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SoundPipe

SoundPipe is a lightweight music DSP library for musicians and creative coders, featuring over 100 high-quality modules that can be combined to build unique sounds. It is written in C, has minimal dependencies, and is callback-driven with sample-accurate timing.

SoundPipe
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Key facts

What is SoundPipe?

Beautiful sounds for your projects via a modular, fast, and well-documented audio DSP library.

Who is SoundPipe best for?

Musicians, creative coders, audio developers

What are its main limitations?

  • Requires C programming knowledge to use
  • No graphical interface or presets; purely code-driven
  • Not a standalone application; must be integrated into a project

Limitations are based on product materials or editorial synthesis; confirm on the official site.

Key features

  • Over 100 high-quality DSP modules
  • Small codebase
  • Sample-accurate timing
  • Modular design for combining modules
  • Very fast performance
  • Well documented with C examples
  • Minimal dependencies (only libsndfile by default)
  • Callback-driven processing one sample at a time
  • Module lifecycle: create, initialize, compute, destroy
  • Source code available on sourcehut

Use cases

  • Building unique synthesized sounds for music projects
  • Embedding audio DSP functionality into C applications
  • Generating sine waves and other waveforms programmatically
  • Prototyping audio effects and instruments
  • Learning audio DSP by hacking on a modular library

Pros

  • +Small and fast; ideal for embedding
  • +Minimal dependencies simplify compilation and integration
  • +Well documented with runnable C examples
  • +Modular design makes it easy to extend or remove modules
  • +Open source code hosted on sourcehut

Cons

  • Requires C programming knowledge to use
  • No graphical interface or presets; purely code-driven
  • Not a standalone application; must be integrated into a project

Positioning

  • Core value: Beautiful sounds for your projects via a modular, fast, and well-documented audio DSP library.
  • Ideal for: Musicians, creative coders, audio developers

Frequently asked questions

What is SoundPipe?

SoundPipe is a lightweight music DSP library for musicians and creative coders, built with over 100 high-quality modules.

Who is SoundPipe for?

It is designed for musicians, creative coders, and audio developers who want to incorporate beautiful sounds into their projects.

How do I use SoundPipe?

Each module has documentation with at least one short C example. SoundPipe is callback-driven: you provide a function that processes one sample per call.

What are SoundPipe's dependencies?

By default, the only required library is libsndfile. It compiles to a single static library, making it easy to embed.

Is SoundPipe open source?

The source code is hosted on sourcehut, indicating it is open source.

How does SoundPipe's module lifecycle work?

Each module follows four phases: Create (allocate memory), Initialize (set up buffers and constants), Compute (produce one sample), and Destroy (free memory).

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