Writing Audio Plugins in MATLAB

Writing Audio Plugins in MATLAB

When To Use

• Creating audio effect or generator plugins (classdef inheriting from audioPlugin or audioPluginSource)
• Troubleshooting validateAudioPlugin or generateAudioPlugin failures
• Converting a MATLAB audio algorithm into a deployable VST/AU plugin
• Integrating deep learning inference into a real-time audio plugin

When NOT To Use

• General MATLAB class authoring unrelated to audio plugins
• Audio file I/O, feature extraction, or analysis (no plugin involved)
• Simulink audio processing blocks
• Writing Audio Toolbox functions that are not plugins (e.g., audioDatastore, audioFeatureExtractor)

Structure

Every audio plugin is a classdef with %#codegen, public tunable properties, a Constant PluginInterface, and methods process + reset.

classdef MyPlugin < audioPlugin
%#codegen

    properties
        Gain = 0.5
        Cutoff = 1000
    end

    properties (Access = private)
        pSR = 44100
        pB = [1 0 0]
        pA = [1 0 0]
        pState = zeros(2, 2)  % (filterOrder, numChannels)
    end

    properties (Constant)
        PluginInterface = audioPluginInterface( ...
            audioPluginParameter('Gain', ...
                DisplayName='Gain', Label='dB', Mapping={'lin', 0, 1}), ...