Instruments for the rack and the DAW.
SHLabs is a small independent studio making music software across formats. The catalog started with modules for VCV Rack, and is now growing a second branch of DAW-ready plugins — VST3 / AU and standalone apps that run in Ableton Live, Logic, Bitwig and beyond. Whatever the format, the instruments put real processes on the panel — modulation and LFOs, sequencers, generative sources, gate logic and stochastic motion — drawn from the older tradition of analog computing, where a calculation was something physical and visible rather than hidden behind function calls.
On the rack side the catalog is organized into families, each with its own character: Stochast, Mashina, Lucida, Rikoshet and Atmos. Some are free; others are paid releases that fund continued development. On the DAW side, a growing line of synths, effects, mastering tools, MIDI brains and visuals shares one design language — the same metallic control surfaces, the same instruments-first feel.
SHLabs is a one-person studio. I grew up near Zurich, Switzerland, and work as a data scientist — but synthesizers have been a love of mine for as long as I can remember, and that fascination eventually led, as it tends to, to modular.
The tools on this site started years ago as things I built for my own needs and my own pleasure: modules and plugins I used in my own jams, live shows and music production. Along the way they kept circling a simple question — what if the maths that usually disappears inside code were laid out as something you could turn, patch, and hear? A sequencer here, a generative source there, and the tools kept growing into families.
Now I've decided to release them. Expanded, polished and made dependable, they're ready to be shared with the world — first with the VCV Rack community, and with the plugin line arriving, with anyone working in a DAW. The same ideas carry across: whether it's a module you patch or a plugin you insert, it should be real under the hood and a pleasure to play. New families, plugins and updates are released as they're ready.
Questions about a release, early access to something still in testing, bug reports, or whether a particular piece of gear will play nicely with the tools here — the studio inbox is open.
shlabs.contact@gmail.com