opensound

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This is the OpenSound Project's Mono Repo.

Website | crates.io | docs.rs

Original Author: @czy-29

Latest version: v0.0.6

What

OpenSound is a (currently WIP and in early development stage) OpenSource One-Stop Multi-Level SoundSystem Abstraction written in Rust, suitable for being a solid foundation for Pro-Audio Applications(e.g. a DAW) or other sound related apps.

1.0 will be our MVP version, and it will consist of:

• The Core Rust API
• A Web API Server
• A bundled Web GUI Playground

The Web GUI Playground is mainly for Exploring & Testing & Live Coding purpose (its form will resemble the combination of JUCE's DemoRunner and AudioPluginHost, as well as some of the unique features of this project), but of course, you can use it for music arrangement/production, it's just that the workflow can be quite cumbersome if you use just the playground frontend(e.g. this playground may not have a complete piano roll).

But for now, we are currently focusing on the 0.1 version, which is a PoC version. The main difference between the PoC version and the MVP version, is that in the PoC version, there will be no Web GUI Playground. Insdead, there will be a command-line "REPL Script Console" for testing & live coding demonstration.

In the future(after MVP), our roadmap will be:

• Wrapping the C API & create bindings for various languages(like C++/Python/C#...)
• Mobile support(1.0 will only support desktop platforms)
• WASM support
• OpenSound Native Playground(using Flutter & opensound's C API)
• Game Audio functionalities & Game Engines(like Unity/Unreal/Godot) integration

Install

You can:

cargo install opensound

if you just want to try this project out, or want to use the pre-built Web API Server directly.

Or you can:

cargo add opensound

if you prefer to use the underlying Rust API.

Why

1. As you can see, in the C++ ecosystem, there is a one-stop audio development framework like JUCE, as well as a DAW audio engine like tracktion_engine, but they all have various flaws (at least my own experience using them is very poor in many places), and they are C++(🤮). But in the Rust ecosystem, the distribution of audio crates are highly fragmented, lacking a unified solution, and many crates lack good maintenance, so I plan to write one myself. You can think this project as the RIIR version of JUCE + trackion_engine (but not quite, because the API of this project will be very different from theirs, it will be more elegant. At the same time, the API of this project will not include GUI modules, forcing you to practice a more modern architecture with front-end and back-end decoupling and strict isolation).
2. I am developing my own DAW (but DAW itself will be a commercial closed source project). I know that starting a new DAW from scratch in 2024 sounds like a joke, so I plan to fully open source the audio backend (which is this project) without reservation, introducing community power, and work together to open source and create. At the same time, the closed source of DAW front-end can retain commercial space, allowing this project to obtain funding for sustainable development. Therefore, overall speaking, the complete form of this project is actually an "OpenCore" project. This project is the open source "Core", and the DAW (tentatively named OpenSound Studio) is the closed source part.
3. In order to maximize the adoption of this project, we will wrap a Web API Server at the earliest stage, allowing any developer who is not using Rust to call this project in their own language even before the C API is exposed -- as long as your language can send HTTP/WebSocket requests. This also forms a front-end/back-end "process isolation" architecture, so that anyone can develop their own front-end using any framework, making it easy to develop custom frontends.
4. I am also a semi professional musician myself. In the process of arranging my own music, I discovered many features that I hoped to have, but none of them are available in the current DAWs. This is also the reason why I ultimately decided to write my own DAW. And many features will be implemented on this open-source core, which means that this project will have a lot of innovative audio features. So stay tuned!

License

This project is licensed under either of

• Apache License, Version 2.0, (LICENSE-APACHE or http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)
• MIT license (LICENSE-MIT or http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)

at your option.

Contribution

GitLab is our single source of truth, and the Github version is a read-only mirror, so please do not initiate any pull requests in the Github version.

Merge requests are welcome on our GitLab version!

Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in opensound by you, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, shall be dual licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.