Sonolume

Turn sound into light. Sonolume maps MIDI — notes, velocity, CCs — to lighting zones and effects, and drives your RGB hardware live through SignalRGB. Play a kick drum, a hi-hat flashes. Hold a chord, a zone pulses in your chosen color. It runs as a VST3 instrument inside your DAW, or standalone with any MIDI controller.

DAW / MIDI controller  --MIDI-->  Sonolume  --regions-->  SignalRGB canvas  --device layout-->  RGB hardware

Features

• Zones and groups — draw rectangular regions on a virtual canvas, position/size/rotate them, and organize them into groups for shared effects.
• 9 built-in effects — Solid, Flash, Pulse, Strobe, Chase, Ripple, Sparkle, Rainbow, Wave — each with its own color and parameters.
• Blend modes — Normal, Additive, Multiply, Screen, Max — for layering overlapping zones.
• MIDI mapping — assign any note or CC to a zone or group, per MIDI channel.
• Import your real layout — pull device positions straight from SignalRGB, or enter them by hand when SignalRGB can't report a position (e.g. multi-component controllers).
• Undo/redo and projects — save, open, and reopen recent kits.
• Works two ways — a VST3 plugin hosted by your DAW, or a standalone app driven by any class-compliant MIDI controller.

Requirements

• Windows 11
• SignalRGB (uses the free Canvas API — no Pro subscription needed)
• A DAW that hosts VST3 (tested with REAPER), or a MIDI controller/keyboard for the standalone app

Install

1. Effect: run tools\install-effect.ps1 to copy Sonolume.html into your SignalRGB effects folder. Restart SignalRGB once, then select Sonolume in the effect library.
2. Plugin: run tools\install-plugin.ps1 (elevated shell) to copy the build output to C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3\Sonolume. Rescan plugins in your DAW and insert Sonolume as an instrument.
3. Standalone (no DAW needed): run src\Sonolume.Standalone\bin\Release\net10.0-windows\Sonolume.Standalone.exe, pick a MIDI input, and play.

(No release build yet — see Build it yourself below.)

Usage

1. Open SignalRGB and select the Sonolume effect from its library.
2. Launch Sonolume — standalone, or by inserting the plugin on a DAW track — and pick your MIDI input (or let the DAW feed it notes).
3. Pick a MIDI input from the dropdown at the top of the window (standalone only; a plugin instance uses the host's MIDI).
4. Select or add a zone in the left panel. Drag its handles on the canvas preview to position and size it.
5. Assign a key — the note (or CC) and channel that triggers it — in the zone panel on the right.
6. Choose an effect and color, expanding the Effect section to pick type, blend mode, and color/params.
7. Group zones that should react together (e.g. a whole drum kit flashing to a beat).
8. Play. Velocity drives brightness; each effect decays, pulses, or animates on its own timing.
9. Save your project (hamburger menu → Save/Save As) and reopen it later from Open Recent.

Already have a SignalRGB layout set up? Use Import from SignalRGB in the hamburger menu to pull real device positions in automatically, or Manual Import to enter a device's position by hand.

Status

Actively developed. The default kit ships with three zones (kick/snare/hi-hat) as a starting point — build out your own zones, groups, and effects from there.

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Developer setup

Requirements

• Windows 11
• .NET 10 SDK
• SignalRGB installed, for end-to-end testing

Build and test

dotnet build Sonolume.slnx -c Release
dotnet test Sonolume.slnx

Project layout

• src/Sonolume.Engine — MIDI interpretation, mapping, effects, and compositing. Plain class library, no plugin/UI/network dependencies.
• src/Sonolume.Transport — SignalRGB Canvas API client and MCP layout-import client.
• src/Sonolume.Persist — project file save/load.
• src/Sonolume.UI — WPF views shared by the plugin and standalone host.
• src/Sonolume.Plugin — VST3 shell (AudioPlugSharp).
• src/Sonolume.Standalone — standalone WPF app (DryWetMIDI for MIDI input).
• signalrgb-effect/ — the SignalRGB effect (HTML/JS renderer); built by tools/install-effect.ps1.
• tools/ — install scripts, Sonolume.MidiSend (test MIDI sender), canvas-probe.ps1 (SignalRGB Canvas API load testing).
• tests/ — engine and UI test suites.

See docs/architecture.md for the design and decisions, and docs/protocol.md for the wire format and SignalRGB measurements. The original product brief is plan.txt.