A chugin (or ChuGin) is a plug-in for the ChucK audio programming language. Chugins are loaded at runtime by ChucK or miniAudicle and are fundmental to extending the capabilities of the language by adding class libraries and audio Unit Generators (UGens) and Unit Analyzers (UAnae). This repository contains a number of chugins maintained for all supported platforms (macOS, Linux, Windows) by the ChucK Team in collaboration with their respective authors (see list below). The ChucK Team invites developers to envision and create new chugins, and to help maintain and evolve existing ones. Join us! ChucK Discord Server | ChucK Community.
Read more about it in the original chugins paper and three ways to extend ChucK.
Binaries for most chugins in this repository are automatically included by the ChucK installers for macOS and Windows. Install the latest at http://chuck.stanford.edu/release/. You can read the class library reference for these packaged chugins. Linux users (and advanced users on macOS and Windows) can build chugins from source.
Clone this repository:
git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/ccrma/chugins.git
cd chugins
To compile all chugins in this repository, run make linux (Linux) or make osx (macOS). Windows users can compile using the Visual Studio solution chugins.sln.
Optionally, (Linux and macOS, requires administrative privileges) install the chugins:
sudo make install
Chugins are loaded automatically when command-line chuck starts, or when miniAudicle starts the ChucK VM. Once loaded, the contents of chugins can be used directly from the language (see class library documentation for the pre-packaged chugins).
For a chugin to load properly:
- the chugin version must be compatible with the host version
- the chugin must be located somewhere within one of the default search directories, or be explicitly specified, e.g., using the
--chugin:<file>flag on the command line.
To see which chugins are being loaded on your system and their versions (and to detect any version incompatibilities), do one of the following.
If you are using command-line chuck, use the --chugin-probe flag (need chuck-1.5.0.4 or higher) to see a diagnostic of chugins on your system. (Note this option does not actually run any chuck programs.)
chuck --chugin-probe
You can increase the amount of information by additionally specifying the verbosity with --verbose or simply -v:
chuck --chugin-probe -v5
In addition to the chugins and their versions (and any errors), -v5 will show you the default search directories that chuck is scanning for chugins (see below).
Alternately, if you are running chuck programs, you can simply add the -v flag (we recommend -v3 or higher) to whatever chuck files you are running, e.g.,
chuck FILE1.ck foo.ck -v3
You can also toggle whether to load chugins using the --chugin-load command line flag, for example, to run chuck with chugins disabled:
chuck FILE1.ck FILE2.ck --chugin-load:off
If you are using miniAudicle, you can similarly configure and probe chugins in Preferences. From the main menu, navigate to File->Preferences...->ChuGins tab (see image below). Here you can enable/disable chugins loading, configure the chuings search path, and perform some chugins diagnostic. Pressing the Probe ChuGins button, for example, will print the diagnostic to the miniAudicle Console Monitor. You can control the verbosity level from the main menu: ChucK->Log Level.
By deafult, the chugin loader searches recursively in the following directories for chugins (.chug) and chuck extensions (.ck). It is possible to customize these search paths using the --chugin-path:<path> flag with command-line chuck or through Preferences/ChuGins tab in miniAudicle. Note: some of these requires chuck-1.5.0.4 or higher; we recommend always using the latest released version or the main development branch of this repository.
/usr/local/lib/chuck
/Library/Application Support/ChucK/chugins
~/Library/Application Support/ChucK/chugins
~/.chuck/lib
/usr/local/lib/chuck
~/.chuck/lib/
C:\Windows\system32\ChucK
C:\Program Files\ChucK\chugins
C:\Program Files (x86)\ChucK\chugins
C:\Users\%USERNAME%\Documents\ChucK\chugins
- ABSaturator
- soft clip saturating distortion, based on examples from Abel/Berners' Music 424 course at Stanford.
- Bitcrusher
- sample-width reducer + sample rate decimator, bringing to mind the sounds of your favorite low-fidelity vintage audio equipment.
- Elliptic
- by @jwmatthys
- Elliptic filter, capable of very steep slopes or interesting harmonic ripples
- Faust
- FIR
- by Perry Cook
- Arbitrary order FIR filter
- FoldbackSaturator
- by Ness Morris
- Foldback Saturator for nasty distortion
- GVerb
- by @jwmatthys
- Good quality stereo reverb with adjustable parameters
- KasFilter
- by @Kassen
- Undersampling-based resonant lowpass filter
- MagicSine
- Efficient means of computing a sine wave with 2 adds and 2 multiples per sample, at the expense of being able to dynamically adjust phase.
- Pan4 / Pan8 / Pan16
- Basic equal-power panners for 4, 8, and 16 channels
- PitchTrack
- by @jwmatthys
- Monophonic autocorrelation pitch tracker, based on [helmholtz~] by Katja, http://www.katjaas.nl/helmholtz/helmholtz.html
- Mesh2D
- by @jwmatthys
- STK instrument that simulates a rectilinear, 2-dimensional digital waveguide mesh structure. Basically sounds like striking a metal plate.
- MIAP
- by @ericheep
- Manifold-Interface Amplitude Panner inspired by the research of Zachary Seldess and Steve Ellison.
- PowerADSR
- by @ericheep
- Power function ADSR envelope.
- Spectacle
- by @jwmatthys
- FFT-based spectral delay and EQ
- WarpBuf
- by @dbraun
- Time-stretching and pitch-stretching sound buffer that can optionally import
asdfiles from Ableton Live for beatmatching.
- WinFuncEnv
- by @ericheep
- Envelope built on window functions.
- Faust (FAUST in ChucK, or FaucK)
- Fluidsynth
- XML, MusicXML
- MAUI for chuck
- ChuGL/GlucK (grahics in in ChucK)
- NHHall
- Convolution Reverb
- Text2Speech synthesizer
- AudioUnit loader
- Ladspa
- Ambisonics
- Rave
- More Configurable audio effects: reverbs, dynamics processors, and distortion units
- More synthesis algorithms / physical models
- Algorithmic composition tools (as UGens or new classes)
- Class libraries of all kinds
- A VST loader
- More Unit Analyzers and/or interactive AI tools
- Expressive tools for art making
- Tools for education and research