Overview

Skred is a polyphonic wavetable synthesizer built by Joseph Stewart (octetta) for flexibility and live performance. Instead of fixed signal paths, Skred lets you freely interconnect voices in a modular playground — route nearly anything to anything, and reshape sounds on the fly. You command it with terse ASCII messages sent over wire, air, or typed directly into the console.

Skred skips ultra-polished features in favor of raw responsiveness and real-time control. Simple pattern playback keeps the grooves rolling while you manipulate parameters live. It’s a lightweight, hackable synth that feels alive under your fingers, whether performing live or scripting chaos from a terminal.

Key Features

• Polyphonic wavetable synthesis with flexible modular voice routing — connect voices like LEGO
• Skode live-code language — terse ASCII commands for real-time control via console, MIDI, or network
• MIDI-aware — integrate with hardware controllers, sequencers, and DAWs
• Drum machine construction kit — build rhythm engines alongside synth voices
• Pattern playback for live looping and layered performances
• Cross-platform — runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows
• Built with Zig and C using the miniaudio library for low-latency audio
• MIT licensed — permissive, hackable, and embeddable

Quick Start

git clone https://github.com/octetta/skred
cd skred
zig build
./zig-out/bin/skred

Getting Started with Skode

v0 w0 f440 a0 l1    # start a 440Hz sine wave on voice 0
v1 m1 a0 f1 l1      # start a 1Hz modulator on voice 1
v0 F1,1             # use v1 modulator to change v0's frequency
??                  # show the running voices