u/Swimming_Contest_349

foobar2000 on Mac has always been a great player but a dead end for plugins — no VST host in sight. So I wrote one for CLAP, the open plugin standard, and it's live and free. There is AU hosting, but not everyone use AU/Logic 😂

foo_dsp_clap drops a "CLAP Effect" into your DSP chain and runs any CLAP audio effect installed on your system, on everything you play — with the plugin's own native GUI and preset browsing built in.

What that means in practice:

• 🎚️ FabFilter — Pro-Q 3/4 to finally EQ your playback, Pro-L to loudness-match, Pro-C to tame dynamics, Pro-R for room, Saturn for a little grit. (These are the ones I tested against — they just work.)
• 🌊 u-he — Colour Copy, Satin, Presswerk, Twangström… their gorgeous CLAP effects, on your music instead of in your DAW.
• 🆓 Plus anything else CLAP: Surge XT effects, the massive free MeldaProduction bundle, Chowdhury DSP, Baby Audio, Audio Damage, Kilohearts… if it's a .clap effect, foobar can host it now.

It saves the full plugin state into the DSP preset, so your tone survives restarts and travels with your DSP presets. Chain several by stacking multiple instances.

The catch(es): macOS Apple Silicon only, foobar2000 v2, and a handful of JIT-compiling plugins (some DSP-emulation stuff) can crash foobar's hardened runtime — the mainstream effects above are fine. Open source (MIT).

Grab it: https://github.com/kartun83/foo_dsp_clap/releases — download the .fb2k-component, open it, restart, add "CLAP Effect" in Preferences → Playback → DSP Manager.

Would love to hear what you run through it. 🔊

There's basically no native MIDI playback on foobar2000 for Mac, so I wrote one. It renders .mid / .midi / .smf / .kar through FluidSynth and whatever SoundFont you point it at, and they behave like normal tracks — seek, correct length, tags, gapless.

The gist:

• Any .sf2 / .sf3 SoundFont — swap it to change the whole sound. Loaded once and cached, so it's not re-loading per track (a big compressed .sf3 can take a few seconds; keep it around and it's instant after the first play).
• Tempo-accurate seekbar/length, proper seeking.
• MIDI meta → foobar tags: title, tempo, time sig, key sig, instrument names, copyright.
• Selectable output sample rate (44.1 / 48 / 88.2 / 96k).
• Drum handling (Off / Auto / Always). Tons of MIDI — drum/groove packs especially — puts GM drum notes on channel 1 with no program change, so under plain GM it plays as piano. Auto detects that and sends it to the kit, but leaves real GM files and channel-10 drums alone. Also finds where the kit actually sits in the SoundFont (some put it at a non-zero program).
• Console prints what a SoundFont actually contains and warns on the usual "why is this silent" mismatches.

Good for: just playing MIDI on macOS, browsing big collections, or A/B-ing SoundFonts (GM sets, orchestral fonts, TR-808/909 kits…) against the same files.

Heads up / limits:

• Apple Silicon + foobar2000 v2 only. Needs FluidSynth (brew install fluid-synth).
• You bring the SoundFont — sound quality and coverage are all on it. Drum-only font won't play melodic parts (and vice versa); the console tells you when that's what happened.
• FluidSynth only — no MT-32/OPL emulation, no VST/CLAP hosting (maybe later).
• SMF only, no .rcp / .xmi / .hmi etc.
• .kar plays as audio, no synced lyrics.

MIT, source + prebuilt component: https://github.com/kartun83/foo_tun_midi

Bug reports welcome, especially files or SoundFonts that misbehave.

I want to share my custom made setup for baby walking. Of course it's totally against all traditions and culture, but... It's extremely versatile.

So, I brought a stainless straw, got a donor bombilla with spring, perforated the straw with 2mm drill and...

Bingo. Hands free, I don't have to carry an additional bulky bag, don't have to pour over and over. Additionally, it's quite hard to find a cup holder for a mate cup for a baby stroller. At least in Argentina, where most people are obsessed with those ugly bulky mate bags 🫩

For those interested, I fill it with 1/3 yerba, and for my taste it 's ok for 2-3 refills 😁