Your plugin, playable in a browser.
Samascope runs a real, unmodified .vst3 on a server and streams its sound and its own
interface to a browser. No installer, no license file, no 400 MB download. Send the link to somebody
else, or open it yourself to hear something you just built.
The plugin file stays on the server. What travels to a browser is compressed audio and images of the interface, not the binary.
Most plugins never reach the ears they were written for.
Rarely because the plugin is bad. Because everything between hearing about it and hearing it is friction, and friction usually wins.
Trying one is a chore
Download an installer, find the license file, restart the DAW, rescan. Plenty of people give up before the first sound comes out, and they never tell you they did.
No DAW, no way to hear it
You write the DSP, maybe with an AI sitting next to you, and then you need a DAW to hear whether it works. A school laptop, a work machine with no admin rights, a disk with nothing left on it: that is often where the project stops.
A stranger's binary is a risk
You are asking somebody to run unknown native code on the machine they earn money with. Plenty of them reasonably say no.
Three steps, and none of them is "re-write your plugin".
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1
Point us at the build you already ship
A zip on Google Drive, Dropbox, or a GitHub release. The same
.vst3your customers get. No special build, no WebAssembly port, no source code. -
2
We run it for real
A real plugin host loads it, renders its audio, opens its own editor window, and streams both out. It is your DSP running rather than a re-creation of it, though what travels to the browser is compressed audio.
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3
Share one link
Put it on your site, in a forum post, in a newsletter, or just open it yourself. Whoever opens it needs a browser and nothing else: a Chromebook, a phone, a locked-down work laptop.
From a link to something you can play with.
The real flow, replayed: paste a build link into the dashboard, wait for the host to load it, then open the demo link and start turning knobs.
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Paste your build link
A Drive, Dropbox or GitHub link to a zip holding your
.vst3. -
The host loads the real plugin
Its own editor, its own DSP, rendering on the server.
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Share the link
All it asks of the other end is a browser.
What you actually get.
Your real interface
Your own editor, your own graphics, your own knob feel, captured from the running plugin rather than rebuilt as a web approximation of it.
Nothing to re-port
No rebuilding your DSP in somebody else's framework or in WebAssembly. It loads the binary you already have, or the one you compiled ten minutes ago.
Your binary is not distributed
The plugin file stays on the server. The browser at the other end receives compressed audio and images of the interface, so there is no file there to unpack.
Works where plugins cannot go
School laptops, Chromebooks, iPads, phones, machines with no admin rights and no disk space. Where a lot of people are, and where you might be yourself.
Runs on your own machine too
The host is a single executable. Point it at a plugin on your PC, open a tunnel, and you are serving a demo from your desk without paying for hosting.
Documented, not a black box
The wire protocol and the REST API are written down, so you can read what happens to your plugin: what is sent, what is stored, and what is thrown away.
What it can't do yet.
This is an early prototype. Here is where the edges are.
Every knob turn makes a round trip to the server, which on a nearby one is usually somewhere around 60–150 ms and on a distant one closer to 250–350 ms. Fine for auditioning a sound. Not for playing a part in time.
VST3 and LV2 today. AU, VST2 and CLAP are not supported, and hosting runs on Windows for now.
Chaining works: an instrument into effects, across several mixer channels. What is shared is the session itself. Everyone holding a live link hears the same stream and moves the same controls, so treat one as a room rather than as your own copy.
Some plugin windows capture imperfectly, keyboard input does not reach the plugin's own text fields, and sessions are short. Expect to find bugs.
The questions people actually ask.
Do I need to make a special build?
No. The same .vst3 you ship to customers is what gets loaded. That is the whole point. If
you had to re-port your plugin, this would be no easier than the alternatives.
Can someone steal my plugin from the stream?
The plugin file is not part of what gets sent, so there is nothing in the browser to extract. That is a property of how it works, not a promise that nothing can ever go wrong. Visitors receive lossy audio and images, and they can record that audio much as they could from a demo video. The binary does sit on a server while a demo is live, so put up a plugin the way you would hand a build to a reviewer: deliberately.
Is it legal to run someone else's plugin like this?
Only with the developer's consent, which is why Samascope is built around developers putting up their own work. There is no way for a visitor to upload a plugin they merely own a license to, and there should not be.
Will people use this instead of buying?
Sessions are short, shared, and latent enough that finishing real work in one would be painful. The job it is trying to do is the demo download, not the sale.
I have no DAW. Can I use this to test something I am building?
That is one of the reasons it exists. Point the host at your build, open the demo link, and you get its editor, its parameters and a small keyboard in a browser tab. It will not replace a DAW for arranging or mixing, and the latency rules out playing in time, but for hearing whether the thing you just compiled makes the sound you meant it to, a browser tab is usually enough.
What does it cost?
Nothing during early access. Server time is the real cost here, so any eventual pricing is more likely to be about demo minutes used than about seats. That is not settled, and you will get notice before anything you hold starts costing money.
Why does the audio need a moment to settle?
The browser buffers about 150 ms of sound so that a hiccup in the network does not become a click in your ears. It is the same trade streaming services make.
Hear it before you believe it.
The first server goes up for a handful of pre-testers. Leave an address and you get the link before anyone else does.