OpenKick gives you perfect sidechaining control with an absolutely pristine visual interface. Whether you need rapid EDM 4-on-the-floor ducking synced perfectly to your DAW, or surgical volume-shaping that reacts directly to external drum hits, OpenKick delivers flawlessly without bloating your project.
Most modern volume shaping plugins consume gigabytes of memory or hundreds of megabytes of RAM just for their complicated vector GUIs. OpenKick uses approximately 37MB of RAM per instance. You can comfortably drop 50+ instances of OpenKick across a dense mixing project without your computer breaking a sweat. It is purely non-destructive, zero-latency mathematics.
- 16 Precision Ducking Algorithms: Features meticulously designed mathematical curves, including S-Curves, Block Ramps, Sine Pumps, Convex sweeps, and an interactive Custom User Node envelope.
- Dual Trigger Engines:
- Host Sync Mode: Locks directly into your DAW’s internal clock (with
std::fmodfree-running decoupling) giving you flawless ducking synced at 1/8, 1/4, 1/4T (Triplets), 1/2T, and 1/1 Bars. - Audio Trigger Mode: Routes external audio (e.g., your separate drum bus) directly into the plugin. A high-speed transient envelope follower detects the hits and ducks your instrument on the fly—automatically resting back to full volume when the drums stop.
- Host Sync Mode: Locks directly into your DAW’s internal clock (with
- Ghost Visualizer Arrays: Features a dual-oscilloscope design. See your primary instrument waveform in bright white, while the ducking sidechain input audio renders translucently in the background to visually align your mix perfectly.
- Phase Shift Slider: Instantly slide and offset the envelope’s phase relationship left or right to fix early or late kick transients without needing to manually nudge MIDI clips.
- Hardware GUI Architecture: Hard-coded natively in JUCE C++ with direct vector graphics. Includes a restricted 2:1 geometric UI layout lock, dynamically scalable layout arrays, 60 FPS gravitational decay rendering, and 3D gradient radial components without requiring heavyweight graphics libraries.
OpenKick is built upon the JUCE framework using FetchContent. Compiling it from source is incredibly easy.
- CMake (v3.21+)
- A functional C++ Compiler (MSVC for Windows, Xcode for macOS, GCC/Clang for Linux)
- Clone this repository to your local machine:
git clone https://github.com/navidsatarmaker/OpenKick.git cd OpenKick - Configure the CMake project. JUCE will automatically fetch down into your environment during this step:
cmake -B build
- Compile the VST3 and Standalone formats natively:
cmake --build build --config Release
- Done! The output
.vst3file will be generated inside thebuild/OpenKick_artefacts/Release/VST3folder. Drop it into your DAW plugin directory and start producing.
Want to see OpenKick in action or download the pre-compiled VST3 versions directly?
OpenKick is built purely as an educational, non-profit resource for the music production community. It relies on the generosity of developers and producers.
If this plugin saved you $ on buying commercial sidechain software, consider supporting the project!
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Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for more information.