AudioKit VS Rack

You should also check out AudioKit. The latest release should have an audio engine completely rewritten purely with Swift iirc.

I' just installed Xcode 13 and try to run a playground that uses a package (https://github.com/AudioKit/AudioKit). To add it I'm supposd to select "File -> Add Packages...", but when I do this absolutely nothing happens. No window appears, no error message, just nothing. What could be the reason for this?

It seems to be the industry standard at least. I have played around with iPlug2 and AudioKit a little bit but not enough to really form an opinion. (iPlug2 is described by the authors as "not production ready" and AudioKit is mac / ios only)

You’re up for a lot of work, but I would start with AudioKit which is an abstraction over AVFoundation.

AudioKit - Audio synthesis, processing, and analysis platform for iOS.

Maybe check out AudioKit, it’s great for audio stuff.

There are open sources synthesizers projects for iOS in swift. I would recommend giving it a look and see if it fits your needs. https://github.com/AudioKit/AudioKit

I can’t help with that, but I would suggest looking at AudioKit. Even if it doesn’t help you replace that dependency, it might give you pointers for doing it yourself.

If you are on macOS, AudioKit is a nice simplified layer on top of CoreAudio and CoreMidi: https://github.com/AudioKit/AudioKit

VCV Rack - Modular Synth

> It’s haven’t bought any Modular’s yet but I’m really looking forward to getting into other on the new year.

http://cardinal.kx.studio

https://vcvrack.com/

The former is libre and gratis, runs as a standalone or plugin and in the browser!! and is based on the latter.

Ther former has a libre and gratis standalone version, the plugin version is non-gratis.

A music synthesizer. It's a pathway to learning electronics, music, and the nature of sound. There are cheap kits, cheap synths, lots of kinds of synths, and there are much more complicated and expensive systems you can grow into. You can get software synths also, VCV Rack is a free though complex one:

https://vcvrack.com/

However I'd recommend an inexpensive hardware one with real knobs you can turn, like one of the Korg Volca series:

https://www.korg-volca.com/en/

Recording the sounds can lead into exploring all the concepts and gear involved in recording and mixing music. It's not mutually exclusive with doing other things also, you can play with both synths and computers and being involved with something artistic can add dimensions to and an escape from the nature of classwork/work.

Some other suggestions: gardening, high voltage electronics (with lots of supervision), electronics, photography, movie making, ham radio (gnu radio), show lighting systems (there's more than disco lights, robotics is involved), robotics, acoustic instruments (guitar, piano, flute, drums), sensors (you don't necessarily have to know electronics, get a data logger with built in sensors), weather monitoring/forecasting, hydraulic systems (with supervision), wood working, metal working, 3D printing, bird watching, painting, minibikes/small engines.

What really opened my eyes was the Nord Micromodular; it taught me what I just described. It showed me how limited other synths were - but that limitation was a trade-off because it's much faster to make something on a fixed-structure synth than on a modular, in most cases. Nowadays, you can use https://vcvrack.com/ instead of a small limited box that needs Windows 98 to run the editor on.

Also I would suggest the paid version of VCV rack which works as a VST too ( the free version is just stand alone ) Expecially when experimenting with modular ( believe me, it can save you a fortune whilst you learn what different modules do ) I would also recommend Omri Cohens Youtube channel for learning this too.