Open it. Pick a sound. Go.
DAWG stands for Digital Audio Workstation Game. You pick an instrument, tap notes on a grid, twist effects, and hear it play back instantly. No timeline to configure, no plugins to load, no routing to figure out. Just open it and make music.
Under the hood, everything runs on a custom DSP engine written from scratch. Every oscillator, filter, envelope, and effect runs on the audio thread with zero garbage collection. That's why it feels responsive even on a phone.
9 instruments, all loaded
Every instrument has its own preset bank and sound design controls. Switch between them while your pattern plays.
- Drums - kick, snare, hat, perc
- Bass - sub, synth, 808, pluck, reese, 303
- Synth - lead, supersaw, acid, hoover, brass, digital
- Groove - rhodes, wurli, clav, hammond, pad, vintage, piano
- Guitar - acoustic, clean, crunch, distort, funk, nylon
- Arp - classic, trance, acid, chip, bellish, sweep
- Sampler - 8-slice sample playback
- Electric - vocoder, talkbox, daft, choir, robot, whisper
- Vocal - formant synthesis (aah, eeh, ooh, choir, robot vox)
Two grids, one brain
The simple step sequencer is for tapping out patterns fast. The piano roll is for drawing melodies with full control over length, velocity, and timing. Flip between them whenever you want - your notes carry over.
Real mixer, real meters
Each instrument gets its own channel strip with volume, pan, mute, and solo. The master bus has VU meters and LUFS loudness monitoring. The faders work with touch, mouse, or gamepad.
Plug in a MIDI controller
Any USB or Bluetooth MIDI keyboard works out of the box. Pitch bend, mod wheel, sustain pedal, CC mapping - all wired up. Play live and record straight into your pattern.
Runs everywhere
Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, Steam Deck. Same app, same features. Touch, mouse, keyboard, gamepad - pick whatever you've got.
Your data stays with you
No account, no login, no analytics, no tracking, no telemetry. Everything lives on your device. We don't want your data - we want you to make music.
16 languages
English, German, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, Russian, Chinese (Simplified), Korean, Turkish, Indonesian, Hindi, Thai, Bengali, Arabic. With proper HQ fonts for CJK and Indic scripts - not placeholder squares.
No bloat. No tricks.
No subscriptions, no in-app purchases, no paywalls. DAWG is in early access and gets updated regularly. Built by one person. Every feature earned its spot. The beta is available now on itch.io.