Node-based modular synth  ·  app + AU / VST3  ·  macOS / Windows / Linux

Modular synthesis,
simplified.

A hardware-style modular rack on a freeform canvas. 99 modules, one rule: control is just signal, so any output can drive any input. An LFO into a filter cutoff. An oscillator into another oscillator's FM input. A kick drum into a sample-and-hold, just to hear what happens. And you don't need a modular background — every module explains itself before you add it.

Resonode is shareware. Free to download, free to use, free to send to a friend — that's the licence. $39 to register, once, if it earns a place in your music.

↓ Download for macOS Windows Linux

One download with everything in it: the app, the AU and VST3 plugins, all 99 modules. No account needed and nothing expires. Registering just makes it officially yours.

Trig Seq Out Oscillator Pitch CV in LFO Bipolar ±1 Filter Cutoff In Cutoff CV Out

The core idea

If it has a jack,
it's fair game.

Most soft synths decide what's allowed to modulate what. Resonode doesn't. There is no separate "CV" cable — control voltage is just audio-rate signal, so every output speaks the same language as every input.

CV is audio

Run an LFO at audio rate and it's a sub-oscillator. Slow an oscillator right down and it's an LFO. If it makes signal, it can shape signal, and that openness is what keeps a patch interesting at 1am.

Pitch in octaves

1V/oct, like the hardware: freq = base · 2^cv, with A440 at zero. Quantizers, octave shifters and CV math all just work, because pitch is a number you can add to.

Cables sum

Multiple cables into one input add up, exactly like stacked patch cables in a rack. Two sequences summed into one pitch input play a melody neither of them contains.

Gates are honest

Gates and triggers are 0 or 1, high above 0.5. Envelopes are unipolar, LFOs are bipolar. The conventions are boring on purpose, so patches do what your rack intuition expects.

A drum patch in Resonode: a Clock divided by Clock Div and sequenced by Euclid, triggering Kick, Snare and Hi-Hat modules into a Mixer and the Output
The rule at work: one Clock, split by Clock Div and Euclid into an 808 kit — every green cable is just a gate. Click for full size

What's in the box

99 modules.
Zero DLC.

Everything ships in the free download: sources, a full drum kit, filters and compressors, deep modulation, thirteen sequencers and clocks, an effects rack, and MIDI in and out. Registered or not, you get all of it.

Sources

11
  • Oscillator
  • FM Osc
  • Supersaw
  • PWM Osc
  • Wavetable
  • Poly Synth
  • Resonator
  • Sampler
  • Granular
  • Chiptune
  • Noise

Drums

12
  • Kick
  • Snare
  • Hi-Hat
  • Clap
  • Tom
  • Cowbell
  • Clave
  • Rimshot
  • Ride
  • Crash
  • Shaker
  • Conga

Filter & Amp

15
  • Filter
  • SVF
  • Ladder
  • Para EQ
  • Comb
  • Formant
  • Lowpass Gate
  • Amp
  • Mixer
  • Matrix
  • Crossfade
  • Pan
  • Opto Comp
  • FET Comp
  • Multi Comp

Modulation

9
  • LFO
  • ADSR
  • MSEG
  • Function
  • Bernoulli
  • Logic
  • Sample & Hold
  • Random
  • Chaos

Sequencer

14
  • Sequencer
  • Seq 16
  • Gate Seq
  • Trig Seq
  • Euclid
  • Turing
  • Arpeggiator
  • Piano Roll
  • Clock
  • Clock Div
  • Clock Scale
  • Swing Clock
  • Burst
  • Shift Reg

Utility

17
  • Attenuverter
  • Slew
  • Quantizer
  • Octave
  • Rate
  • Chord
  • Env Follow
  • Comparator
  • Macro
  • XY Pad
  • Switch
  • Scope
  • Spectrum
  • Meter
  • CV Math
  • Track & Hold
  • Notes

Effects

16
  • Delay
  • Tape Echo
  • Chorus
  • Phaser
  • Flanger
  • Drive
  • Saturator
  • Distortion
  • Wavefolder
  • Bitcrush
  • Ring Mod
  • Reverb
  • Shimmer
  • Pitch Shift
  • Looper
  • Vocoder

I/O

5
  • Audio In
  • Output
  • MIDI In
  • MIDI Out
  • Poly MIDI

Approachable by design

Deep, not difficult.

Modular has a reputation: walls of unlabelled knobs, patches that look like server rooms, an afternoon of videos before your first note. I found that exhausting too, so Resonode is built to be read at a glance and learned by doing.

Every module explains itself

Double-click the canvas and the search palette describes each module in one plain sentence before you add it. Hover anything in the add menu and you get the same line. You never commit to a mystery box.

Panels you can read

Modules are compact and consistently laid out — a handful of clearly labelled knobs each, not a forty-control monolith. If a panel needs studying before it makes sound, it didn't ship.

Start from a working patch

The Examples menu opens ready-made patches you can pull apart to see how they tick, and saved Devices drop whole building blocks onto the canvas. An empty canvas is optional.

Safe to wander

Undo covers everything, autosave runs every 30 seconds, and pressing ? shows every shortcut. Patch first, understand later — you can always get back to where you were.

Resonode's add menu open over the canvas, showing the Sequencer category with thirteen sequencer and clock modules
Every module, one plain sentence away. Click for full size

Adaptive workflows

The patch writes itself.
Or eats your samples.

Some days you want the synth to compose; some days you want it to make something new from sounds you already own. Resonode leans whichever way you do, and both roads end at the same Record button.

Generative

Set a patch drifting and let it write: a Turing machine mutates a melody until it locks, Euclid pushes the drums off the grid, Bernoulli flips coins on your behalf, and per-step probability keeps a pattern from ever playing the same way twice. Hit record and keep whatever surprises you.

  • Turing
  • Euclid
  • Bernoulli
  • Random
  • Chaos
  • Sample & Hold
  • Function
  • Trig Seq

Sample-based

Or start from sounds you already own. Record into the Sampler or drop files straight in — your sample packs become playable instruments. Smear them into clouds with Granular, loop and overdub with Looper, track their dynamics with Env Follow, or push a vocal through the Vocoder against a Supersaw.

  • Sampler
  • Granular
  • Looper
  • Env Follow
  • Vocoder
  • Piano Roll
  • Lowpass Gate
A generative patch in Resonode: Clock, Euclid and Random driving a Quantizer into an Oscillator, Filter, VCA and Reverb, with an LFO patched to the filter cutoff
Nobody's touching the keyboard: Euclid and Random write the line, the Quantizer keeps it in key. Click for full size

Beyond the rack

Modular soul.
Studio manners.

Modular runs on happy accidents. The workflow exists so you don't lose them.

Scenes A / B

Capture two snapshots of every knob in the patch, then morph between them with one slider. Filter sweeps, drops and transitions, performed one-handed.

Record & export

Record the master output to 24-bit WAV while you play, or render offline with Export WAV. The offline render is faster than real time and starts from beat one, so the take is clean.

Sampler & Granular

Record into the Sampler or drop in your own files — your sample packs become oscillators. Then let the Granular module smear them into clouds.

MIDI both ways

Right-click any knob for MIDI Learn and move a control on your hardware. MIDI clock keeps everything locked to your DAW — and the MIDI Out module turns Resonode's CV into notes and CCs, so the canvas can sequence your hardware synths too.

Devices & patches

Save any selection of modules as a reusable Device and drop it into future patches — build your own module library out of your favourite corners.

Never lose a patch

Autosave runs every 30 seconds; crash recovery offers your work back on the next launch. Undo covers everything — including multi-module deletes, in one step.

Just landed — AU / VST3

The whole rack,
in your DAW.

Resonode is now a plugin instrument as well as an app, and it isn't a cut-down remote control for the real thing. The entire canvas opens inside the plugin window: every module, the patch browser, Performance View, all of it.

  • Follows the timeline. Press play in the DAW and every synced Clock and sequencer locks to the host transport — stop, and the in-app Play button takes back over.
  • MIDI in both directions. Host MIDI plays it and feeds MIDI Learn; MIDI Out modules emit back into the host, so a Resonode sequence can drive your other plugins.
  • State lives in the session. Plugin state is the same JSON as a .rnpatch — a patch built in the app opens in the DAW, and your project reopens exactly as saved.

AU on macOS, VST3 on macOS & Windows, in the same free download. The AU passes auval — your host's validator will be pleased.

New — the performance update

The lights go down.
The patch holds up.

The canvas is where patches get made. This update is for the part that happens later, in front of people.

Performance View New

One click on Live fills the window with big knobs: every MIDI-learned parameter, every Macro, and the Scene morph slider. A stage mode built for dark rooms and laptop lids — Esc brings the canvas back, and the QWERTY keys keep playing throughout.

Cable probes New

Hover any cable for a live readout on the wire — current value, range and waveform in a little bubble. When a patch misbehaves, you can now see what's flowing instead of guessing by ear.

Trig Seq 2.0 New

Per-step probability (100/75/50/25%), ratchets up to four hits, and independent lane lengths for polymeter. Program a drum pattern that never plays quite the same way twice — and save it all with the patch.

Shimmer & Matrix New

Two new modules for the rack: Shimmer, a pitch-climbing reverb with a Freeze button for endless ambient tails, and Matrix, a 4×4 attenuverting matrix mixer — the routing brain every serious modular patch eventually wants.

Appearance

Dressed like 1983.

Colour schemes modelled on the machines that raised us, one click away in the Appearance menu — plus accessibility presets (Light, High Contrast, Colour-Blind Safe, Monochrome), because everyone gets to patch.

TR-808
TR-909
TB-303
Minimoog
Prophet-5
MS-20

The business model is the story

Distributed
like 1994.

I grew up on software that travelled hand to hand. WinRAR, Winamp, a hundred DOS games on copied floppies. When a tool earned its keep, you mailed the author a few dollars and your name appeared in the About box. Nobody called it a business model. It was just how good software got around.

Resonode works that way on purpose. The download is the full instrument: every module, every theme, saving, recording, exporting. It never blocks sound, never expires, and never touches your audio. There's a small reminder on launch that one person made it, and that $39 makes it officially yours. That's the entire pitch.

So share it. Zip it up, AirDrop it, post it in your Discord. Sharing is the licence, and every copy that travels carries this address with it.

register.txt — 1,024 bytes

RESONODE v1.0 — SHAREWARE NOTICE

This is the complete program. Nothing has been removed, crippled, or held back for a "Pro" version. There is no Pro version. There is only Resonode.

You may use it forever, free of charge. You may — please do — give copies to friends, collaborators, and strangers on the internet.

If Resonode earns a place in your music, register it for $39. The nag screen retires, the About box learns your name, and you'll have paid for the honest kind of software: the kind you tried first.

> resonode.io/register.html

acid-skyline.rnpatch — copied as text

RNP1·eNqNVMuO2jAU3fMV0ayKKtWQ8Ei6qzpVN22RprOoqi4c+yax4tiR7QDp1/faCQwzYh6bKPY9Pufc l68/T7/uv67WVU3zsqZclpxmpMgJSTdrmmVJmmw3yTpNc7pdVh+SQmxAWZDpx7RY5WVR0Xy9ytfJ hhOSpJs02xTLbLXexubz0O4Gc4M8UNMBHqrBWnnAszO9BXQd+q4xtd+/rgEjPNK…

> File → Paste Patch from Text

Patch sharing

Patches are
shareware, too.

File → Copy Patch as Text turns your whole patch — modules, knobs, cables, sequences — into a compact blob of text on the clipboard. Paste it into a forum post, a Discord channel, a group chat. Anyone with Resonode pastes it back and hears exactly what you hear.

There's no account and no upload service to go down in three years. A patch is just text, so it travels the way the app does. And the new patch browser keeps your growing collection searchable, with the factory examples folded in at the top.

Registration

$39. Once.
With your name on it.

  • Nag-free forever. The launch splash and the polite reminders retire; the title bar shows your registered name.
  • Your name in the About box. Keys are personalised — the app literally greets its owner.
  • Supporter bonus pack. An exclusive theme pack plus a curated patch & Device library, delivered with your key.
  • All 1.x updates free. The classic shareware promise: register once, ride the whole version line.
  • A say in the roadmap. Registered users' feature requests get flagged first — you're the constituency.

One-time registration

$39

no subscription · no upsell · no Pro tier

Register Resonode

Launch price — ends when v1.1 lands. Checkout by Lemon Squeezy; sales tax sorted, key delivered instantly.

Questions

Fair questions.

Is the free version limited?

No. Unregistered Resonode is the complete instrument: all 99 modules, every theme, Performance View, patch saving and sharing, WAV recording and export. The only difference is an "Unregistered" tag in the title bar, a small splash on launch, and an occasional polite reminder. It never interrupts your sound and nothing ever expires.

Is it a VST/AU plugin?

Both, as of the latest update. The download includes the standalone app plus Resonode as an AU and VST3 plugin instrument:

  • the full canvas — every module, the patch browser, Performance View — opens inside the plugin window,
  • synced Clocks and sequencers follow the DAW timeline,
  • and the patch saves with your project, as the same JSON as a .rnpatch file.

No DAW? The app needs nothing else: play it live, record or export straight to 24-bit WAV.

Am I really allowed to share the download?

Yes, and please do. Sending the installer to a producer friend is the licence working as intended. The only personal thing is a registration key, which has your name on it, so keep that one to yourself.

What does it run on?
  • macOS — 10.13+ on Intel, 11+ on Apple Silicon. One universal build, native on both.
  • Windows — 10 and 11, x64.
  • Linux — a portable AppImage: mark it executable and run.
  • As a plugin — AU on macOS, VST3 on macOS and Windows, in any host that takes them.

It's light on CPU — no beast of a machine required.

I've never touched modular. Is this over my head?

That worry is exactly what Resonode is designed around. Modules are small and clearly labelled, the add palette describes every one in plain language, and the Examples menu gives you working patches to pull apart. If you can connect two boxes with a line, you'll make sound in your first minute.

What does "beta" mean here?

The instrument is complete and stable. Beta means I'm still polishing edges and listening to early users before I call it 1.0 final. Autosave and crash recovery have your back either way, and registered users get every 1.x update free.

Who makes this?

Me — Jay Hill, a developer and producer in Texas. I make electronic dance music as HRVST; if you've downloaded my Serum presets or sample packs, this is the same person. Resonode is built with JUCE 8 and an unreasonable fondness for patch cables.