Doux

A Software Synthesizer Engine for Live Coding

Written in Rust, initially ported from Dough by Felix Roos and co. Online documentation and live playground are accessible through the demo website: doux. Doux uses a fixed architecture and provides various oscillators, filters and effects. It is both capable of synthesis and sampling. Doux is made to be integrated in other audio applications, both through its native or WASM version.

CLI Flags

doux (OSC server)

Doux is the engine itself, that you can test as a standalone binary.

Flag	Short	Description	Default
--samples	-s	Directory containing audio samples	-
--port	-p	OSC port to listen on	57120
--list-devices		List available audio devices and exit	-
--input	-i	Input device (name or index)	-
--output	-o	Output device (name or index)	-
--channels		Number of output channels	2
--buffer-size	-b	Audio buffer size in samples	system
--max-voices		Maximum polyphony	32
--preload		Preload all samples at startup	false
--host		Audio host: jack, alsa, auto	auto
--diagnose		Run audio diagnostics and exit	-

doux-repl (interactive REPL)

Doux-REPL is a small interpreter mostly used for debugging and testing.

Flag	Short	Description	Default
--samples	-s	Directory containing audio samples	-
--list-devices		List available audio devices and exit	-
--input	-i	Input device (name or index)	-
--output	-o	Output device (name or index)	-
--channels		Number of output channels	2
--buffer-size	-b	Audio buffer size in samples	system
--max-voices		Maximum polyphony	32
--host		Audio host: jack, alsa, auto	auto
--diagnose		Run audio diagnostics and exit	-

doux-render (offline rendering)

Doux-render renders audio synthesis to a WAV file instead of real-time playback.

Flag	Short	Description	Default
--duration	-d	Duration to render in seconds	required
--eval	-e	Command to evaluate (can be repeated)	-
--output	-o	Output WAV file path	required
--samples	-s	Directory containing audio samples	-
--sample-rate		Sample rate in Hz	48000
--channels		Number of output channels	2
--max-voices		Maximum polyphony	64

Linux Audio Setup

On Linux, doux supports both JACK and ALSA backends. For systems using PipeWire (default on most modern distributions), the JACK backend via pipewire-jack provides the best compatibility.

Quick Start

# Use JACK backend (recommended for PipeWire systems)
doux --host jack

# Or run diagnostics to check your audio setup
doux --diagnose

ALSA Fallback

For direct ALSA access without PipeWire:

# Install ALSA dev libraries
sudo apt install libasound2-dev  # Debian/Ubuntu
sudo dnf install alsa-lib-devel  # Fedora

# Ensure user is in audio group
sudo usermod -aG audio $USER
# Log out and back in for group change to take effect

Then run with --host alsa.

Troubleshooting

Run doux --diagnose to check:

• Available audio hosts
• User group membership (audio, pipewire)
• JACK server status
• Default device accessibility

Common issues:

• No devices found: Check group membership (id -Gn should show audio)
• JACK unavailable: Start JACK server or install pipewire-jack
• Wrong device selected: Use --list-devices and specify with --output

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

License

This project is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0.