Hello everyone! In this new blog post, we’re going to talk about the release of my latest plug-in, Voyage Voyage, a Shimmer reverb and drone/texture generator currently competing in the latest KVR Developer Challenge 2026.
And above all, we’re going to talk about product design, a subject I’m currently very passionate about, and one that some developers occasionally discuss, such as Tomislav Zlatic from Bedroom Producers Blog + Flame Sound regarding the release of his plug-in Vatra.
A circular approach to designing products
Product design is a topic that has been a real obsession of mine for some time now.
As a freelance developer, I’ve had a few opportunities to be involved in this stage of plugin creation, though, for the most part, my clients already had a fairly clear vision of what they wanted and came to me to address a specific, identified need (such as emulating a particular electronic circuit, testing various algorithms for a specific type of effect, or troubleshooting an existing project). I have mostly focused on honing this budding skill through my own plugins.
What particularly interested me about this was seeing the extent to which completely unrelated fields could intertwine at this stage, ranging from graphic design, ergonomics, and UX design to researching best practices in existing products, and synthesizing the essential aspects of DSP blocks versus what should or could be made user-editable. But it also involves elements like marketing, which can, or indeed must, be considered during the design phase rather than after the product is finished, specifically regarding market fit. This determines whether communicating about the product will be easy or difficult: what generates hype versus boredom; what is innovative and requires user education versus what is commonplace or immediately familiar; and what is currently trending versus what doesn’t yet exist in any form.
From there, we would look at the needs of musicians and future users, ranging from the needs they articulate to those they aren’t even aware of, whether these foster creativity or simply provide practical utility, and even consider what inspires or empowers the tool’s developers themselves (since those who spend their days creating plug-ins are often musicians or artists in their own right). We would also take into account the biases and blind spots shared by all these groups, their frustrations, and the underlying motivations for embarking on a new plug-in development project.
What fascinates me about this is that product design is a sort of circular process — one that integrates all these elements and fosters communication between them — yet it can also be a factor that negatively stands out in products that fail to achieve the expected success. Across all disciplines, we frequently see examples of products where questions regarding the viability of the product or service were raised only at a late stage, or indeed never asked at all.
Ever faster and for less time
It must be said that, in this year 2026, I personally observe that many things have changed in the world of plugins. To summarize, I would say that the advent of AI has caused a stir, but has also accelerated a number of things that already existed, such as market saturation or the continuous devaluation of plugins that are put online, driven in particular by the phenomenon of “promotional periods that are no longer the exception,” with these famous plugins officially on sale at 250 euros but whose average value over 365 days is less than 25% of this price, with a minimum of 5-6 different promotional periods per year (see for example these deals from the promotions page of the Synth Anatomy blog).
Furthermore, some of my clients (those who rely on human expertise) have faced mounting pressure to alter their development practices to ensure their products succeed in these peculiar times. This involves issues such as the time spent developing a plug-in versus the need to accelerate production to churn out ever more plug-ins, even if the resulting software offers fewer features and receives support for a shorter period. This battle for the attention of potential users is waged not only against direct industry competitors but also against other leisure activities beyond music creation, and even against the passive consumption of educational content that is rarely put into practice.
But above all, for me, it highlighted flaws in their product design approach, flaws that weren’t significant five years ago but cause concrete problems today. That is why I began educating myself on the subject and increasingly advising my clients on it over time.
Artificial Intelligence and Human Stupidity
Given the various pressures currently affecting my work as a freelancer and consultant, I decided at the start of the year to train myself on AI tools applicable to my field, or even capable of competing with my services. My goal was to potentially boost productivity and advise clients who have questions, but also — let’s be honest — to be able to speak critically about them from an informed perspective, should the opportunity arise :)
It must be said that I rather have a natural tendency to want to stay as far away from it as possible, and that I understand in any case that certain practices are in any case very poorly viewed by customers (such as the creation of music or even sound material with Suno, the generation of images, em dashes or generic websites, AI slop in general etc.), not to mention the whole ethical dimension (militarization, energy and water expenditure, pollution, hidden work among annotators, surveillance and sovereignty, pressure on the world of work), or the risks posed by the creation of a financial bubble similar to dot-com of the early 2000s. However, it did not seem viable to me to simply play the ostrich game, or even to ignore certain real advances in the field such as the uses of local open source models or what these tools can bring to neuroatypical / neurodeficient people for example.
At the same time, I finally started working on the actual release — guaranteed procrastination-free — of my first commercial plug-in (which we’ll be discussing very soon). I took the opportunity to take stock of the skills needed to complete the project, as well as the automation of the associated development and deployment stages (installers, scripts, continuous integration, reusable JUCE modules, etc.). In fact, the recent updates to Spaceship Delay and The Great Escape reflect this approach. Establishing best practices also meant finding the right balance regarding the use of AI tools, something I really began to explore in depth mid-year. As it happens, a project I was working on for a client gave me the chance to put all of this to the test, alongside the opportunity to participate once again in the KVR Developer Challenge, this time the 2026 edition, a full decade after the one featuring Spaceship Delay (it really makes you realize how time flies).
Create a new freeware plug-in in 2026?
When the KVR DC 2026 was announced, I have to admit I wasn’t keen on participating, given my workload at the time and the fact that I hadn’t yet fully visualized the release of my mystery commercial plug-in. I had a few ideas—none of which were feasible within three months, obviously—but certainly nothing that really grabbed me.
Then, while working on a Shimmer reverb algorithm (yes, the kind that feeds the reverb signal into a pitch shifter set an octave higher, popularized by Brian Eno, U2, and Valhalla’s plug-in), I found myself having fun trying to sustain the feedback loop for as long as possible. I added various effects that could be tweaked in real-time, like dynamic compression to keep the output from exploding, until it felt less like using a mere effects box and more like playing an actual instrument.
I was also significantly influenced by a few recent personal sonic adventures in electronic music, which I’ll have the chance to tell you more about later, that helped inspire, among others, a friend and ambient music composer, the artist Almost Random, who has just released a new album on Cyclical Dreams.
In any case, that was the moment it clicked for me; I felt the need to turn these experiments into something concrete, seizing the opportunity provided by the contest to also work on the elements I mentioned earlier. The project’s name came later, I liked its “French” ring, and I immediately envisioned moving between the Korg “Submarine” reverb (found in the Logue series) and the “Riser” and “Space” reverbs (specifically the -12 and +12 Shimmer settings, which sound fantastic), which also inspired the graphic design you’re familiar with. The trouble was, the first prototype I had on hand was nowhere near good enough for a commercial release, and it was already early June when I made these decisions. I had just one month to see the project through to completion, on top of my regular job!
Product Design & Automation
So, I kept working on the concept—focusing first on the sound, of course, but also on the controls I’d make available to the user. I spent time figuring out exactly what that #j$&@ Chaos control would do, it kept changing right up to the last minute, and addressing the low-frequency heavy content, which gave me trouble early on and needed to be tamed as much as possible. I then spent a few hours looking for graphic design inspiration in the hardware world, specifically Erica Synths pedals (which fit perfectly with their existing lineup of FX and instruments), but also drawing ideas from various delay and reverb units, and even other instruments, that I really like.
At the same time, I wanted something that wasn’t just another “Shimmer” reverb; I wanted to add a unique twist, which, as you’ve guessed, turned out to be the self-oscillation and drone generation features. I tried to make this as fun as possible, even though the workflow is unconventional, requiring you to regularly record the plug-in’s output rather than just relying on automation to get the best results, and I needed the GUI to reflect that aspect. I also figured this would help the plug-in stand out from recent market releases.
Some other aspects of the design I tried to focus on:
- I didn’t want my Shimmer effect to sound generic or even cliché
- I wanted something with personality and control, specifically over the Shimmer delay length, which allows for adjusting the build-up that is often fixed in this category of effects
- I took the time to determine which potentiometers should be highlighted, and considered factors such as their placement on the interface and the use of different sizes and concepts
- Various elements needed to encourage users to experiment with the drone and instrument sections of the plug-in, by eliminating friction with the UX, gently prompting them to explore, whether through built-in tutorials, color-coding, preset categories choice, and so on
- Finally, I wanted the sweet spots to be accessible with a minimum number of operations, so I had to merge controls or turn some of them into macros that affect multiple internal parameters.
And fortunately, I was very quickly very happy about the way it sounded, and it made me want to create interesting music with it, something I tried to demonstrate with the audio demos I released (with the help of Olivier VM).
Anyway, things started to take shape, and then I really had to nail down the layout, choosing the final controls, the interface arrangement, sizes and positions, and DSP interactions, as well as the graphics. I’m very confident about the coding side of things, having worked in this field for decades. This experience has given me both the know-how to create new things and a reusable codebase—covering elements like plug-in parameters, basic DSP blocks, and preset systems, that I’ve already automated through my previous freeware projects, allowing me to bypass AI entirely.
On the graphics side, however, a certain sense of dread started to set in… I have solid skills in Affinity Photo, Knobman, and Blender 3D, but I’ve been procrastinating on redesigning the GUI for Spaceship Delay for years; I remember being frustrated when it was first released because I hadn’t had the time to fully realize my aesthetic vision. I wasn’t sure I could pull it off for Voyage Voyage.
I had actually started working on a project to automate plug-in design, which, unfortunately, wasn’t finished yet, as well as on categorizing an element I find fascinating: hardware knobs and, of course, their software counterparts when using a skeuomorphic aesthetic. I came across a pretty interesting article featuring the image you see below (can you guess which ones I used?).
Finally, and let’s be very clear about this right from the start, the graphic design for Voyage Voyage is the result of my work in Affinity Photo, involving layers of diverse materials and the use of the venerable Knobman3D for the potentiometers. I had a very personal vision for the design that evolved through iteration; I incorporated some reworked, royalty-free assets from the web, a drawing by my daughter that I vectorized, and some AI-generated abstract elements for the pedal’s background, something I recently discussed over at Bedroom Producers Blog. I also briefly tested the capabilities of certain paid AI models while I was learning the ropes. I quickly realized that the results I was achieving on my own were great, and way more satisfying in every respect, even with my current skill level :)
While wrapping up the project, I took the opportunity to refine a few features I’d wanted to include in my plug-ins for a while: the resizing strategy, improvements to the preset system, and new Easter eggs - specifically one utilizing Roland Rabien’s JUCE module gin_controllers, which I reworked to support all types of joysticks, as well as a feature that simulates kicking a spring reverb unit!
I also took a look at JUCE’s accessibility features, integrated into the core modules since version 6.1 and compatible with Narrator on Windows and VoiceOver on macOS, by adding descriptions for each control and quickly testing how the plug-in operates with these tools. I also checked visual accessibility using the “Colour Simulations” tool on Windows. The resulting image for deuteranopia suggests I still have some work to do on my graphic design…
In any case, I’m very happy to have seen this plugin project through to completion, regardless of the contest outcome, and I fully intend to keep talking about it and adding a few more features after the competition ends. I also hope you enjoyed my long post! If you liked my work and my explanations, please feel free to download the plugin and vote for it, as well as for the work of the other developers participating in the KVR Audio Developer Challenge. You might also notice that I’ve done a bit of cleanup on my two websites (here and at musicalentropy.com).
Voyage Voyage by Musical Entropy
And yes, I still don’t know where our world is headed with AI, nor how far I’ll go in using the tool, though I already see quite a few applications I want to ban entirely from my workflow. I aim to stick to what I’d call “fair use” as much as possible, at least until I inevitably change my mind on the subject a hundred more times. I hope you appreciate my transparency here, as well as my desire to minimize AI involvement (even more the models involving capitalist structures) in my future work so that it can still be considered truly personal creation, especially since creating this way is simply more fun!
Stay safe!