-.mov

MSDAW (short for Mewiof's Silly Digital Audio Workstation) is a effortless/bug-filled experiment in building an Ableton/FL Studio-like app

Features

• plugin hosting: support for VST2 and VST3 instruments/effects
• built-in plugins: Bit Crusher, Auto Sidechain, EQ Eight, Analyzer, Modulator (LFO / Performer / Stepper)
• racks: group devices into a rack of parallel chains, driven by mappable, automatable macro knobs
• timeline engine: audio/MIDI clips (with linking)
• track management: hierarchical track grouping and routing
• automation: parameter automation with curved tension
• mixing: per-track volume, panning, solo/mute, live peak metering
• export: offline rendering to 16-bit WAV files
• UI: hardware-accelerated interface
• input: computer MIDI keyboard

Community

Chat with me: https://pony.land/

Building

The project uses CMake & configured for Clang/Windows

Install LLVM & CMake (+ Ninja optionally)

1. Clone with submodules: git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/mewiof/MSDAW.git
2. Open in Visual Studio/VSCode or use CMake:

   mkdir build
   cd build
   cmake ..

Notices & Licenses

MSDAW is released under the MIT License and relies on:

• SDL3: platform window management & input (zlib License)
• Dear ImGui: user interface (MIT License)
• RtAudio: audio I/O abstraction (MIT License)
• FreeType: font engine (FreeType License, the FTL arm of its dual license)
• VST3 SDK: VST3 plugin hosting (MIT License, as of SDK 3.8.0)
• VST 2.4 SDK: VST2 plugin interface logic (Proprietary/Legacy Steinberg license; contact mewiof@gmail.com for instant removal)
• googletest: test suite only, never linked into the app (BSD 3-Clause License)

MSDAW is based in part on the work of the FreeType Team.

MSDAW ships as a single executable, so it carries these licenses in full inside the binary rather than in files beside it — Third Party in the menu bar shows each one. The texts are read from every dependency's own license file when CMake configures the build (see the Third-party notices section of CMakeLists.txt), so a new dependency is credited by adding one line there, not by transcribing anything.