Fontelle, a Linux DAW where the SoundFont is only the start

• The idea
• What is in the first release
• Installing on Linux
• Windows and macOS
• Updating
• Where it is

We have released the first version of Fontelle, a digital audio workstation for Linux. It is free, open source (MIT OR Apache-2.0), one small native binary, and it is early access: a working studio with a long list still ahead of it. This post is what it is, why it exists, and how to get it running.

The idea#

Every SoundFont player we know of treats an .sf2 file as authoritative. The loop points, the envelopes, the filter, the key and velocity mapping, the tuning: they are whatever the file says, and you play the instrument as shipped.

Fontelle inverts that. The SoundFont seeds the defaults, and every one of those values is exposed in the instrument editor as something you own. Change a loop point. Redraw an envelope. Route an LFO through the modulation matrix to a filter that was never in the file. Retune it. Automate any of it from the arrangement. The file is a starting point, and the instrument you end up with is saved in your project.

That is the reason the program exists. There are decades of General MIDI banks, console rips and one-off SoundFonts sitting on people's drives, and almost all of them are more interesting as raw material than as finished instruments.

What is in the first release#

Around the sampler is a full studio. Everything below is in 0.1.0.

Composing. An arrangement timeline with lanes and clips (MIDI, audio and automation), looping, clip stretch and cut, fades, a blade tool, and prefabs (one set of notes placed in many places). A piano roll with draw, paint, select and delete tools, snap from a bar down to 1/32 or triplets, a velocity lane, ghost notes, an arpeggiator, legato joining, slides and pitch bends, and a per-note channel so one clip can play several instruments. A tempo map with changes, a time signature, and a transport with loop ranges and a metronome.

Sound. The SoundFont sampler described above. Flopsynth, a built-in synthesiser with oscillators (unison, sync, FM), filters with drive, envelopes, LFOs, a modulation matrix, macros, its own effect chain and 338 factory presets sorted onto shelves (Bass, Keys, Pads, Leads, Sync & FM, World, Cinematic, Lo-Fi & Tape, Modular and more). A drum machine whose kits are physically modelled resonator bodies rather than samples. Sampler channels from any audio file you drag in. Live MIDI input with hot-plug, MIDI recording, MIDI file import, and .fsc (FL Studio score) import.

Mixing. A mixer with tracks, sends, routing, a master bus with a brickwall limiter, per-track insert chains with wet/dry and delay compensation, and track presets including sixteen shipped vocal chains. The built-in effects are each a family rather than one sound: Utility, EQ with a spectrum, Filter, Compressor with external sidechain, Gate, Distortion, Bitcrush, Soften, Chorus, Delay, Reverb, and Tune, an autotune with a keyboard-driven scale, a preset bank and a colour control. Every knob is automatable.

Plugins. Fontelle hosts CLAP and LV2 instruments and effects on Linux, including their own editor windows, with plugin state saved in the project. Pickers have favourites, and it scans the standard locations plus any folders you add. VST2 and VST3 are not hosted in the shipped binary.

Audio. Import, playback, recording from an input with monitoring, an audio clip editor, and an offline render to WAV.

Projects. Full undo and redo (every edit is a command), autosave and backups, and project bundles (Name.fontelle folders) that reopen with their audio.

The program itself. Rust from top to bottom, with a custom GPU-drawn interface on wgpu and vello, in dark and light themes. No account, no cloud, no telemetry. The only network request it ever makes is an optional update check at launch, and there is a setting to turn it off.

Installing on Linux#

Linux x86_64 is the platform Fontelle is built for. The release is a tarball with the binary, both licences, a README, a .desktop entry, the icon and an installer:

tar xzf fontelle-0.1.0-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz
cd fontelle-0.1.0-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
./install.sh

install.sh puts fontelle in ~/.local/bin with a menu entry and an icon. Nothing goes outside your home folder and nothing needs root. ./install.sh --uninstall takes all of it away again.

The binary links lilv for LV2 hosting, plus ALSA and D-Bus. On Debian and Ubuntu that is sudo apt install liblilv-0-0; on Fedora and Arch the package is lilv. The installer checks with ldd before it copies anything and prints the exact package line for your distribution if something is missing.

The download page always links the current release, and the release itself publishes a SHA256SUMS file for every archive.

Windows and macOS#

The same release workflow builds Windows (x86_64) and macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel) archives and runs the whole test suite on each. They are real builds and they are less exercised than Linux. On those two platforms plugin editors are not shown and LV2 is not hosted; CLAP plugins still load and play, only their own windows do not open.

The binaries are unsigned for now. On macOS, right-click the binary and choose Open the first time. On Windows, if SmartScreen appears, choose More info and then Run anyway.

Updating#

Fontelle opens on a start menu: recent projects, New project, Open a project, and a line that says whether there is a newer version. When there is, an Install update button downloads the release archive, verifies it against the published SHA256SUMS, and swaps the binary in place. If it cannot write there, it opens the release page instead so you can install by hand.

Where it is#

Early access. There is a window you can write a whole piece in, and there is a lot still on the design list. For anyone who wants a number that is true, the test suite is around 3,900 passing tests on Linux.

The source is at github.com/Fopull-LLC/DAW-Fontelle. Bugs and requests go in the issue tracker there, and pull requests are welcome. The product page has the downloads for every platform, the screenshots, and the rest of the detail.