GNARL

A wavetable synthesizer for riddim and dubstep sound design. VST3 for Windows and macOS.

GNARL is a fork of Vital by Matt Tytel, used under the GNU General Public License v3. See LICENSING.md for what that means for this repository, and LICENSE for the licence itself.

GNARL is not Vital, is not endorsed by or affiliated with Matt Tytel or Vital Audio, and does not use their names or branding. It will not connect to any Vital service.

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Layout

src/synthesis/     the audio engine - oscillators, filters, effects,
                   modulators. Almost entirely JUCE-free.
src/interface/     the OpenGL UI, skinned through src/interface/look_and_feel
src/common/        preset load/save, tuning, the synth base class
src/plugin/        the VST3 / AU entry point
src/standalone/    the standalone application
src/headless/      an offline renderer: preset in, WAV out

plugin/ standalone/ headless/   Projucer projects and generated build files
third_party/       JUCE 6.0.5, the VST3 SDK, kissfft, json, concurrentqueue

site/              the marketing site (separate program, not GPL)
backend/           the Cloudflare Worker for licence activation (ditto)
tools/             site tooling and, from Phase 3, render + compare scripts
docs/

Building

See CLAUDE.md for the full build notes and the constraints that apply when changing audio code.

# Linux (VST3)
make vst3 CONFIG=Release

# Linux (headless renderer - preset in, WAV out)
make headless_server CONFIG=Release
headless/builds/linux/build/gnarl-render --headless -o out.wav -l 4 -m C1 -b 140 patch.vital

Windows and macOS build from the generated projects in plugin/builds/vs17 and plugin/builds/osx, and in CI from the workflows in .github/.

Attribution

Vital is copyright Matt Tytel and licensed GPLv3. The engine, the interface framework and the preset format in this repository derive from that work. Every modification GNARL makes is recorded in this repository's git history from the merge commit onward, and summarised in CHANGES.md.