks, Noah
2025 · audiocube.app
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- 3IU
Hi Hacker News, This is definitely out of my comfort zone. I just wanted to show you guys because I'm super proud of it. It's a 100% faithful recreation based off of the schematics, patents, and ROMs that were found online. So please watch the video and tell me what you think https://youtu.be/auOlZXI1VxA The reason why I think this is relevant is because I've been a programmer for 25 years and AI scares the shit out of me. I'm not a programmer anymore. I'm something else now. I don't know what it is but it's multi-disciplinary, and it doesn't involve writing code myself--for…
Jan 2026
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- 6ALAbleton Live MCP▲123
Ever wanted to control Ableton with just your voice? Me too! I made this MCP server so I could just ask Codex to do anything in Ableton Live for me, while I was nap-trapped by my baby. The chat messages I sent to Codex to make this: in ableton, make a self reflective song, with audio vocals (via macos say) and chip tunes and 80's drum machines. should be a real edm banger i want midi for everything but vocals please, with ableton devices. not prerendered audio for instruments needs some fills and should hit way harder after "3-2-1 i become the sound" the vocals are squished too much (read…
May 2026 · github.com
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- 8DO
YO, I’m Ryan, lead author. I’ve been contributing open source generative audio stuff for a while now, audio reactive Comfy nodes, extended ACEstep support in Comfy, etc.. I just opened-sourced a new audio project that I've been working on for a few months and I want to tell y'all about it. WHAT IS IS DEMON: Diffusion Engine for Musical Orchestrated Noise This is StreamDiffusion but with audio instead of images, and ACEStep 1.5 instead of Stable Diffusion. It’s responsive enough that you can play it like an instrument, and remix in near real-time. I also distilled the ACEStep VAE: it’s faster…
May 2026 · daydreamlive.github.io
- 9IJ
Hey all. For the last few years, I have been developing a software synthesizer as a side project. It's taken longer than I both hoped and feared, but earlier this week I finally shipped 1.0. Details about the synth itself are up on my website, https://lhiaudio.com/. For those who are unfamiliar, in music production, there are host applications (such as Logic Pro, Ableton Live, or REAPER) in which most of the work (such as recording or sequencing MIDI data) is done. These applications generally have some built-in tools for the actual generation and processing of audio data, but…
2018
- 10SG
2012 · alpha.soundkeep.com
- 11IV
So, I've never written a line of Rust in my life. I wouldn't know an `&mut this` from a mutandis. But I saw a tweet about a month ago that said, in this new era of AI, you'd be able to just take a library that you love, throw a TUI around it, and call it an app. So I spent about 200 bucks last month, here's what I came up with: Imbolc is a DAW that runs entirely in your terminal. It talks to scsynth over OSC and ships 58 instruments and 39 effects. VSTs are a work in progress, also GarageBand loops if you want to recreate "Umbrella". The codebase is about 60k? lines of Rust across 5 crates,…
Feb 2026 · github.com
- 12FA
I'm Sam, I make sample libraries (as FrozenPlain). These sample libraries run inside Floe, my audio plugin for Linux, macOS and Windows. It's designed for musicians, composers and producers - typically people involved with film/TV/game scoring or ambient music. I open-sourced it primarily because I'm very fond of this philosophy and I want to open the door for serving a wider audience than just my own libraries. It's totally free, no sign-ups. You'll need a DAW. To try it: - Download and install Floe: https://floe.audio - Download your choice of free packages:…
6d ago · floe.audio
- 13MS
Jul 2026 · github.com
- 14MN
I am working on building (and have made my first prerelease) for a Digital Audio Workstation with git like branching version control. It's free for local use and paid for cloud syncing or collaboration.
Jan 2026 · scratchtrackaudio.com
- 15IB
Hey HN, I’m an ex-Google engineer trying to get back into music production. I needed a way to sequence my hardware synths using AI contexts without constantly switching windows, so I built this. It runs entirely in the browser using WebMIDI. No login required. It connects to your local MIDI devices (if you're on Chrome/Edge) and lets you generate patterns. Tech stack: [React / WebMIDI API / etc]. Link: www.simplychris.ai/droplets Code is a bit messy, but it works. Feedback welcome.
Dec 2025 · simplychris.ai
- 16OS
Hi all, I've been using sound effects in a few web-projects lately (mostly for notifications) and it's always a pain to find good sound effects and then handle them in the browser. So, I compiled my learnings into an easy-to-use React library. It currently has ~70 sound effects (MIT licensed) and I'm happy to add more if you have any requests. PS. the sound effects can of course be used without the React library!
2025 · reactsounds.com
- 17AA
Hey y'all, So - the main idea of this is to make a WebAudio synthesis/sequencer tool which humans can use via the UI, but where the big unlock is for agents to drive with MCP It's semi decent as "make a groovy jazz track", especially for retro sounds - but the real use case is more like "make a jetpack whoosh effect I can control via code at runtime - where the sound changes based on character health or how much fuel is left" In other words, the target audience is not musicians (except maybe of the Max/MSP sort), but more like creative coders who want to shape the sound iteratively…
Jun 2026 · audio.awsm.fun
- 18IB
Hey HN! Last week I was working on a website and needed a way to synchronise visuals with live music. I've used MIDI controllers for this before, but I am travelling right now and don't have mine with me. So I had the crazy idea to build a browser extension that uses the keyboard as input and includes a sequencer. I gave myself 24 to work on it. It ended up taking longer (of course), specially since I ended up creating a demo, a small landing, docs, and an intro video. Took me one week from idea to launch (pushed quite a bit tbh). Features: - Works as a browser extension. Atm distributed…
2024 · minitap.io
- 19IM
Hey everyone, I built a Sonic Pi MCP to create music with just prompts and jam with Claude I've linked a demo of me asking Claude for a rock beat, and then for some D minor chords that sound like Pink Floyd Let me know what you think!
2025 · twitter.com
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I have been entranced by Berlin School music for years. I love those evolving and interwoven arpeggios. Latching an arp is often my favorite way to noodle on a synth, and yes it’s because I can’t play to save my life. Last month I got tired of waiting for someone else to build my dream arp machine, so I built my own in the form of a web synth. It is purpose-built for sculpting and performing with melodies. I call it the AM-1 Arpeggio Machine. My next goal is to port the web engine into hardware format (using the Daisy Seed). But in the meantime, since the web app is perfectly usable, I…
23d ago · crux.garden
- 21PA
Hey everyone, I've built a multiplayer audio recorder/looper for songwriting in your browser. It started as a side project in March last year but 3 months ago I quit my job to work on it full-time. I wanted the simplicity of a Portastudio and the utility of a loop station to serve as an easy way to get song ideas together without needing to send files back and forth, or get lost in the complexity of traditional DAWs up front - just record or upload your ideas and share the link with whoever you want to collaborate with. Would love to hear what you think of it! Any feedback, thoughts, or…
2023 · prototape.fm
- 22TG
I'm an indie developer making iOS games. My guitar app, Tiny Guitar, has reached 1 million DLs after about 14 months on the App Store. Check it out here: https://itunes.apple.com/app/id504720445 It reached 128K weekly active users this March, and is currently hovering at around 100K weekly actives. http://i.imgur.com/Z4Zha73.png I'm anxiously waiting for the new Nexus 7 to get released, so I can explore porting some of my apps over to Android. You may have seen me post about my piano app in the past:…
2013
- 23OC
Your feedback and suggestions are greatly appreciated. Built with backbone.js, node.js and mongodb. Thanks! http://ownDJ.com
2012
- 24BA
Made an MCP server that lets you design sounds on the Digitone 2 synth with natural language — real-time control over MIDI. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXf6lOTjla8
2025 · github.com
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