FOR SOUND EXPLORERS

Open any sound and see how it's made

Every one of plip's 1,000+ sounds is synthesized live in your browser. Hold any of them to open it in the Sound Lab, change it, and save your own, on a phone, a tablet or a computer.

PRESS START READ THE FAQ

Free, no ads, no sign-up. Runs in the browser on phones, tablets and computers.

DRAW YOUR WAVE
NO PLUGINS
WORKS ON A PHONE
FREE

The Sound Lab: a drawn single-cycle wave, an amp envelope and a filter envelope drawn as dots, and knob rows for cutoff, resonance, noise, unison and the CHARACTER section — The Sound Lab: draw the wave, drag the envelopes, add character.

SOUND FAMILIAR?

A good synth means a computer, a DAW and a licence.

Just a browser. The Sound Lab runs on any modern browser, a phone included, for free.

Presets I can't look inside.

Every sound opens up. Hold any sound and the Lab opens on it exactly as it sounds. Shape its filter, envelopes, character and LFOs, or draw a wave of your own.

Synth panels are a wall of jargon.

See it, touch it, hear it. Draw the wave with your finger, drag the envelope as dots, and hear every change right away.

My sounds get stuck in one project.

Sounds travel with songs. A jam carries its sounds inside it, so a link or a Wall post plays exactly what you designed. SAVE TO MY SOUNDS keeps them for any jam.

IN THE LAB

Wave

Draw one cycle, or start from sine, triangle, saw, square or pulse. Unison and spread for width.

Shape

Amp and filter envelopes you drag as dots; lowpass, highpass or bandpass with resonance.

Character

DRIVE, FM with musical ratios, ring modulation, a resonant body (wood, marimba, steel pan, bell, glass) and a noise channel with its own filter.

Motion

Two LFOs on pitch, cutoff, resonance, level, noise or spread, free or synced to the tempo, dotted and triplet too.

PLACES TO EXPLORE

Every instrument has four worlds of far-out sounds: SPACE, CRITTERS, MACHINES and DREAMS. Kicks stay kicks; the worlds change their character, not their job. A long hold on VERB or ECHO opens 6 reverb rooms and 5 echo styles.

UNDER THE HOOD

Web Audio all the way down: oscillators, filters and envelopes built per note, AudioWorklets for the crusher and the STUTR buffer.
A lookahead scheduler on the audio clock, in 32nd-note ticks.
Stems render offline through the same engine, and the MIDI is written by the voices as they play.

QUESTIONS

Can I play my sounds from a MIDI keyboard?

Yes, in Chrome and Edge, with velocity, sustain and pitch bend. MIDI LEARN maps your controller's knobs to plip's.

Can I take my sounds into a DAW?

Yes, as audio: FOR YOUR DAW (under SHARE) renders each instrument of a song to its own stem and writes a MIDI file of the notes, so you can keep the sound and still re-voice the part.

Is plip open source?

No. plip is made by one person and all rights are reserved, but it's free to use.

MORE ABOUT PLIP

Sound in one tap. Nothing to install.

OPEN PLIP