Modular, free and cross-platform DAW in Rust for live music production and performance. Independent FOSS alternative to Ableton Live and Bitwig Studio. (In active development)

Hikaru OpenLive is a digital audio workstation (DAW) designed for live performance, real-time clip launching and linear composition. Built entirely in Rust, it offers an ultra-low-latency audio engine with no dynamic memory allocations on the critical thread.

Timeline for traditional composition, track editing and linear arrangement.

Ableton/Bitwig-style clip grid for quantized scene triggering and real-time waveforms.

Sequenced MIDI note editing, clip editing and rhythmic control.

Loading and management of third-party plugins in VST3 and CLAP formats.

• Session Matrix (Live Workflow): Scene-based clip launching, tight quantization and instant triggers.
• Arranger View: Timeline editing parallel to the session matrix.
• Lock-Free Audio Engine: Real-time audio thread powered by CPAL and a sample-accurate sequencer.
• DSP & Native Synthesis: Effect racks (filters, flanger, phaser) and integrated wavetable generator.
• VST3 / CLAP Host: Experimental integration for external instruments and effects.

# Base dependencies (Debian/Ubuntu)
sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y build-essential pkg-config git libasound2-dev libx11-dev libgl1-mesa-dev

# Clone and run
git clone https://github.com/hikarucorporation/hikaru-openlive.git
cd hikaru-openlive
cargo run --release -p hikaru_gui

In your project's root folder (e.g. /miyu-shrine-workspace/*)

cargo build --release --bin hikaru_openlive

Hikaru OpenLive can be compiled directly from Linux to generate a native Windows executable (.exe) using Rust's GNU target.

Make sure you have the toolchain and cross linker installed on Debian/Ubuntu:

# Install Rust toolchain for Windows x86_64
rustup target add x86_64-pc-windows-gnu

# Install MinGW-w64 compiler
sudo apt update && sudo apt install gcc-mingw-w64-x86-64

To generate the optimized production executable:

cargo build --release --target x86_64-pc-windows-gnu -p hikaru_gui

The resulting binary will be located at: target/x86_64-pc-windows-gnu/release/hikaru_gui.exe

You can test the .exe directly using Wine:

wine target/x86_64-pc-windows-gnu/release/hikaru_gui.exe

1. Fixed buggy looping: I think the hikaru_audio_engine crate broke and that's why looping works like crap. [DONE]
2. Fixed Piano Roll: Because the current Piano Roll is totally broken [DONE]
3. Virtual MIDI Input from Piano Roll: that [DONE]
4. Wavetable and Spectral Synthesis and Effects: that too
5. Hikaru OpenDMS properly fixed: Right now it's super buggy lol [DONE]
6. Automation Clips: Kind of similar to FL Studio's but well haha

Special thanks to all the contributors and the open-source community supporting Hikaru OpenLive:

• Contributors: View direct contributors list
• Forks & Extensions: Explore community forks

Want to contribute? Pull Requests are highly welcome! (MIDI controller mapping, physical hardware support, real-time timestretching, and bug fixes are top priority).

This program is free software under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPLv3). See LICENSE for more details.

Personal note: Switch graphics framework from egui to gpui-kit once you've done most of the stuff in egui