Vibe coding has come for music plugins – are we witnessing a revolution?

Casey Kolb, CEO of Lunacy Audio, had no plans to use AI in the company’s forthcoming plugin release. But while most of the music industry has been focused on deepfakes and full song generators, in the last six months something arguably even more impactful.

Lunacy is one of many developers just trying to keep up. AI-assisted software development, or ‘vibe coding’, has the capacity to shortcut old practices, open the doors to complete novices, and have a foundational impact on the field of programming writ large.

What Happened

But what does this mean for audio development? In the case of Lunacy, that meant taking their human-made code and using AI to experiment and iterate on their designs at an astounding rate.

• Endlessly fascinated by the possibilities of sound, she grabs whatever tech suits the moment, switching between hardwiring electronics, programming audio in Max and digging into plugins and synths.

• Garling is a composer, sound artist, and contributing writer for MusicTech, with over a decade of experience making music.

• At a time when the plugin and software market is arguably over-saturated, AI might—in the right hands— have a surprisingly positive impact on music software.

Key Details

Kolb spent years building his team of human engineers. Talented audio developers are rare in his experience, and refining the development workflow took time.

• For Kolb, it’s a matter of seizing the tools before they are co-opted by others.

• In the current AI-sceptic landscape, getting the balance right for both users and plugin makers is difficult but necessary.

• On the other hand, we might be hit with a wave of bad plugins, poorly optimised or full of bugs, with bad actors hoping to make a quick buck.

Why It Matters

Before AI came onto the scene, the team at Lunacy manually coded CUBE, a sample-based virtual instrument and BEAM, a multi-effects plugin. Lunacy’s next project, dubbed NOVA, invites people to build, share and remix plugins “like Google Docs for audio”.

• As the barrier to plugin development lowers, we might see a renaissance of plugins that are niche, esoteric, and unique — just as we did at the turn of the millennium with the introduction.

• The result was Acetate, born from a need to create quick club-ready masters for the venues he was performing at.

What Reports Say

Coverage of the story so far points to:

• Continued reporting by MusicTech as more details emerge