Note Naga

DAW-like music production application with MIDI editing, arrangement, audio recording, and video export capabilities

Sections • Installation • Engine • Todo • Technologies

Note Naga is a music production application built with C++ and Qt. It combines a powerful MIDI editor with arrangement capabilities, audio recording, external MIDI routing, notation rendering, and advanced media export features. The application is powered by a custom real-time audio engine that handles synthesis, DSP processing, and audio/MIDI playback.

Note: This application is developed and tested on macOS. Functionality and build compatibility on Linux and Windows is not guaranteed.

Note Naga is organized into multiple sections, each focused on a specific aspect of music production:

A classic piano roll MIDI editor for composing and editing music. Features include:

• Multi-track MIDI editing with unlimited tracks
• Note editing with velocity, pan, and duration controls
• Tempo track with tempo changes support
• Grid snapping with multiple resolution options
• Advanced note manipulation tools (quantize, humanize, transpose, legato, staccato)
• Loop playback for seamless workflow

The MIDI editor includes an integrated AI assistant for melody generation and editing. Features include:

• Built-in integration with Google AI Studio (free daily usage limit available)
• Option to configure your own API key for extended usage
• Alternative workflow: copy the AI-generated prompt from Note Naga, paste it into your preferred AI model in a browser, and paste the response back into the chat to achieve the same result without API key setup
• Currently focused on melody generation from text prompts and note modifications

A timeline-based arrangement view for organizing your composition:

• Place MIDI clips and audio clips on timeline tracks
• Trim, cut, and move clips with precise control
• Fade in/out support for smooth transitions
• Per-track volume and pan controls
• Import audio files from disk
• Record audio directly from microphone input
• Arrange and structure complete songs

The integrated DSP engine provides professional audio processing with 20+ effect blocks including: Gain, Pan, Compressor, Limiter, Noise Gate, Single/Multi-band EQ, Filter, Reverb, Delay, Chorus, Flanger, Phaser, Saturator, Exciter, Tremolo, Stereo Imager, Bitcrusher, Distortion, Auto-Wah, De-Esser, and more.

Route MIDI notes from your tracks to external hardware synthesizers and MIDI devices:

• Scan and connect to available MIDI output devices
• Per-track routing configuration
• Channel assignment for each track
• Real-time connection status monitoring

Export your composition as video or audio with extensive customization options:

• Video export with visual piano roll animation
• Audio-only export in various formats
• Video effects: particles, screen shake, background images, opacity, lightning effects
• Customizable resolution and frame rate
• Real-time preview before export

Video export example: https://youtu.be/78l0hsS38Ow

Generate traditional music notation from selected MIDI tracks:

• Automatic note transcription to staff notation
• Support for multiple tracks
• Clean and readable output

• CMake 3.16 or higher
• Qt 5 or 6 (Widgets, Concurrent, Svg)
• OpenCV (for video export)
• FluidSynth (for SoundFont synthesis)
• RtMidi (for MIDI I/O)
• RtAudio (for audio I/O)
• C++20 compatible compiler

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/0xMartin/NoteNagaCPlusPlus.git
cd NoteNagaCPlusPlus

# Build with CMake
cmake -S . -B build
cmake --build build -j8

# Run the application
./build/NoteNaga.app/Contents/MacOS/NoteNaga  # macOS
./build/NoteNaga                               # Linux
./build/NoteNaga.exe                           # Windows

The application is powered by note_naga_engine, a custom real-time audio engine that is also part of this repository. The engine can be built independently without Qt dependencies.

The engine features a multi-threaded architecture:

• Playback Worker - Handles MIDI sequence playback and note scheduling
• Audio Worker - Manages real-time audio output and buffer management
• DSP Engine - Processes audio through configurable effect chains
• External MIDI Router - Routes notes to external MIDI devices
• Spectrum Analyzer - Provides real-time frequency analysis

cd note_naga_engine
cmake -S . -B build -DQT_DEACTIVATED=ON
cmake --build build -j8

Future improvements and known issues:

• Arrangement section polish - Improve timeline editing UX and add more clip manipulation features
• Bug: Audio clip playback delay - Fix timing issues with audio clip playback in arrangement section
• Menu bar / Toolbar improvements - Expand and reorganize menu structure for better workflow
• Plugin support - VST/AU plugin hosting for external instruments and effects
• Undo/Redo - Improve undo system coverage across all sections
• Test coverage - Add unit and integration tests for core engine and GUI components
• Complex Audio Tools - Add spectral editing, time-stretching, pitch-shifting capabilities

Note Naga is built using the following technologies and libraries:

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Martin Krčma (0xMartin)

• GitHub: @0xMartin