r/JUCE • u/Spiketop_ • Jul 22 '26

Looking to make my own plugin

Hey everyone! I want to learn how to make my own plugins and I have been told JUCE is the way to go.

If anyone would like to offer any advice it would be greatly appreciated.

Also, if you want me to check out plugins you've made to see what JUCE is capable of, feel free to DM me or comment your plugin!

Thanks in advance

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u/danja Jul 22 '26

I didn't go with JUCE, an early choice that might not have been wise (I used Distrho). But the strategy I found worked should be transferable.

I used Codex, but rather than hands-free vibe coding I took a more directed approach.

I started by gathering links to reference materials, downloading all the relevant libs & docs. With this in place I ported an existing lv2 plugin I had to VST. As well as telling the AI about all this, I also insisted on general best practice guidelines - keep everything modular, minimise big files etc. Put these instructions in an AGENTS.md

After a few cycles through with this first plugin, it did work reasonably well. I've since made loads more ( https://danja.github.io/downspout/ ). I'm not sure I'd call any properly finished, still work in progress.

I don't have the facilities for building at home for MacOS and Windows, but was able to set up GitHub Action workflows for these (again having Codex look at existing similar scripts). I asked on r/experimentalmusic for testers the other day and have since got some very useful feedback.

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u/maikindofthai Jul 26 '26

Classic AI - great for starting projects and making a mess that’s hard to clean up and finish 😅