Installing

Installers for macOS and Windows, and a zip for Linux. Every release carries a zip alongside the installer holding the same builds loose, for anyone without administrator rights or with plugin folders of their own.

Download

Five files, because one size does not fit everyone. Take the installer for your platform unless a row below describes you.

File	Holds	Take this one if
macOS installer	VST3, Audio Unit, Standalone	You are on a Mac. It asks which of the three you want and installs only those
macOS zip	VST3, Audio Unit, Standalone	You have no administrator rights, or you keep plugins somewhere of your own
Windows installer	VST3, Standalone	You are on Windows. It needs administrator rights, and SmartScreen will say the publisher is unknown
Windows zip	VST3, Standalone	Same three reasons, or you would rather not run an unsigned installer
Linux zip	VST3, LV2, Standalone	You are on Linux. There is no installer, since no two distributions agree on where a plugin goes

Every file above is from the current release. Older ones, the release notes and the source are on the releases page.

What each platform gets

Platform	Installer	Formats
macOS	`.pkg`, with a chooser	VST3, Audio Unit, Standalone
Windows	`.exe`	VST3, Standalone
Linux	none, use the zip	VST3, LV2, Standalone

macOS

The package asks which of the three formats you want and installs only those. It is a universal binary, so one download covers Apple Silicon and Intel, and it is signed and notarised, so it opens without a warning. The minimum is macOS 10.13 on Intel and 11.0 on Apple Silicon, which is the floor the toolchain sets for that architecture.

Windows

The installer is not signed, so SmartScreen says the publisher is unknown. Choose "More info" and then "Run anyway". If you would rather not, build from source instead, which takes one command. The VST3 goes to the shared plugin folder, so the installer asks for administrator rights.

Linux

No installer, since there is no install location a distribution would agree on. The zip holds VST3, LV2 and standalone, and the two plugin folders go in ~/.vst3 and ~/.lv2.

When a host does not see it

Symptom	What to try
Logic or GarageBand shows no Overtonium	They only look for new Audio Units when they start. Quit and reopen, rather than rescanning
A host lists it but will not load it	Check you have the right format. Logic uses the Audio Unit, most others use the VST3, and installing only one of the two is easy to do by accident in the chooser
Nothing appears after installing on macOS	Confirm where the files went with `pkgutil --files com.dehlimusikk.overtonium.vst3`. The plugins belong in `/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins` and the app in `/Applications`
The plugin loads but is silent	Check the master fader and whether a channel is soloed. Solo is per channel and mute wins over solo, so a strip can be muted inside a solo
Held notes sound but nothing new does	Overtonium is a synthesiser and needs MIDI. Check the track's input rather than the plugin

Anything else is worth reporting on the issue tracker, particularly on Windows and Linux, for the reason below.

Telling you about new versions

Off unless you ask for it. The first time you open the window, the credit line under the wordmark offers to turn the check on, once. Nothing reaches the network unless you take that offer, ignoring it costs nothing, and it is not asked again. The setting lives under Settings from then on.

With it on, the plugin fetches one small file from this site in the background and compares the version in it against the build you are running. If there is something newer, the credit line says so, and clicking it opens the release page. It is a plain request for a static file: no identifier, no telemetry, nothing about your machine. The security policy spells out exactly what is sent.

There is no dialog, on purpose. A plugin cannot tell someone opening it from a host scanning its plugin folder at startup, and a modal in the second case stops the scan.

What has actually been tried

All three platforms are built and run through the test suite on every push, and the VST3 is put through pluginval at strictness 8 on each of them. macOS is the only platform where the plugin has been loaded into a real host, where the Audio Unit and the VST3 also pass auval. Nobody has run the Windows or Linux builds in a DAW yet, so treat those as untried.

Building from source

You need CMake 3.22 or newer and a C++17 compiler. JUCE is downloaded at configure time, so there is nothing else to install on macOS or Windows.

git clone https://github.com/benjamindehli/overtonium.git
cd overtonium
cmake -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build

The plugins are copied into your user plugin folders as part of the build. Pass -DOVERTONIUM_INSTALL_AFTER_BUILD=OFF to skip that. Linux needs a handful of development packages first, which the readme lists.

Overtonium is free software under the AGPLv3, which follows from JUCE. The whole source, including the tests and the packaging, is in the repository.