About the harmonic DAW & its developer
About DonutStudio
I build DonutStudio alone in Denmark. That includes the harmonic tuning engine, C++ audio code, vocal synthesis, video editor, plugins, documentation, and this website. I started because I wanted to compose with relationships between notes and could not find a tool that worked that way.
Built by one person
I handle the design, C++ audio engine, instruments, vocal engines, GPU video editor, modular graph, builds, documentation, and this site. When you post in Discord or email support, you are talking to the person who writes the code.
Why DonutStudio exists
DonutStudio lets you compose with pure harmonic ratios the way the ear hears them. You draw a tuning relationship between two notes, a perfect fifth as 3/2 or a natural seventh as 7/4, and the engine retunes them as exact frequencies. It began as the tool its author wanted and could not find.
The art is free. You only pay to go to market
Making a living from music is hard. Most people pay, often a lot, just to make music as a hobby, so charging for the art itself would be charging people for their craft. That is why the just-intonation engine, the composition tools, and the whole harmonic DAW are free, and always will be: a gift to anyone who wants to make music this way. What DonutStudio Pro charges for is the production layer that makes a piece commercially viable: per-note sampling, vocal synthesis, and the score-reactive Media Machine that take a finished composition to something you can release. You never pay to make music in DonutStudio. You only pay when DonutStudio helps it earn.
Grew into a workstation
The harmonic piano roll came first. It grew into a sixteen-track host, vocal synthesis, just-intonation notation, a video editor, and a modular patching graph. Each part uses the same tuning data.
Independent and unhurried
DonutStudio is self-funded. I decide what ships, the composition DAW stays free, and user feedback goes straight to the person doing the work.
Made in Denmark, used everywhere
I develop DonutStudio in Denmark for composers, sound designers, and people working with xenharmonic, microtonal, and EDO music. It ships as a standalone app and as VST3 and CLAP plugins. I test Linux most heavily. Windows and macOS builds come from the same automated release pipeline. DonutStudio is in open beta.
Try it for yourself
DonutStudio is a full harmonic DAW. Download it, or come say hello in the Discord.