Jamba - A lightweight VST3 framework

Jamba is a set of helpers (classes, concepts, build files, etc...) built on top of the VST SDK to provide a lightweight framework to build a VST3 plugin. Jamba has been designed to help in building VST3 plugin, not to replace it: you are still writing a VST3 plugin, not a Jamba plugin.

Check the Jamba website for more details.

Features

Bootstrap

• generate a fully buildable, testable, editable and deployable plugin (see Quick Starting Guide)
• automatically download dependencies

Build & Deploy

• simple script to build, test, validate, edit and install the plugin from the command line (see jamba.sh (.bat)
• build a self-contained plugin that depends on the VST3 SDK
• optionally wraps the VST3 plugin into an Audio Unit plugin (macOS)
• build a universal plugin for Apple Silicon support (macOS)
• easily adds resources (images) in a cross-platform way
• easily write unit tests for your project
• build on macOS and Windows 10
• package your project as an archive (zip file) for production release

C++ classes & concepts

• pick and choose which feature is useful to you (lots of options to override/change the default behavior)
• define your VST parameters in one location (inherit from Parameters) and use both in real time processing (RT) and GUI code
• define typed VST parameters (ex: a boolean (bool) parameter, a gain (Gain) parameter, etc...)
• use typed VST parameters directly in RT processing code as well as GUI code
• use Jamba parameters for handling non VST parameters (ex: a label/text string cannot be represented by a VST parameters). Jamba parameters can be automatically saved/restored part of the state
• use Jamba parameters to easily exchange messages between RT and GUI (both directions) in a thread safe fashion
• easily create custom views with their creators (so that they appear in the GUI editor)
• easily use multiple parameters in a custom view (ex: a custom display which displays a gain value (parameter 1) in a color depending on parameter 2)
• store/read state in a thread safe fashion (includes version to allow easy state upgrade)
• Jamba Views

Getting Started

Check the Quickstart section to getting started.

Latest Release

7.0.1 | 2023-05-27

Release notes (local)

Release notes (web)

Development

In order to work on this project itself (not a plugin), you need to clone this repository and install the VST3 SDK as described in the requirements section. In addition to the unit tests (under src/test), the embedded jamba-test-plugin plugin constitutes the main source of testing.

Although this project does not contain a great deal of tests, it is being heavily used (and as a result tested) by the plugins it has been designed to build.

History

This project was created to abstract the common patterns and solutions to many questions implemented across the VAC-6V and A/B Switch vst plugins. Check Announcing Jamba blog post for more details.

Misc

• This project uses loguru for logging (included under src/cpp/pongasoft/logging)
• This project uses the VST3 SDK by Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH

Licensing

• Apache 2.0 License. Jamba itself can be used according to the terms of the Apache 2.0 license.

• Note that the primary goal of Jamba is to help build a VST3 plugin and as a result you should check the Steinberg License in order to determine under which terms your plugin needs to be licensed.