unnieversal/README.md

unnieversal

some VST plugins made in Rust using baseplug

source for the plugins are inside the crates folder. all plugins have only been tested on macos with reaper

disclaimer: i am not responsible for loss of work, time, sanity, or anything else if you decide to use these plugins

as of now no plugin has ui, so they all just have a few sliders with whatever look your daw gives them

building a plugin

macos

to build a plugin, first run:

cargo b --package package_name --release

Then make the generated dylib file into a VST plugin:

./osx_vst_bundler.sh PluginName target/release/libpackage_name.dylib

this will create PluginName.vst in the build folder. You can copy it into /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST and use it in your daw

alternatively, you can run:

./macos.sh packagename

this will generate Packagename.vst in build and copy it directly for you

other platforms

no idea what you have to do for other platforms, refer to the vst-rs docs. i think you can just build and take the .so or .dll, but don't quote me on that

PRs are welcome for more build instructions

i also might delete the build folder from the repo,

plugin list

the following is the current list of plugins

• basic_gain: simple gain plugin
• noted: output midi at regular intervals
• sosten: granular sustain plugin
• quinoa: [WIP] granular synthesis plugin
• XLowpass: reimplementation of Airwindows XLowpass
• multidim: randomized midi note generator
• robotuna: automatic pitch correction
• hysteria: hysteresis nonlinear effect
• threebandeq: 3 band eq
• threebandwidth: 3 band stereo widener
• tritu: say-goodbye-to-your-audio distortion

basic_gain

simple gain plugin, used as a template for starting new projects

noted

midi retriggerer

parameters:

• tempo: how often to retrigger a note

it listens for incoming midi, and while a note is on, it triggers it every tempo beats. if tempo is one, it will trigger once per beat

it's useful when you want to play a note super fast (over 1/64 tempo) but don't want to have a section full of tiny midi notes. just add the plugin, set the tempo to how often you want it to play, and add a midi note that lasts however long you want the notes to play for

sosten

sustains a sound by replaying a grain of sound on loop

parameters:

• length: length of the grain in samples. maximum is 48000 cause i said so
• mix: dry/wet knob
• enable: will enable the sustain if it's over 0.5

to use this plugin, add an automation for enable and set the value to 1.0 wherever you want the sustain to happen

quinoa [WIP]

nothing implemented yet, but it's supposed to be a granular synthesis plugin that does stuff with an audio file

since this needs a ui so we can select a file to play, and i still don't know how to do that, it's kinda stuck

XLowpass

XLowpass just reimplements Airwindows XLowpass in rust. it's a lowpass distortion filter

parameters:

• gain
• frequency: cutoff frequency. it's not in hz, so move it around until it does what you want it to
• nuke: amount of distortion

i haven't checked correctly, but there's probably some mistakes and it might not sound exactly the same. it does what i want it to, so that's good enough for me. also i have absolutely no idea what the code does, it's just a direct translation

you might need to play with the parameters around a bit to get it to sound good

multidim

multidim simulates a ball bouncing around in a 16-dimensional cube. each time the ball bounces off of a wall, a midi note is sent out

parameters:

• speed: speed at which the ball moves. around 1 should cause approximately one bounce per beat
• root: the lowest note that will be generated (in midi number). the rest of the notes will be from root to root + 16
• note_length: length of each note in beats
• enable: enables the generation if over 0.5

since some daws keep the plugins running all the time (whether the song is playing or not), this plugin will generate notes constantly even if the song is paused. since this gets annoying fast, i added an enable param. set it to 1 to make the plugin generate notes

robotuna

WIP automatic pitch correction and pitch shifting. the intention is to use it to make hyperpop-style high-pitched vocals

it kinda works, but not really. since the pitch shifting part is too slow using a phase vocoder, it doesn't run in real time, and there's some clicking noises. i need to rework that whole thing so it can run in real time. i'll probably change the whole thing completely instead of optimizing it cause yeah

hysteria

hysteria is a hysteresis nonlinear effect, which compresses and distorts the input audio

parameters:

• drive
• saturation
• width: width of the hysteresis loop

original source here

turn the values up for loud and distorted. don't set them all to the max at once though, that doesn't sound as interesting

threebandeq

simple three band equalizer

parameters:

• low band: frequency at which the low band ends
• high band: frequency at which the high band starts
• low gain: gain for the low band
• mid gain: gain for the mid band
• high gain: gain for the high band

low band goes from 0hz to low band, mid band goes from low band to high band, high band goes from high band to half the sample rate

threebandwidth

three band stereo widener

parameters:

• low band: frequency at which the low band ends
• high band: frequency at which the high band starts
• low width: width for the low band
• mid width: width for the mid band
• high width: width for the high band

bands work as they do in threebandeq. the width parameters control how wide an audio signal should be in the stereo field. width of 1 leaves the audio as is, width of 0 makes it mono, values between 0 and 1 decrease the stereo width, values over 1 increase it.

tritu

hard limiter followed by a soft limiter with distortion

parameters:

• pregain: pregain for the hard limiter
• drive: drive for the soft limiter
• distortion: amount of distortion on the soft limiter

distortion affects lower volumes more than higher volumes, so if you crank up drive a lot, there will be less distortion (this is a good thing for high values of distortion!). if you leave drive low and set distortion to max, your audio will turn to almost white noise

i like this plugin a lot

contributing

issues and prs are welcome, but please open an issue before making any big pr, i don't wanna have to reject a pr where you have put a lot of effort on

license

gpl3 or something, i need to check which one to use and the add the correct file

consider it gpl3 for now