plugin

Prism — DAW plugins

JUCE 8 plugins (VST3 / AU / Standalone) that render Prism's scopes inside a DAW — one plugin per scope: spectrum, oscilloscope, vectorscope, spectrogram, VU meter, loudness meter, waveform. They reuse Prism's existing C++ DSP (native/src/*.cpp) and the existing React canvas UI (src/plugin-ui, importing the unchanged visualizers from src/renderer/visualizers/). VST3 is built for macOS, Windows, and Linux; AU is macOS-only.

How it fits together

DAW track audio
  → processBlock (RT thread): mix to mono, write to lock-free FIFO     [Source/PluginProcessor.cpp]
  → 60 Hz timer (message thread): drain FIFO → Visualizer::Spectrum    [Source/PluginEditor.cpp + native/src/spectrum.cpp]
  → emit "spectrumFrame" (base64 Float32 magnitudes) to the webview
  → juceBridge.ts decodes → BridgeSpectrumAnalyzer (a SpectrumNativeAnalyzer shim)
  → SpectrumAnalyzer.ts renders to canvas (unchanged Electron code)    [src/plugin-ui]

No DSP or allocation runs on the realtime audio thread; audio passes through unmodified.

Build & run (macOS)

Prereqs: CMake ≥ 3.22, Xcode command-line tools, Node.

Default: self-contained build (embedded UI)

The UI is bundled into the plugin binary and served via JUCE's resource provider — no dev server needed at runtime.

npm run plugin-ui:build                                   # build the webview bundle → plugin/webview-dist
cmake -B plugin/build -S plugin -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release # embeds the bundle (reconfigure to pick up UI changes)
cmake --build plugin/build --config Release

COPY_PLUGIN_AFTER_BUILD installs all seven plugins into your user plugin folders:

• AU: ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components/Prism *.component
• VST3: ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3/Prism *.vst3

Load any Prism * AU / VST3 on a track in Ableton / FL / Logic / Reaper (or run the matching Standalone from plugin/build/Prism*_artefacts/Release/Standalone/), play audio, and the scope animates. (To use a local JUCE checkout instead of fetching: add -DJUCE_PATH=/path/to/JUCE.)

UI development: dev-server mode (hot reload)

npm run plugin-ui:dev                                      # serve UI on :5174 with HMR
cmake -B plugin/build -S plugin -DPRISM_DEV_SERVER=ON      # editor loads http://localhost:5174
cmake --build plugin/build --config Release

Edit React → the plugin window hot-reloads. The UI also runs in a plain browser at http://localhost:5174 (no JUCE host → it shows a synthetic spectrum so the UI is developable outside a DAW). Reconfigure without -DPRISM_DEV_SERVER=ON to go back to embedded.

Build & run (Windows)

Prereqs: Visual Studio 2022 with the "Desktop development with C++" workload, CMake ≥ 3.22, Node.js. Modern Win10 / Win11 ships with the Microsoft Edge WebView2 Runtime preinstalled; if it's missing, install the "Evergreen Standalone Installer" from Microsoft.

npm install
npm run plugin-ui:build
cmake -B plugin\build -S plugin -G "Visual Studio 17 2022" -A x64
cmake --build plugin\build --config Release

COPY_PLUGIN_AFTER_BUILD targets the system VST3 folder (C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3\Prism *.vst3), which needs admin privileges. Either run the cmake --build step from an elevated shell, or copy the built bundles from plugin\build\Prism*_artefacts\Release\VST3\ into your user-local VST3 folder (%LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\Common\VST3\) by hand — most DAWs scan both.

Dev-server mode works the same as macOS: -DPRISM_DEV_SERVER=ON + npm run plugin-ui:dev.

Build & run (Linux)

Prereqs: CMake >= 3.22, Ninja, GCC/Clang, Node.js, and JUCE's Linux GUI/WebView dependencies. On Ubuntu 24.04+:

sudo apt-get install build-essential cmake ninja-build pkg-config \
  libasound2-dev libjack-jackd2-dev ladspa-sdk libcurl4-openssl-dev \
  libfreetype-dev libfontconfig1-dev libgtk-3-dev libx11-dev libxcomposite-dev \
  libxcursor-dev libxext-dev libxinerama-dev libxrandr-dev libxrender-dev \
  libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev libglu1-mesa-dev mesa-common-dev

npm install
npm run plugin-ui:build
cmake -B plugin/build -S plugin -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DPRISM_PLUGIN_FORMATS=VST3
cmake --build plugin/build --target PrismInstallerPlugins --parallel

Built bundles land under plugin/build/Prism*_artefacts/Release/VST3/. Copy the seven Prism *.vst3 directories to one of the standard Linux VST3 scan paths:

• User-local: $HOME/.vst3
• System-wide: /usr/lib/vst3
• System-wide local: /usr/local/lib/vst3

The Linux .deb and .rpm release packages install Prism's VST3 bundles to /usr/lib/vst3 and remove only those seven bundles on package removal. The Linux tar.gz release includes resources/plugins/install-vst3.sh, which installs to $HOME/.vst3 by default or /usr/lib/vst3 with --system. The AppImage is portable app-only and does not install DAW plugins.

Notes

• Refresh rate (macOS): frames are emitted on juce::VBlankAttachment (synced to the display, adapts to 60/120/144 Hz) and the webview renders via the display-sync FrameScheduler. WKWebView otherwise throttles requestAnimationFrame to 60 fps regardless of display — Source/WebViewFrameRate.mm lifts that by disabling WebKit's private PreferPageRenderingUpdatesNear60FPSEnabled feature on the live web view (no public API exists; fine for a non-App-Store FOSS plugin). To diagnose, set showFpsMeter on <SpectrumScope/> to overlay render / data fps.
• Windows: NEEDS_WEBVIEW2 TRUE in CMake links Microsoft's Edge WebView2 runtime. The macOS 120 Hz uncap (Source/WebViewFrameRate.mm, gated if(APPLE)) doesn't apply — WebView2 has its own rate behavior; please report actual fps if it ever feels low.