Hacker News Reader

Comment by TheRealPomax | Hacker News Reader

> As a standalone app, Audiocube offers tools, workflows, and processes that go beyond the capabilities of VST plugins.

But does it support VST/AU in order to load instruments rather than "samples"?

There is currently no VST/plugin support, although this is something I would like to include later on.

It's just too much development work at this stage - not only the VST integration itself, but building a full MIDI sequencer timeline, editor, etc to support instruments.

Other DAWs do this perfectly well so I'm focusing on the 3D virtual environment moreso than tradtional DAW functions. Audiocube isn't a tool to compete with the likes of Ableton and Logic, but something to run on the side.

Although, if I had a big enough team I would love to give it all of these features. I'm just doing it solo at the moment, so I need to have a narrower focus.

"Why You Should Not Write a DAW" (ADC 2024)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMlnh6_9aTc

Yeah this is an interesting talk. A full DAW is maybe over ambitious for one developer, but I don’t think vst plugins would be able to achieve what I wanted. For example vsts can easily spatialise individual sounds, but there is no way to then easily move the listening position through the scene, without a disgusting amount of automation - hence building a virtual 3d environment daw with more placement flexibility

... or start with an open source DAW that already has all the rest, and add the placement flexibility you want ...

But I'm speaking out of self-interest here, and anyway for now your output is limited to binaural stereo which is not really a viable target for production workflows at this point.

That's the thing: if you have VST or ReWire support, you don't need to implement any of that. That's now something someone can use a VST/ReWire bridge for, taking all that work off your plate. "If you need MIDI sequencing, or multi-pattern input, or randomized pattern generation, just connect your DAW of choice as input".

(And of course, "and if you then want to consume the result in another DAW, you can". Chaining up multiple DAWs because they're all good at different things is one of the more fun things to do ;)

Exactly. Some kind of audio bridge is one of the main priorities for me. I think this will really open up options, and almost make it like a virtual studio space/echo chamber for reamping stuff.

It's just a matter of working out the best way to enable multi-channel input, and connect to DAWs, I'm researching it and I've had some basic success but I think I need to go deeper into the programming grind to achieve it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com