homecrate - Player & Studio

A music player with a production studio inside. Algorithm-tuned shuffle, spatial audio, synced lyrics, plus a 16-track DAW with on-device stem separation, real VST3 plugin hosting, a synth, drum machine, and guitar amp. One app. No subscription.

YOUR MUSIC. YOUR RULES.

homecrate is a player and a studio for people who have opinions about music. Not a streaming service. Not an algorithm watching you.

LISTEN

Algorithm Tuner: Set your own taste profile. Shuffle reflects what you told it, not what it watched.

Liner Notes: Every track gets background facts, synced lyrics, and music theory analysis. The stuff that came in the sleeve.

Weather Mood: Live weather matched to your library. On-device, not to advertisers.

Spatial Audio (Pro): A spectral binaural engine. Per-track toggle. Put the band in the room.

CREATE

homecrate Studio (Pro): 16 audio + 8 MIDI tracks. Time-stretch and warp markers for timing correction. Clip slicing, crossfades, pinch-to-zoom timeline. Automation lanes with shape presets. Mixdown to your library, export with Ambisonics on iOS 26+, or share a whole project as one file.

VST3 + AudioUnit Hosting (Pro): Run real third-party VST3 and AU plugins inside your project. A free companion app on your Mac hosts the plugin; homecrate streams audio, MIDI, and tempo both ways. Every plugin parameter becomes an automatable lane, just like a native one. Mac required.

Stem Separation (Pro): Split any song into stems (vocals, drums, bass, guitar, and more) entirely on your device. No cloud, no account, no limits. Stems land on tracks, ready to play along: mute the guitar and take its place.

Audio to MIDI (Pro): Convert audio to a MIDI clip with on-device pitch detection. Sing the melody, get the notes.

Synthesizer (Pro): Dual-oscillator subtractive synth. MPE and microtonal tuning (EDO + world scales). 6-voice unison.

Drum Machine (Pro): 16-pad sampler. Multi-bar step sequencer. MIDI clip export.

Guitar Amp (Pro): Neural Amp Modeler (NAM A2) with IR cabinets. 5-band EQ. Load any .nam model or .wav IR.

Vocal Chain (Pro): Pitch correction, compression, doubling, de-esser, delay, and reverb in one plugin.

Dynamic EQ (Pro): Dynamic EQ and compressor with true sidechaining. Feed it from any track via the companion send plugin. Duck the bass under the kick.

AUv3 Host (Pro): 4 insert slots per track. Load any third-party instrument, effect, or MIDI processor. Automate it from lanes or MIDI clips.

MIDI I/O (Pro): Hardware routing. Clock sync (24 PPQN). Bluetooth MIDI. Controller learn.

Video Capture (Pro): Film the take with your backing track in the mix. 62 real-time GPU effects that stack as layers, plus 23 factory looks. Effects react to what you play: hit the strings and the frame ignites. Preserve Me and Preserve Instrument shields keep you and your guitar untouched while everything else burns. Front and back camera at once. Crops for 9:16, 1:1, 4:5, 16:9.

Gesture Control (Pro): Hand gestures seen by the front camera become MIDI. Twist your hand to ride a filter or trigger notes, without touching the screen.

AI Voice + Chat (Pro): Voice commands for DAW control. Music Chat: mix analysis, theory-rule drum beats, MIDI clips. Informed. Not generative.

TOOLS

Guitar Tuner: Chromatic with custom tunings. Chord detection.

Metronome: Tempo presets. MIDI clock in and out.

Looper Pedal (Pro): Overdub layers, quantize, export straight to a track.

FREE VS PRO

Free: local player, algorithm tuner, weather mood, liner notes, tuner, metronome, widgets, 4 audio tracks, 1 MIDI track, homecrate instruments with some limits.

Pro: 16 audio + 8 MIDI tracks, stem separation, audio to MIDI, spatial audio, synth, drum machine, guitar amp, vocal chain, dynamic EQ, AUv3 + VST3/AU hosting, gesture control, video FX, looper, project sharing, AI voice + chat, Plex sync. $9.99. One time. No subscription. No renewal.