DarkMath
Live-coded synth · VST3, Windows x64, Linux x64 and ARM64
An instrument you write. A song is a few lines of code: loops that say which notes to play and when, and sounds written as formulas.
A kick is a sine falling into its note, a hoover is three saws a little out of tune, an 808 bounces round its note like a mass on a spring. The loops are written the way Sonic Pi writes them, with live_loop, play and sleep, and the rest is maths, written the way you would on paper. Hold a key and the song plays from that key; press play in the host and it follows the host’s beat exactly, from wherever you start. Beside the code, a picture draws every note as it sounds, bends and all.
It comes with songs to start from and a manual in the panel, where every example has a Try it button. DarkMath is not part of The Dark Eight; it is sold on its own.
What you get
After you pay, a mail brings your licence and a link to your downloads. Open the link, give it the licence file and the address the mail went to, and pick the download for your computer: Windows, Linux, or Linux on ARM for a Raspberry Pi 5 with 8 GB. The link keeps working, so come back for the latest version whenever there is one.
The download
holds three things: the plugin, DarkRunner to play it without a DAW,
and something to install both. On Windows that is an installer that
sets it up for you alone and wants no administrator. On Linux it is
install.sh, the same idea and no root either. The .vst3
is in there loose as well, for dropping into a VST3 folder by hand.
Windows puts up a blue box reading Windows protected your PC the first time you run it. That is SmartScreen. Quietening it means buying a code signing certificate and renewing it every year, which I would rather not pass on. What the box tells you is that the publisher is unrecognised, which is all it means: nothing has been found wrong with the file. Click More info, then Run anyway.