Particles

Particles is an experimental audio synthesis plugin which creates notes by simulating particle collision, available as a VST/AU effect for use inside DAWs like Ableton, Logic, FL Studio etc.

It takes MIDI input (eg. from a music keyboard), and uses it to generate particles in the simulation corresponding to the notes which are being played, with a velocity set by the velocity of the incoming MIDI note.

The simulation uses perfectly elastic Newtonian collision mechanics, and each particle will "ring" whenever it hits another, at a volume dependent on the force of the collision, and panned to where it happened in the simulation space.

The effect produced is something like a chaotic non-synced arpeggiator, that can be used for all kinds of interesting random and/or textural effects.

If you want to get an idea of the potential, then you can check out my previous iteration Gas which is a webaudio-based implementation of the same concept with fixed notes. Particles is a C++/JUCE version with higher performance, has more features, and is designed more as a instrument and less as a toy.

Installation

Mac & Windows

Go to the Vitling.xyz plugin download page for conveniently packaged donwloads for Mac and Windows

Extra notes for Mac users

I have now finally joined the Apple Developer Program, so I am pleased to be able to offer proper installers and notarized binaries for Mac

However, the Apple Developer Program still costs money, even for an open source developer. I suggest you write to Apple and lawmakers in your jurisdiction and complain about their anti-competitive practices.

If you use the Mac version, please consider donating some money to me to offset the cost I have incurred to make this possible.

Linux

Building on Linux should be a fairly straightforward cmake situation, but I don't use Linux for music making so I'm interested in hearing reports from users of Bitwig or other Linux DAWs.

Dependencies

cmake g++ libfreetype6-dev libx11-dev libxinerama-dev libxrandr-dev libxcursor-dev mesa-common-dev libasound2-dev freeglut3-dev libxcomposite-dev pkg-config

These are Debian/Ubuntu package names (install with sudo apt-get install and paste the above), you may need to translate for your distro

Build

git clone --recursive --shallow-submodules https://github.com/vitling/particles.git
cd particles
cmake -Bbuild -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build --parallel

Support

If you find this useful, then please consider supporting my work. You can do that by buying the music of Bow Church or Vitling; or listen and add to playlists on Spotify and/or SoundCloud.

You can also see my website, Instagram or Twitter to follow my latest work; and/or contact me to hire me for stuff.

License

This plugin is free software, licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0.

However, the JUCE framework that it depends on as a submodule has its own license