Aquanode Plugins is a large collection of VST3 audio plugins written in JUCE / C++ with the help of Claude AI. Every plugin is free and open source, and I compiled them as both VST3 and sometimes as standalone app for Windows, as well as a few ports for Android. Mac ports are available in a fork of this repo, see the Download section below.

Synths inspired by hardware modules do not contain any proprietary code or other material, everything is done from scratch or credited open source material. Scroll down for a list of included plugins, separated by synth (sound generation) and effect plugin types. Next to Windows, the plugins should also compile for Mac and Linux. I only provide Windows builds here, since I only have a Windows machine.

The plugins should all work reliably, but definitely are not all "industry standard production quality" - please excuse the occasional bugs or missing features or unexpected behaviour especially when you try to deep dive into a plugin :)

All of my builds as well as Presets and Samples are on the Releases page, sorted by type: One .zip file for .vst3, one for .exe, one for .apk and one for Presets and Samples each. These are named accordingly, such as aquanode-plugins-windows-vst3.zip.

The source code and manuals (the "README" files) are available in the repository directly, of which you can download a .zip bundle directly here: https://github.com/aquanodemusic/aquanode-plugins/archive/refs/heads/main.zip

Many of the plugins are also available for Mac here, thanks to the artist and Apple developer from CutUp Studios: https://github.com/lnswlrd/aquanode-plugins

Feel free to make your own forks of this repository! That said, I prefer to keep this repo limited to things I've created or generated myself, since I also use it as a personal backup, and therefore disabled issues and pulls. I'm always happy to hear feedback and ideas especially in comments on youtube or so, but I'd rather not have an open list of tasks and things waiting for me to respond to in what is a collection of products I made in my free time. Thanks for understanding!

If you want to support me, which I'd highly appreciate but you don't have to, then feel free to leave me a tip for my music on bandcamp, my songs are all free too!

My links: 🌊 bandcamp · youtube

Watch a couple of the plugins in action:

Many more videos are available on my youtube channel, for plugins such as Aquanode Modular or NoteAdder if you want to hear what they're doing before downloading them.

Thanks to the following blogs and youtubers who have featured the plugins (and thanks to anyone who I haven't found yet or forgot to mention!)

Rekkerd - Bedroom Producers Blog - Synthtopia - AudiArtist - DTM-Sale - napskint

Amner Hunter - AnDerington - Elektronick Musick - FreeVSTPlugins - satyatunes - LightningPigTV - Lan

All .vst3 plugins have been tested on Windows 11 23H2 64bit in FL Studio 2025 and Ableton Live 11.

Plugin	Description
AliasSynth	A synthesizer and sample player that deliberately has no anti-aliasing built in - frequencies above the Nyquist limit get reflected back into the audible range for unusual, harsh timbres, great for pads, stabs, and extreme sample repitching.
AlphaBeta	A synthesizer modelled after the free but discontinued LinPlug Alpha 3, with its characteristic liquid, smooth sweeping filter sound that washes out beautifully with the chorus. Can load original presets.
Aquanode Modular	A free modular synthesizer with ~120 modules, cable patching, an euclidean sequencer, granulator, physically modelled drums, spectral effects, preset generation and mutation - and full feedback routing, including self-FM. Includes a few other synths you can find here directly build in. Inspired by the Nord Modular G2 and Wren Modular. Also available as FX version and Android App.
Aqua Vibrio	A synth modelled after the Access Virus TI with automatic preset generation capabilities. Same workflow, sound from scratch re-using the DSP from the modules from Aquanode Modular.
Aquanova	A synth modelled after the Novation Supernova II with automatic preset generation capabilities. Same workflow, sound from scratch re-using the DSP from the modules from Aquanode Modular.
🧵 CombWeave	An experimental additive synth where each sine wave is spaced equidistantly, exponentially, or harmonically from the next, with rolloff, note-lock, and bidirectional mirroring controls.
Droplets	A 64-bit VST3 recreation of the old 32-bit freeware plugin "Water" by xoxos - a physical water droplet model that creates individual bubble sounds, splashes, or river textures.
FM12	An easy-to-use 12-operator PM/FM synthesizer with a flexible modulation matrix, user waveform import, and integrated stereo chorus for simple yet complex sound design.
✏️ Frequency Drawer	An experimental draft plugin with a canvas on which you draw sound that is played back left to right, with two rendering engines, frequency blur reverb, and harmonics controls.
Grainfreeze	A real-time phase-vocoder time-stretching and freeze processor: play notes, drag the playhead freely through a loaded file (backwards too), or freeze a tiny crossfaded slice in spectral freeze mode.
Granulate	A versatile granulator with all the essentials: grain amount, position, spread, and duration, with MIDI resampling, click-to-granulate on the waveform, and visual grain playheads.
NoteAdder	A MIDI plugin that analyzes the notes you play and adds extra notes around them in real time - play a note, get a chord; play a chord, get many. With scale/custom/cluster modes, animation modes, humanize, and MIDI recording. GPLv3.
PhizmOsc	A 2-oscillator transwave synthesizer loosely inspired by the Ensoniq Fizmo hardware synth, with wavetable import / generation, transwave envelopes, and Fizmo wavetable import possibility.
Phizmo	A much closer remake of the Fizmo synthesizer. 4 Voices, each with 2 Oscillators. Loads of effects and presets loosely modeled after their descriptions in the original Fizmo manual.
🌾 SampleField	A 24-voice polyphonic sampler that continuously loops and chains random audio files from a pool of up to 128 samples for generative, evolving textures as long as a note is held.
Slicer	A simple recreation of a well-known drum slicing plugin - slicing only, with no installers, online activations, or crowded UI.
Soundscape Ecology	A physical modelling synthesizer covering Soundscape Ecology: Biophony (Crickets, Frogs, Birds), Geophony (Water, Wind) and Anthrophony (Metals and Machines). Including Stereo Field Placement of many sound sources and simple weather mechanics.
Tabla	A very simple physical Tabla Drum modelling synthesizer. Allows you to play it rather expressively with your mouse in either repeated hit or pitch slide modes.
VirtualDX7	A Windows port of VDX7 by chiaccona, a bit-accurate Yamaha DX7 synthesizer originally for Linux only. Contains a native engine too, which supports MTS ESP Microtuning.
~ VirtualK5	An additive synthesizer loosely inspired by the Kawai K5.

Plugin	Description
83ChorusVerb	The FX section from my VirtualDX7 synth (a recreation of the Yamaha DX7 originally released in 1983, hence the name) as an effect plugin. A lush Chorus, Delay, Phaser and Reverb.
ADelaySR	A tempo-syncable stereo delay where every tap is shaped by a fade-in (Attack) and fade-out (Release) envelope - instead of abrupt echoes, each repeat blooms in and dissolves out for a washed-out delay character.
AlphaBetaFX	The filter and chorus section of AlphaBetaSynth as an effect: run any signal through the liquid, smooth sweeping Alpha 3–style filter sound.
anyFM	FM-modulates a sidechained signal onto a carrier signal - any sound can FM (or ring-modulate) any other sound directly in your mixer.
Aquanode Modular FX	The FX version of Aquanode Modular, as explained above. This will load as a Effect VST, so you can use all the effects with any sound source you desire.
Aquaton Reverb	A large reverb inspired by lush, non-natural-space reverbs like Blackhole or Supermassive, with free control over feedback, tank dispersion, bloom, HF wash, and many parameters other reverbs hide internally.
AudioReroute	A versatile DAW-routing utility and feedback loop creator - send audio between tracks in ways your DAW normally won't allow.
AudioStretcher	Independent time-stretching (0.1×–10×) and pitch-shifting (±36 semitones) powered by the Rubber Band Library, with region selection and lossless FLAC export. GPL v2.
AutoMorphEQ	A VST3 port of my AutoMorph EQ Patcher preset for FL Studio: an automated morphing EQ with randomizer and multiple LFO modes.
Bandpass Modulator	A VST3 port of my FL Studio / PlugData bandpass modulators: a randomly jumping, skew-modulated bandpass filter with note lock - from Filter FM to bubbly effects to mellow panning.
CenterComb	An experimental effect using equidistantly spaced filters to create interesting tones (add a limiter - volume spikes happen!). Sibling of the CenterWeave synth concept.
CepstralIR	Extracts the acoustic signature (impulse response) of any recording via cepstral processing - capture the character of a guitar, space, or effect chain as a reusable IR file. Pairs with IRConvolve.
~ ClipPreserve	A detail-preserving clipper: it extracts the content lost to clipping via a polarity-inverted delta chain and blends it back in, so hi-hats survive on top of loud subbass.
EQ Octave Resonator	An array of parallel note-tuned bandpass filters with selectable resonating octaves and notes, per-octave volume sliders, and a wet-only mode that cancels the incoming signal.
EcoSee	A spectral / cepstral visualizer tool especially designed for bioacoustic analysis including a "build your own 3d visualizer" tool from measurements EcoSee calculates, such as Spectral Centroids.
FlowEQ	A 3-filter morphing EQ where you can record yourself drawing the evolution of the filter over time and then play it back.
FullFilter	A filter bank that can be played like a synth using MIDI input. The filters can be tuned by importing wavetables that get internally analyzed.
Granulate FX	An FX version of granulator that records whatever is routed into it into a sliding window, and grains play it back repeatedly.
IRConvolve	The companion convolver to CepstralIR: load impulse responses and imprint their captured character onto any signal.
~ IRForge	An improved and combined version of the CepstralIR / IRConvolve combo including live recording to impulse response conversion.
LiquidChor	A recreation of a famous BBD chorus, focused on spacious, free-flowing chorus delay lines and "analog" noise hiss reminiscent of waves crashing ashore.
NoteControl	The MIDI-controlled sibling of PitchControl: select which notes pass through via MIDI input instead of the piano interface.
Phorest	A phaser modelled after a well-known stock DAW phaser but with much more extensive control ranges: more stages, extra LFO modes (including a flattened tanh sine), and a two-mode GUI.
PitchControl	The typical "colorbass" effect: up to 120 bell filters (or an FFT bin-shifting mode) attenuate all frequencies except the notes you activate on the piano interface.
PitchControlEQ	An improved version of PitchControl that has a more finetuned and deeper colorbass effect tone to it, only using adaptive filterbanks similar to my FL Studio PitchControl patch.
PrecisionUtility	A utility for artificial latency, phase inversion, and channel panning - precise signal alignment tools, designed to pair with SignalControl and ClipPreserve.
Resonate	A 7-voice resonator modelled after a famous DAW resonator, recreated from scratch in JUCE - with a much broader note range than the original and MIDI input capability.
~ SignalControl	Draw control voltage curves and gate signals and output them as audio (CV on the left channel, gates on the right) - reliable modulation routing for DAWs where parameter outputs aren't.
Springer Spring Reverb	An algorithmic stereo spring reverb built from dual interacting spring lines with dispersion, damping, feedback, and modulation - from dub-style springiness to phasing laser sounds.
TapElectric	A tape deck simulation adding warm electric hum and white tape noise - less about transforming the sound (though saturation and wobble are there) and more about the imperfect tape atmosphere.
Vocode	A classic filter-bank vocoder with up to 256 bands: modulator envelopes gate the carrier's bands for the characteristic "talking synthesizer" effect, or richly self-gated robotic textures without a sidechain.

A collection of a few, mostly effect plugins built on a shared FFT-based engine for real-time spectral analysis and manipulation - especially suited for colorbass, botanica, and experimental sound design. See the suite overview for details.

Plugin	Description
SpectralCompare	A live spectrogram with sidechain overlay, delta display, spectral EQ drawing, morphing/vocoding-style processing, rolling spectrogram mode, and a sharp spectral reassignment view - analysis and shaping in one interface.
SpectralCompress	SpectralCompress is heavily inspired by robbert-vdh's Spectral Compressor, with the addition that you can freely draw the target curve with your mouse instead of relying on a polynomial curve filter by default.
SpectralEdit	A synth that loads up to 1 minute of audio into an editable spectrogram: select, rotate, flip, blur, draw, compress, and scrub spectral content, then play it back repitched via MIDI.
SpectralEnhance	Same controls as SpectralGate, but frequencies are pulled towards the gate line instead of deleted - a spectral brickwall compressor, upwards or downwards.
SpectralFilter	Draw custom filter curves (±24 dB) directly onto the live spectrum, with multiple FFT resolutions, a random curve generator, per-bin frequency/phase/panning control, IR export, and a fully color-customizable UI.
SpectralGate	Frequency-selective gating: two vertical frequency bounds and a drawable amplitude threshold decide what passes, with invert mode and tilt EQ - for band carving, noise removal, and creative filtering.
SpectralLatency	Spectral delay over up to 8192 FFT bins: draw a delay curve along the frequency range - including "negative" delay that sends the rest of the sound out earlier.
SpectralLock	A colorbass sound effect using polyphonic spectral filter bank resynthesis and a note locking matrix, including shimmer and modulation effects.
SpectralMorph	A high-quality Spectral Morphing plugin, in fact a spectral vocoder, that merges two sounds into each other using cepstral analysis and other methods.
SpectralSmoothe	A live spectral smoothing / freezing / evolution effect made reusing code from the Grainfreeze Plugin.
SpectralResolve	A high-resolution reassignment-based spectral analyzer focused on sharp low-frequency inspection, with FFT sizes up to 16384, decimation for enhanced bass resolution, and a sidechain comparison path.
SpectralStereoize	A spectral Mid/Side processor: draw stereo width curves across the frequency spectrum, from full mono collapse to extreme expansion per frequency range, with sidechain reference display.

Program	Description
SimpleDAW	A very simple standalone DAW that can load 64-bit Windows .vst3 plugins - a minimal host for sketching and testing. Has many flaws and bugs in it, but it is usable.

Android .apk Projects have been tested on Android 15. Android Apps are rather difficult to maintain, they may not work with older or newer versions. The apps should work fine, but I for example had some problems with sound output on the speaker one of my devices while having a MIDI Keyboard connected to my phone on its USB C port using a USB 3.0 to USB C adapter. This issue however happend on one of two phones I tested the apps with, and when I used headphones everything worked well on both devices. So, these are considered "playground" apps.

App	Description
~ AudioStretcher for Android	A port of the simple AudioStrecher using the Rubberband Library for Android.
AlphaBeta for Android	A port of AlphaBeta for Android. Contains a MIDI keyboard in the bottom to play with your fingers on your phone's touchscreen. Patches are compatible with the Windows version.
Aquanode Modular for Android	A port of Aquanode Modular for Android. Contains all the modules from the original and a MIDI keyboard in the bottom to play with your fingers. Patches are compatible with the Windows version. External MIDI Device highly recommended!
Aqua Vibrio	A synth modelled after the Access Virus TI with automatic preset generation capabilities. Same workflow, sound from scratch re-using the DSP from the modules from Aquanode Modular.
VirtualDX7 for Android	An Android port of VirtualDX7 with some effects borrowed from my Aquanode Modular VST.

Plugins are distinguished by whether they are effects or sound generators (synths). Every plugin folder follows the same layout of README.md, a text file describing what the plugin is about, an assets folder with images, screenshots or sound examples of the respective plugin, and a src folder with the actual source code.

There are many ways to compile the JUCE plugins, it gets straightforward after you did it a few times. Writing CMakeLists is a common way to compile the plugins, however I simply used JUCE's Projucer directly, which is a small GUI tool to set up what you need. In most cases, you specify the name and version of your plugin, whether it is an effect or synth, and make sure that you use static runtime in the Visual Studio Release Settings so the plugin embeds the C++ runtime libraries to make the plugins run on any machine and not only machines with the specific version of them you currently happen to have.

Using Projucer generates a .jucer file, which I added in many src folders (in the events where I kept them). You can regenerate these yourself very easily using Projucer. Projucer also constructs the surrounding folder system when you create the project by clicking the Visual Studio Export button inside Projucer. The only step left is to copy and paste my source code (in most cases simply the PluginEditor.h/.cpp and PluginProcessor.h/.cpp files) into the Source Code folder that Projucer generates right next to the .jucer file. For this repository here, I used src as the name for the folder in which the code files are all located here, as this is more adjacent to how github handles the naming.

Most plugins were made with the help of Claude AI. The plugins are, except stated otherwise, released under the AGPLv3 License for freely distributed JUCE projects. External libraries used in these projects comply or are compatible with this license to the best of my knowledge.

If you scrolled this far - thank you! Here is a little more about myself.

One thing I really don’t like as an artist is not owning my tools. Online activation, license servers, and “phone-home” plugins are common practices in modern creative software. I understand why they’re used, but I’m not sure why online activation is so prevalent rather than something like a personalized offline installer - which some vendors kindly provide. These online systems create unnecessary dependencies and take control away from artists who simply want reliable tools. That’s why all of my plugins are fully self-contained and activation-free. There are no installers, no online authorization or accounts, and nothing that can suddenly stop working because a server goes offline or similar - hence, my software is also open source so anyone can maintain it as long as they want.

Furthermore, I value creative, colorful, and genuinely human design and want interfaces that feel tactile, expressive, natural and alive. Tools should invite playful curiosity and comfort, with warmth, depth, and personality. They should be a joy to use and evoke a sense of freedom whilst having their own character. Even though I use AI to make my plugins, which goes against some of these ideals, I still care about them and am glad that these AI systems gave me the ability to create them - there are many projects I would never have found the time nor the mental energy for otherwise, so I hope that is understandable!

Have fun with the plugins! - aquanode, 2026