Instrument Tracks & Presets

Instrument tracks host audio plugins that generate sound from MIDI input. Each instrument track has a plugin chain displayed in the Plugin Panel.

Creating an Instrument Track

1. Add a new MIDI track
2. Open the Plugin Panel (double-click the track header or use the Plugin Manager)
3. Select an instrument plugin from the browser
4. The plugin loads into the track’s plugin chain

The plugin receives MIDI from the track and outputs audio to the mixer.

Plugin Chain

Each track has a plugin chain rendered in the Plugin Panel:

MIDI Input → [Instrument] → [Effect 1] → [Effect 2] → ... → Mixer Channel

The first slot is reserved for an instrument plugin (if the track is MIDI). Subsequent slots are for audio effects (EQ, compression, reverb, etc.).

Plugin Panel Layout

The Plugin Panel displays plugins horizontally at the bottom of the screen:

Property	Value
Default height	200 px
Minimum height	120 px
Maximum height	400 px

The panel is resizable by dragging the top edge.

Selecting Channels

The Plugin Panel can display plugins for:

Target	Description
Track	Instrument or audio track (selected by track ID)
FX Channel	Send effect channel
Output Channel	Output bus
Master	Master channel

Plugin UI

Each plugin can display its native UI. Click a plugin in the chain to open its editor window. Plugin UIs are rendered using:

Plugin Type	UI Method
AU	Native NSView (AudioUnit custom view)
VST3	IPlugView (platform-native window)
CLAP	clap_plugin_gui (native or embedded)
Internal	Webview (HTML/JS/CSS GUI)

Internal Plugin Webview

Built-in Plinken plugins (like Synome and Sampler) use a webview-based GUI. The GUI communicates with the audio engine via IPC messages:

Message Direction	Content
GUI → Engine	Parameter changes, preset requests
Engine → GUI	Parameter updates, state sync

Presets

Browsing Presets

The preset browser shows available presets for the selected plugin. Presets can come from:

Source	Description
Factory	Shipped with the plugin
User	Saved by the user
Cloud	Published to the Plinken cloud via plugins:publish-patch

Saving Presets

Save the current plugin state as a preset:

• User presets are stored locally
• Published presets are shared to the cloud

Publishing Patches

-- Publish the current plugin preset to the cloud
pl.cmd("plugins:publish-patch")

This uploads the current instrument state (all parameter values) to the Plinken preset cloud, making it available to other users.

Lua API

-- Open plugin manager to browse instruments
pl.cmd("plugins:open-audio-plugins")

-- Publish current preset
pl.cmd("plugins:publish-patch")

-- Set plugin panel visibility
plinken.set("plugin_panel", "visible", true)

-- Set plugin panel height
plinken.set("plugin_panel", "panel_height", 250)

MIDI Input

Instrument plugins receive MIDI from multiple sources:

Source	Description
MIDI regions	Recorded or drawn MIDI notes on the timeline
MIDI input device	External MIDI keyboard or controller
Music Keys	Virtual on-screen keyboard (Cmd+Shift+K)
Arpeggiator	Built-in arp generating note patterns
Lua scripts	Programmatic MIDI generation

Signal Flow

MIDI Source
    ↓
MIDI Track (quantize, transpose)
    ↓
Instrument Plugin (note → audio)
    ↓
Effect Chain (EQ, comp, reverb)
    ↓
Track Output → Mixer Channel
    ↓
FX Sends → FX Returns
    ↓
Master Bus → Audio Output

Related

• Plugins Overview — Plugin formats and types
• Plugin Manager — Scanning and validation
• Synome — Built-in synthesizer
• MIDI — MIDI tracks, events, and recording