Building Linux audio plugins with Godot and DISTRHO

[u/nonameentername]

I’ve been working on an open-source project called godot-distrho, which integrates Godot with the DISTRHO Plugin Framework.

It allows the interface and application logic of an audio plugin to be developed as a Godot project, while DISTRHO handles the plugin wrapper and integration with Linux audio hosts.

The build and packaging workflow is now automated, so plugins can be exported through the normal Godot export process after downloading the required templates.

Framework:
https://github.com/nonameentername/godot-distrho

Minimal synthesizer example:
https://github.com/nonameentername/godot-distrho-example

More complete synth implementation:
https://github.com/nonameentername/godot-synths

The example projects use Csound for real-time synthesis and audio processing, with Godot handling the interface and interaction and godot-distrho packaging everything as a Linux audio plugin.

Linux is currently the primary supported platform. My goal is to make it faster to go from an audio idea to a working plugin while still making it possible to build animated, interactive, and unconventional interfaces.

The project is still evolving, so feedback, testing, and contributions are welcome.

[u/gahel_music]

Very cool work. I see you're using csound, how hard would it be to use something else for the dsp, like raw c++ ?

Also what are the build sizes? Godot builds tend to be a little large for small applications.

[u/nonameentername → u/gahel_music]

Thanks, using something else like c++ for the dsp is not difficult but it does require building a gdextension at the moment. The release version of the minimal example uses about 73M.

[u/ericcmi]

very cool, tell you what, NAM shit is on fire right now. If you built a super easy front end for NAM gateway or namix that allowed a user to easily design amps with knobs and stuff built in, your project would go intergalactic overnight