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Maolan Features

Last updated: 2026-07-09

Maolan is a modern open-source digital audio workstation designed for flexible music production, deep MIDI editing, powerful routing, and transparent development.

Core DAW Workflow

  • Multi-track audio + MIDI session editing
  • Track selection, reordering, resizing, and rename
  • Session template save/load
  • Track template save/load
  • Session save/open/save-as
  • Recent session tracking
  • Session metadata editing:
    • Author
    • Album
    • Year (unsigned)
    • Track number (unsigned)
    • Genre

Clip Editing

  • Audio clip and MIDI clip placement on timeline
  • Clip select/multi-select and marquee selection
  • Clip drag-and-drop move/copy across tracks
  • Clip group / ungroup on same-track, same-type selections
  • Nested clip groups preserved on save/load and restore on ungroup
  • Clip edge resize (left/right); MIDI clips can be extended past their content length (empty tail), audio clips are bounded by source length
  • Clip fade-in/fade-out resize
  • Clip mute/unmute
  • Clip rename
  • Clip middle-click split at cursor/snap point
  • Grouped clips cannot be split until ungrouped
  • MIDI clip double-click opens piano roll
  • Audio clip double-click opens per-clip plugin graph on Unix
  • Per-clip FX/plugin graph for audio clips:
    • Separate from the track plugin graph
    • Stored per clip in session data
    • Applies after grouped-child summing and clip fades in the current render path
    • Supports CLAP, VST3, and LV2 on supported Unix builds
  • Audio clip pitch-correction editor
  • Pitch-correction workflow:
    • Open from the audio clip context menu when transport is stopped
    • Analyze source material with per-session cached pitch scans for fast revisits
    • Reopen existing clip correction without re-analyzing when correction data is already saved on the clip
    • Tune detection granularity using frame-likeness (0.05–2.00) merge behavior
    • Manual pitch-segment retargeting with click, shift-click, marquee select, and grouped vertical drag editing
    • Double-click snap-to-nearest-note for one or many selected pitch segments
    • Local pitch-correction undo/redo history while editing
    • Adjustable inertia (0–1000 ms) for smoother pitch transitions between segments
    • Optional formant compensation in render path
    • Apply pitch correction from full clip or selected source offset/length window
    • Non-destructive clip workflow: edits stay local to the editor until Apply writes them back to the clip
    • Real-time pitch-shift playback after Apply
    • Offline pitch-corrected freeze preparation using timestretch preview renders
  • Audio warp markers with reset / half-speed / double-speed helpers

Folder Tracks

  • Folder tracks for hierarchical track organization
  • Collapsible/expandable folder view in the track list
  • Child tracks route through the folder track and are connectable to folder plugins
  • Folder track plugin graph for processing the summed child output
  • Child strips in the mixer and live view show highlighted top and bottom edges when their immediate parent folder is selected; the far-right child also gets a highlighted right edge
  • Track-to-folder plugin connections and disabled folder-output feeds
  • Folder track templates that save the full child subtree recursively

Timeline Markers and Arrangement Aids

  • Per-track editor markers
  • Marker create / rename / move / delete workflow
  • Snap-aware marker placement and marker dragging
  • Snap-to-clip start/end for clips, loop, punch, and markers
  • Ruler playhead seek
  • Loop range set/clear
  • Punch range set/clear

Take Lanes and Comping

  • Overlap-based take lane stacking
  • Set active take
  • Cycle to next active take
  • Unmute all takes in range
  • Take lane pin/unpin
  • Take lane lock/unlock
  • Take lane move up/down
  • Dedicated Comp tool with swipe comping

Automation

  • Track automation lanes:
    • Volume
    • Balance
    • Mute
  • Plugin automation lanes:
    • CLAP parameters
    • VST3 parameters
    • LV2 parameters (Unix)
  • Lane point insert/delete/edit
  • Automation ramp drawing
  • Automation lane editing with MIDI-style gestures (right-drag to draw ramps, click to insert points)
  • Automation modes:
    • Read
    • Touch
    • Latch
    • Write
  • Automation writeback from manual control changes
  • Plugin automation lane creation from loaded plugin parameters

Modulators

  • LFO-style modulators per session
  • Modulator shapes: Sine, Triangle, Saw, Square, Sample & Hold
  • Rate modes: Hz or musical divisions (beat, bar, etc.)
  • Per-modulator phase offset and enable toggle
  • Assign modulators to track parameters, plugin parameters, and MIDI controllers
  • Per-assignment min/max range scaling via the modulator target dialog
  • Modulators pane for creating, selecting, and editing modulators

Piano Roll / MIDI Tools

  • Note editing and selection
  • Velocity/controller editing
  • SysEx point create/edit/move/delete
  • Quantize
  • Humanize (time + velocity)
  • Groove (swing)
  • Scale snap
  • Chord generation
  • Legato
  • Velocity shaping
  • MIDI note snapping
  • Configurable scale root / major-minor mode
  • Configurable chord type
  • Configurable groove, humanize, and velocity-shape amounts

Timing and Transport

  • Tempo and time-signature timeline editing
  • Tempo/time-signature points add/move/delete/duplicate/reset
  • Numeric tempo/time-signature input with validation
  • Play/pause/stop/record transport control
  • GUI transport shortcuts for rewind-to-start/end, session record arm toggle, and panic
  • CLI transport shortcuts for rewind-to-start/end and panic
  • Toolbar panic button for hardware MIDI outputs (CC64=0, CC120=0, CC123=0)
  • Metronome enable/disable with visual icon
  • Clip playback enable/disable at transport level

Step Recording

  • Step recording mode in the piano roll
  • Toggle step recording from the MIDI editor toolbar (Step button)
  • Each incoming MIDI note is inserted at the step cursor and advances the cursor by the current MIDI snap interval
  • Step cursor drawn in the piano roll while the mode is active

Live Session View

  • Clip-launch grid modeled after Ableton Live
  • Switch between Workspace and Session view with Tab or the toolbar
  • Each row is a track; each column is a scene
  • Slots reference arrangement clips by stable clip ID
  • Launch/stop slots with click or Return
  • Launch scenes by clicking the Master column scene slots; the clicked scene is selected (while stopped, it starts on the next play; while playing, it launches when the current scene finishes)
  • Per-scene tempo changes on launch
  • Stop all clips with Shift+Space or the master stop column
  • Move, duplicate, and copy slot references between slots and the arrangement
  • Assign arrangement clips to session slots
  • Clear a slot’s clip with middle-click on the slot
  • Child strips show highlighted top and bottom edges when their immediate parent folder is selected; the far-right child also gets a highlighted right edge (same cue as the mixer)
  • Import the arrangement into the session grid
  • Record session clips into the arrangement (Rec to Arr)
  • Record directly into a slot
  • Scene options: rename, set color, set per-scene tempo, change launch quantization
  • Track strip with mute, solo, arm, volume, and pan controls

Freeze / Commit / Flatten

  • Per-track freeze/unfreeze
  • Freeze rendering with progress + cancel
  • Reversible frozen backups
  • Flatten frozen track (keep rendered audio, drop backups)
  • Freeze guardrails around mutable track operations

Routing and Mixing

  • Track controls:
    • Arm
    • Mute
    • Solo
    • Input monitor
    • Disk monitor
    • Phase invert
  • Aux return creation from selected tracks
  • Aux send controls:
    • Level adjust
    • Pan adjust
    • Pre/Post fader toggle
  • Track audio/MIDI passthrough defaults
  • Per-track plugin graph routing for:
    • Audio
    • MIDI
    • Sidechain / auxiliary plugin ports
  • Plugin window lifecycle and focus management

Plugins and Integration

  • CLAP plugin scan/load/unload/state restore/UI
  • VST3 plugin scan/load/unload/state restore/UI
  • LV2 plugin scan/load/unload/state restore/UI (Unix)
  • Plugin graph and per-track routing management
  • Mixed plugin graph session/template restore
  • Plugin parameter automation for loaded plugins
  • Offline plugin bounce path for freeze/export workflows
  • Plugin blocklist (~/.config/maolan/plugin-blocklist.json) to hide problematic plugins from scans

Export and Render

  • Mixdown and stem export (selected tracks)
  • Stem modes:
    • Pre-fader
    • Post-fader
  • Real-time fallback render mode
  • Export master limiter + dBTP ceiling
  • Normalization modes:
    • Peak
    • Loudness
  • Multi-format export in one run:
    • WAV (16/24/32-bit integer, 32-bit float)
    • FLAC (16/24/32-bit integer)
    • Ogg-FLAC (16/24/32-bit integer, .ogg)
    • MP3 (mono/stereo, CBR)
  • Dither options for integer PCM export:
    • None
    • Rectangular
    • Triangular (default)

Control Surface and OSC

  • mixosc integration for OSC-based mixing control
  • Behringer X32 dedicated view

AI Audio Generation

  • HeartMuLa text-to-audio generation through maolan-generate
  • ACE-Step 1.5 instrumental generation through maolan-generate
  • Prompt / lyrics driven generation with optional style tags
  • Burn backend options:
    • CPU
    • Vulkan
  • Model options:
    • happy-new-year
    • RL
    • acestep-turbo
    • acestep-sft
  • ACE-Step metadata controls:
    • BPM
    • Key / scale
    • Time signature
  • Burn generation controls:
    • CFG scale
    • Steps
    • Top-k
    • Temperature
    • ODE steps
    • Decoder seed
    • Output --length in milliseconds
  • Decode-only mode from a saved frames JSON
  • Decode-only CPU worker override with --decode-threads
  • Hugging Face cache-backed model resolution for the current Burn repos:
    • maolandaw/HeartMuLa-happy-new-year-burn
    • maolandaw/HeartMuLa-RL-oss-3B-20260123
    • maolandaw/HeartCodec-oss-20260123-burn
    • maolandaw/ACE-Step-1.5-burn
    • maolandaw/ACE-Step-1.5-sft-burn
  • Local model directory override with --model-dir
  • Detailed CLI and model-file reference: Maolan Generate

Example maolan-generate invocation:

cargo run -p maolan-generate --release -- \
  --model happy-new-year \
  --backend vulkan \
  --tags "ambient, cinematic, downtempo" \
  --length 12000 \
  --cfg-scale 1.5 \
  --topk 50 \
  --temperature 1.0 \
  --ode-steps 10 \
  --output output.wav \
  --lyrics "stars drift over the late train home"

Expected model assets:

  • HeartMuLa repo: heartmula.bpk, tokenizer.json, gen_config.json
  • HeartCodec repo: heartcodec.bpk

Media Management and File References

  • Collect/consolidate external media and plugin file references into the session’s data/ directory
  • Delete unused session media files from audio/, midi/, peaks/, and pitch/
  • Clips deleted from tracks are kept in a session-level unused pool (shown in the Clips pane) until File → Delete unused files removes them permanently
  • CLAP and LV2 resource-directory support: plugins can declare a resource directory and copy their external files into it on consolidate; Maolan rewrites saved plugin state to session-relative data/ paths so projects stay relocatable
  • Consolidation makes sessions safer to move or share

Session Safety and Recovery

  • Dirty-state tracking
  • Close guard for unsaved changes
  • Periodic autosave snapshots
  • Startup autosave recovery prompt
  • Recover latest or older autosave snapshot
  • Recovery preview summary
  • Fallback to older snapshots on recovery failure
  • Startup recovery hint from last opened session

Diagnostics and Tooling

  • MIDI mappings report
  • MIDI mappings import/export/clear-all
  • Preferences saved to ~/.config/maolan/config.toml
  • Recent sessions menu

MIDI Learn and Control Surface Features

  • Track MIDI learn targets:
    • Volume
    • Balance
    • Mute
    • Solo
    • Arm
    • Input monitor
    • Disk monitor
  • Global MIDI learn targets:
    • Play/Pause
    • Stop
    • Record toggle
  • Mapping persistence in session
  • Collision/conflict protection

Widgets and UI Components

  • arch_slider with adjustable arc shape
  • Slider on_release option for both horizontal and vertical variants
  • Stretchable ticks and meters that fill available space

Platform Notes

  • Linux and FreeBSD builds support CLAP, VST3, and LV2.
  • macOS builds use the CoreAudio backend and support CLAP and VST3.
  • Windows builds support WASAPI backend, CLAP, and VST3.
  • LV2 is Unix-only in the current codebase.
  • Linux and FreeBSD builds run on Wayland when available and fall back to X11 (Xorg) when Wayland is unavailable.
  • Plugin UI embedding on Unix still uses X11, so an X11 server must be reachable even under Wayland (for example via XWayland).
  • FreeBSD roadmap notes still mark MIDI 2.0 as N/A.

Known Boundaries

  • Plugin compatibility is still a real-world host-interop concern, especially across unusual plugins.
  • Many core behaviors are unit-tested, but editor-hosting and plugin-integration paths are still more integration-heavy than fixture-heavy.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Maolan free?

Yes. Maolan is completely free and open source with no licensing fees, subscriptions, or paywalls.

Which platforms are supported?

Maolan supports Linux, FreeBSD, macOS, and Windows.

  • Linux and FreeBSD builds run on Wayland when available and fall back to X11 (Xorg) when Wayland is unavailable. Plugin UI embedding still uses X11, so an X11 server must be reachable even under Wayland (for example via XWayland).
  • macOS uses CoreAudio for audio and CoreMIDI for MIDI.
  • Windows uses WASAPI for audio and the Win32 API for windowing.

Which plugin formats are supported?

Maolan supports CLAP, VST3, and LV2 on Linux and FreeBSD. macOS and Windows builds support CLAP and VST3. LV2 remains Unix-only. All supported formats use per-process plugin hosting for crash isolation.

How does autosave and recovery work?

Maolan writes autosave snapshots every 15 seconds into .maolan_autosave/snapshots/ beside the live session, for example:

<session>/.maolan_autosave/snapshots/<timestamp>/

When opening a session, Maolan can detect a newer snapshot, preview the differences, and recover the latest valid autosave first.

Does Maolan support templates?

Yes. Session templates preserve track structure, routing, plugin graphs, plugin state, metadata, and export settings. Track templates preserve one track’s settings, plugin graph, plugin state, and that track’s connections, while intentionally leaving out audio and MIDI clips.

How can I contribute?

There are many ways to contribute to Maolan:

  • Code: Submit pull requests for features, bug fixes, or improvements
  • Documentation: Help improve guides, tutorials, and API docs
  • Testing: Report bugs, test features, and provide feedback
  • Design: Contribute UI/UX improvements and design ideas
  • Community: Help other users, answer questions, and promote the project

Visit the GitHub repository to get started. All contributors are welcome!

Can I reuse it in my Rust project?

Maolan is a two-part project: engine and GUI. The engine is independent of the GUI and can be reused in your own Rust project.

cargo add maolan_engine