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Life & fun · alternatives · 2026

PC

24 alternatives to Protoplug – Create audio plugins on-the-fly with LuaJIT

protoplug is a VST/AU plugin that lets you load and edit Lua scripts as audio effects and instruments.

Protoplug is a VST/AU plugin that allows users to load and edit Lua scripts as audio effects and instruments within their digital audio workstation. Rather than relying on pre-built plugins, musicians and sound… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Protoplug – Create audio plugins on-the-fly with LuaJIT launched in 2014; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

  1. 1
    Prototape▲124

    Music made together, wherever

    2023 · prototape.fm · its alternatives →

  2. 2AP

    I made MAIM, an open-source audio plugin that uses real MP3 encoders to distort the sound. I've also added knobs that let you "circuit bend" the encoders, changing parameters that would normally be inaccessible to the user to get strange glitchy sounds. The plugin lets you switch between two MP3 encoders, since under the MP3 standard, the specifics of what to lose in MP3 lossy compression is left up to the encoder. The encoders are LAME, the gold standard for open-source MP3 encoders, and BladeEnc, an old open-source MP3 encoder that has a really bubbly sound and was fun to work with. I'd…

    2023 · wildergardenaudio.com · its alternatives →

  3. 3

    Change the way you prototype on macOS & Windows

    2019 · protopie.io · its alternatives →

  4. 4AS
  5. 5

    A powerful realtime node-based audio synthesizer. Contribute to monadgroup/axiom development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2018 · github.com · its alternatives →

  6. 6

    The music player and explorer for Emacs. Contribute to mihaiolteanu/vuiet development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2020 · github.com · its alternatives →

  7. 7WA

    Hi, I'm the author of this little Web Audio toy which does physical modeling synthesis using a simple spring-mass system. My current area of research is in sparse, event-based encodings of musical audio (https://blog.cochlea.xyz/sparse-interpretable-audio-codec-pa...). I'm very interested in decomposing audio signals into a description of the "system" (e.g., room, instrument, vocal tract, etc.) and a sparse "control signal" which describes how and when energy is injected into that system. This toy was a great way to start learning about physical modeling synthesis, which seems…

    2025 · blog.cochlea.xyz · its alternatives →

  8. 8

    protoCURL is cURL for Protobuf: The command-line tool for interacting with Protobuf over HTTP REST endpoints using human-readable text formats - qaware/protocurl

    2023 · github.com · its alternatives →

  9. 9IU

    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 · its alternatives →

  10. 10WB
  11. 11

    Seamlessly automate your audio-visual setup! This open-source framework uses the Open Sound Control protocol to integrate audio mixer consoles, OBS, PTZ cameras, and more. Perfect for live production enthusiasts, streamers, and tech tinkerers. I have made it originally to meet our needs, then opensourced it: We needed to move a PTZ cam based on the stage/pulpit mute states on our X32, but it is capable for way more. Let me know what do you guys think! Cheers!

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

  12. 12

    Emulation of the Roland Juno-106 analog synth. Contribute to stevengoldberg/juno106 development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2015 · github.com · its alternatives →

  13. 13
    Jamboree▲102

    Multiplayer synthesizer

    Jul 2026 · jamboree.space · its alternatives →

  14. 14AG

    Hey folks! I've spent the last 8 months building a VST plugin called "The Infinite Crate" on top of Magenta's Lyria RealTime music model on the Gemini API. Doug Eck's research group has been building MusicLM and variants since 2017 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yz-fHidp1M8) I bridged a JUCE/C++ audio processing foundation with a React/Typescript UI, using Zustand to sync state. The plugin streams down generated audio from the Lyria RealTime model in the Gemini API via websockets You can try it as a VST3 on Mac/Windows or AU/Standalone on Mac. It works in…

    2025 · its alternatives →

  15. 15

    An interactive terminal app/UI for MIDI composing, mixing, and playback—written in Rust - minimaxir/miditui

    Jan 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  16. 16

    The better multi-screen prototyping experience in Figma!

    2023 · figma.com · its alternatives →

  17. 17

    Control your MIDI devices using your lips.

    2019 · beatbars.com · its alternatives →

  18. 18
    SAND▲80

    Sequencer and host for audio plugins on iOS

    2022 · getsand.app · its alternatives →

  19. 19

    Hello HN, not many will know what this tool is about, but it's launch day and I always dreamed of posting on HN. Let's start! This is a tool for people using eurorack gear. For synth people. What is cool about my tool is that I show the signal flow with a graph. Here's the official press text: After a decade of stagnation in this space we are excited to present patcher.xyz: the modern way to manage everything modular. It’s a tool for professionals, enthusiasts, and casual wigglers. Novadays artists must develop their own means of taking notes, often on paper, since there is no common format…

    2022 · patcher.xyz · its alternatives →

  20. 20

    — Move touch up and down to change frequency, move touch left and right to change volume. — Tap the logo to loop, tap again to stop looping, tap yet again to cancel the loop. — Tap the waveform icons to change the waveform.

    2024 · slidesynth.com · its alternatives →

  21. 21

    Network protocol emulator and testing tool

    2017 · vprotostack.com · its alternatives →

  22. 22
    Protome▲95

    Gather feedback on prototypes, designs, mockups easily.

    2023 · protome.app · its alternatives →

  23. 23IJ

    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 · its alternatives →

  24. 24

    Transform your web audio with real-time effects

    Jul 2026 · chromewebstore.google.com · its alternatives →

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Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →