Launched 2022 · no longer on sale

Every sound you own, one search away

SoundBuddy was a Windows app that kept the samples, presets and MIDI of your digital audio workstation in one searchable place, and let you drag them straight back into your project. I built it with my friend Ids Portinga.

Read the story See the screens
FL Studio on a wide monitor with the SoundBuddy DAW Integration window on top. A MIDI chord is being dragged from it into the arrangement.
7DAWs tested, from FL Studio to Pro Tools
6libraries for effects, instruments, MIDI, chords, samples and tutorials
7,487tagged MIDI chords included
300+tutorials on mixing, mastering and more, already tagged

The story

Looking for a sound while the idea fades

Every music producer knows the moment. You're inspired, you know the sound you want, and then you lose your evening clicking through plugin browsers. I produce trance myself, and I kept running into exactly that. So I started building an application to manage the audio files for my own DAW.

Ids Portinga and I had been friends since our computer science days, and we had always talked about starting a company of our own. Once we saw that the whole production community could use a good answer to this problem, we had our reason. We founded Dutch Tigers Software, with the tagline it bytes a bit, and SoundBuddy became our first product.

We launched it in June 2022: a free trial, then a subscription or a perpetual license, on three devices per license. We kept improving it, lowered the price and extended the trial to 30 days.

Due to personal circumstances, we eventually stopped working on it.

  1. A personal toolAn app to manage the audio files for my own productions
  2. Dutch Tigers SoftwareTwo friends with twenty years of software experience each
  3. SoundBuddy launchesWindows, 32 and 64-bit, tested with seven DAWs
  4. Lower price, longer trialExisting customers compensated, trial extended to 30 days
  5. Version 2023.1The final version of SoundBuddy
  6. The end of the roadDevelopment and sales stop due to personal circumstances

What it did

So much more than a sample manager

Be efficient

Import presets, samples or MIDI once, then drag them back when you need them, without loading a plugin first. SoundBuddy kept watching your DAW folders, so new content showed up by itself.

Stay organized

Search by name, tag or rating across every plugin. Tags were suggested from the file names during import, and backup and restore kept all that work safe.

Get inspired

The randomizer turned up presets and samples you didn't even know you owned. And you could listen to your content right there in the app.

  • Effects
  • Instruments
  • MIDI
  • MIDI Chords
  • Samples
  • Tutorials
  • Favorites

Screens

What it looked like

The SoundBuddy MIDI Chords library: a search bar, tag filters for scale, chord, key and timing, a list of chord progressions with star ratings, and a player at the bottom.

The MIDI Chords library. Filter on tags and rating, listen right away, and drag what you like into your project.

Compatibility

It worked with the DAW you already had

Each DAW handles files differently, so each got its own integration. Choose one to see what SoundBuddy could do with it.

Under the hood

A native app and a complete shop

The desktop app

Written in Delphi as a native Windows application, with about 22,000 handwritten lines on top of generated data and business layers, our own UI framework and a local SQLite database. It had to feel instant while searching through thousands of items, and stay out of the way next to a running DAW.

  • Delphi VCL
  • SQLite
  • WebView2
  • Inno Setup
  • MSIX

The store around it

We also built everything needed to sell it ourselves: accounts, licenses for up to three devices, subscriptions with automatic renewal, VAT per country and payments, deployed with Docker and covered by automated tests in CI.

  • React
  • MUI
  • NestJS
  • PostgreSQL
  • Mollie
  • Docker
  • Traefik
  • GitLab CI

The chord library builds on Free MIDI Chords, a collection released under the MIT license.

Made with SoundBuddy

The Tiger Tune

Our promo video showed the DAW Integration window in action by composing a track for the company in FL Studio. This is the result.

The Tiger Tune0:00