SoundboxA LIVING SOUND ENVIRONMENTTHE FEATURE TOUR · SOUNDBOX 1.0
Build an instrument out of pure motion. Give it a rhythm, shape every voice, and wrap it all in your very own glass desktop. Here’s everything inside.
Everything on this page is in the full studio of Soundbox 1.0. The free demo plays a smaller set; it arrives on January 12, 2027 (system requirements), and the keys and prices are on the Buy page. See what’s new.
01 / PHYSICS YOU CAN PLAY
Drag, resize and rotate glossy glass instruments. Aim up to eight independent emitters, shape the gravity and wind, and let every impact find its own place in the mix. The physics plays true, with real bounces, rolling, spin and gusty air, and in 2.3 the colliders themselves can move.
The 27 classics: rectangles, circles, triangles, ramps, diamonds, pentagons, hexagons, octagons, bridges, Pearl shells and Glass sails reflect; portals connect spaces; bumpers and accelerators launch particles; gravity wells and vortices curve their paths; bombs split particles and absorbers catch them. Add collider lists all 62 by family, with search, an icon and a description for each.
18 glossy nature-tech types: Gel trampolines that spring particles off faster than they land, Dew magnets, pulsing Water jets, Soap films that let slow particles through, tipping Lily pads, Chrome prisms, Bubble rings, Glass turnstiles, Aero lenses, swaying Kelp beds, Sunbeams that tune particles upward, Tide gates, Nacre tumblers, beat-pulsing Aero orbs, Fountains, Rain clouds, Koi ponds and Ripple pools.
17 types from consoles and desktops: Pixel staircases, CRT bumpers, Arcade flippers, breakable 8-bit blocks, Cassette reels and Scanline sweepers; Floppy slots that write particles back out on the beat, Progress bars, Window frames, Recycle bins, Hourglass funnels, Cursor trail gates, Tray balloons and a Defragmenter; and Modem gates, Dial pads and a Dial-up spiral.
Any collider can slide, orbit, spin, bob, swing like a pendulum or patrol between two points, at its own speed or a number of beats of the song per cycle. Particles ride moving colliders and get flung off them, and the selected collider shows its path on the stage. Motion is saved with the project and replays the same way every time.
Moving, rotating or resizing a collider while the scene runs pushes particles aside at the pointer’s speed instead of popping them through. A readout shows position, angle or size, Snap shows its guides, and a placement preview shows where a new collider lands.
Brake fields, Color gates, Pitch gates, Turn gates, Bubble lifts and Fan gates change the flow. Rainbow gates cycle color channels, Tide pools apply an oscillating force, and Echo gates reverse incoming velocity. Each type has its own glass animation; the boundary has a moving pearl border.
Colliders keep their own Bounce and Friction, and rebounds match their setting at every height. Nothing slips through a thin edge, even at 3,000 pixels a second. Particles roll, spin and curve through the air, wind blows in gusts, and drag grows with speed, the way real things move.
Snap colliders to a grid, pull particles around with the Magnet, Lock a collider in place, save a Snapshot or slow the whole world down with Time scale. Arrow keys nudge, Ctrl+D duplicates, Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V copy colliders between scenes, and ? lists every shortcut.
Adjust emission, spread, velocity, lifetime, size, bounce, damping and particle interactions. Shape emitter motion with modulation. Route sound by color channel, size and impact speed, with probabilities and voice limits for each instrument. Raise the particle limit as high as 20,000: when thousands of particles hit at once, swarm voices keep every collider sounding.
27 backgrounds, 22 of them animated: the 13 theme scenes (Sky glass, Classic desktop, Rolling hills, Aqua swirl, Spectrum display, Aurora glass, Media flow, Bubble horizon, Jelly float, Chrome grid, Coral reef, Leaf garden and Pixel land), plus Aqua waves, Aurora ribbons, Orbital rings, Bubble aquarium, Prism caustics, Sunlit lagoon, Trance sunrise, Glass meadow and Desktop daydream. Five still ones: Vista horizon, Crystal facets, Optical discs, Cloud atlas and Clean glass. The 13 theme scenes have night versions for dark mode; the rest darken with the palette. Set drift and intensity independently of physics, or let the background pulse with the song.
02 / LIGHT, WATER AND MAGIC
The FX tab holds 18 living effects, grouped by theme, and up to eight lights. They react to particles, hits, wind and the beat, and most of them can join the physics or simply look gorgeous.
New in 2.3, each with its own look and a physical side: Aero jet streams carry particles along curved currents, Lens bokeh orbs drift toward the lights and nudge particles away, Pixel snow builds slippery drifts, a CRT scan field shoves particles as it rolls by, the Warp grid dents and trampolines, Desktop icons turn into magnets and bumpers, a Tide surge lifts and carries, and Cursor trails click and knock particles.
A glossy Liquid pool with splashes and caustics, Hit ripples, a Bubble swarm that grows as it rises and pops with a sparkle, Aero critters (koi, butterflies or leaping dolphins), Plasma links that surge on the beat, Gel blobs, a swaying Meadow that blooms where particles land, glowing Mist, Glass shine and Mystify-style Screensaver ribbons.
Switch on Effects move particles and they join the physics: particles float in the pool and ride its waves, rings push them outward, bubbles bounce them, critters sweep them aside, gel holds them together and mist carries them along, scaled by Effect strength. Switched off, particles move and sound exactly as before.
Place glow orbs, stage spots, sunbeams and disco prisms with their own color, reach, aim and beam. They breathe, orbit, sweep, flicker, wander or follow the particles, cast soft shadows from colliders, rim-light their edges, make particles sparkle and add lens flares. They can flare on hits, pulse with the beat or take the color of the last particle.
With hardware-accelerated WebGL2, Soundbox draws the playground on the graphics card. GPU visuals turn colliders into refracting glass and add soft-shadow lighting, bloom, color grades for each theme, GPU water, gel and mist, and shader backgrounds; Automatic switches them on at Full and Ultra quality. Off draws the classic picture, and Compatibility keeps the Canvas 2D stage.
Preferences → Display → Depth tilts the stage toward a horizon: backdrops move in parallax layers, colliders get lit side faces, floor reflections and contact shadows, far particles shrink and soften in the haze, scene lights sit in front of, on or behind the plane, and the GPU stage keeps the selected collider sharp with a depth of field. Alt-drag nudges the camera. Off is exactly the flat picture, and the physics never changes.
The header switches between Play, Compose and Design (Ctrl+1, 2, 3). Compose is the Song studio with the playground still running in a live strip below the step grid; Design is Customize with the themes, colors, backdrops, particles and colliders in the side panels while the stage stays in view. The panels fold to slim rails, every list is searchable, and every dialog shares one frame that reads clearly on all fourteen themes, day and night.
Preferences → Display → Scene effects draws everything, skips the heavy effects, or turns them off, and lighting has its own quality steps. On older computers, Lite and adaptive quality draw effects in a simpler form without ever changing how particles move.
03 / EVERY VOICE HAS A PLACE
The library combines 24 recorded characters and 354 procedural synth sounds. New in 2.3, three banks of original synthesized sounds: Aero (86: water drips and pours, glass taps, bubbles, gel, chrome, birds, soft keys and bells, interface blips and a drum kit), Early retro (93: pulse and triangle leads and basses, 4-op FM, noise drums, coin, jump and zap blips, modems, floppies, tape and PC speaker) and Y2K and retro desktop (89: startup and shutdown swells, dings, pops, window whooshes, mail, dial-up, organizers, polyphonic ringtones and trance stabs). No samples, and no real product’s sounds reproduced. The 30-sound Aero 2000s collection adds trance plucks, Euro pads, sunset keys, glow vibes, bouncing basses, a complete drum kit, nature textures and glossy interface sounds. The 20-sound Aero / Y2K collection adds login chimes, pearl keys, glass percussion, watery arpeggios, soft choirs, deep bass and iridescent sweeps. Recorded sounds include impacts, percussion, footsteps and designed effects, with bundled source credits.
Each layer names its sound with its bank and category, with a ☆ to keep favorites. Browse opens the whole library as collapsible groups, with ★ Favorites and Recently used on top and instant search over names, descriptions and categories. Listen with ▶, Shift+Enter or Alt+hover before you pick, and steer it all from the keyboard. Song studio picks its instruments from the same list.
Use multiple sound layers per collider. Choose collision, continuous, combined or sequencer-only playback. Pick each layer’s note by name and octave and see the note you will hear, or let collisions choose from your own set of notes, at random or as an arpeggio. Shape attack, decay, filters, probability and evolving variations. Preview a voice, mute or solo it, or route MIDI to a connected instrument.
Balance channel level and stereo pan, mute and solo, and independent reverb and delay sends. Shape the master with bass and treble, reverb, delay time and feedback. Effects use sliders, and voice protection keeps dense collision bursts under control.
Choose a reverb space: Glass hall, Studio room, Bright plate, Cathedral or the Classic 2.1 room. Soft hits play quieter and darker, like real struck objects, and a look-ahead limiter keeps the master clean at −1 dBFS. In 2.3 the master goes up to 200%: up to 100% nothing changes, above it the level rises evenly to +15 dB, and the limiter keeps it free of clipping and crackle. Procedural sounds render at up to 48 kHz for crisp, full-bandwidth highs.
Import audio into sample pools, choose random, no-repeat, shuffle-bag or round-robin takes, or explore granular playback. Custom samples start with variation off; recorded sounds can keep their original pitch. Save individual layer settings in My sounds.
04 / A BOUNCE BECOMES A BEAT
Every playable factory scene opens with an arranged song: its own tempo, sound palette, accents and variations. Press Play beat beside the preset selector, or open Song studio and press Play song. The particle and song transports stay independent, so you can layer them whenever you like, or link them together.
Add instrument tracks from the whole library, independent of colliders, or borrow a collider’s sound. Sequence 16 steps in 4/4 at 30–240 BPM with velocity on every step; switch to Pitch to give each step its own note in the song’s key. Play chords, apply or generate rhythms and melodies, and shift, duplicate or copy tracks across sections.
Order sections with bar lengths and transposition and delete them right from their cards. Stack up to eight arrangements that play together, each with mute and repeat. The Instruments page sets each sound’s note, level, pan and length for every track that plays it.
Switch on Link and the playground plays along with the song: every note sends a particle on a clean arc that touches its collider as the note sounds, within about two thousandths of a second. Colliders light up with their instruments, and the song stays the only sound, so nothing plays off the beat.
Solo any track, spread hits evenly with Euclid, loosen timing and velocity with Humanize, tap in a tempo, and practice with a metronome and one-bar count-in. Loop the section you are editing, undo and redo every step, then Export MIDI with one track per instrument, chords and melodies included.
Capture the last 2, 4 or 8 seconds of master output, or enable live input. Import a recording, divide it into 4, 8 or 16 equal slices, audition pads, and turn slices into studio instruments and tracks. Record the complete master mix to WAV.
05 / YOUR OWN GLASS DESKTOP
From Aero Gel to Pocket LCD, dress the whole instrument around you, by day or by night. Try the themes right here: the website version changes this site and stays in your browser.
Turn-of-the-millennium desktops with a glossy Aero twist: Aero Gel, Glass Console, Classic Glass, Meadow Blue, Pinstripe Gel, Brushed Steel, Aurora Glass, Media Lounge, Platinum Bubble, Candy Plastic, Liquid Chrome, Deep Aquarium, Eco Garden and Pocket LCD. Each restyles the title bar, panels, buttons, knobs, dialogs and scrollbars, and brings its own background, particle symbol and collider finish.
Off, On or Match my computer, or the ☾ Dark button in the status bar. Every theme and palette, even your own edited colors, drops to calm, low-glare tones with bright accents and readable text, and the playground shows its night side: moons, stars, fireflies, a starfield or a backlit LCD.
19 particle styles, from pearls, soap bubbles and crystal shards to water droplets, desktop icons, petals, jelly beans, tropical fish and LCD pixel art. Pick a trail, color by channel, speed or rainbow, let particles shrink, grow or pulse, and add a flash on every hit and impact sparks. Droplets and fish face their flight, and soft particles squash when they land.
Start from one of 11 signature palettes, which recolor the current theme and keep its playground, or let Surprise me mix a fresh, harmonious look. Then color the window, dialogs, playground, header, Sound and Physics panels, buttons, primary actions, knobs, meters, reflections and two text surfaces, with color pickers or precise hex values. Automatic ink adapts to the surface, with manual text and higher contrast options.
Choose Crystal glass, Frosted pearl or Liquid chrome, and one of 14 collider finishes, from glossy gel and brushed steel to candy plastic and LCD pixels. Adjust glass, reflection, blur and rounding; pair any background with dots, lines or pixel crosses, and watch it live in the preview. Slow console reflections, a floating logo and button ripples have separate switches. Reduced motion follows both the app and your system.
Switch between rotary knobs and sliders. Type exact values, use up to six decimal places on continuous controls, and make fine or ultra-fine adjustments with Shift or Alt. Controls respect supported ranges; discrete values stay whole numbers.
My looks stores up to 12 named appearances on this computer. Keep customization locked while loading other scenes or projects. Colors, backgrounds, motion and surface settings travel with projects and support Undo/Redo. Graphics settings independently control quality, frame rate and render resolution.
06 / 60 WAYS TO BEGIN
Each scene keeps its characteristic physics layout and adds an editable musical starting point. From slow orbital patterns to bright garage and glass percussion, every arrangement has its own rhythm. The four showcase scenes arrived in 2.1 and bring two scene effects and their own lights each. The 22 scenes at the end are new in the 2.3 preview, in Aero, early retro and retro desktop collections, with the new sounds, colliders, collider motion and effects. The preset menu groups them all and finds one as you type. Blank remains an empty canvas.
A bright desktop pop arrangement.
110 BPM · Glacier paletteA cascading glass three-against-four groove.
108 BPM · Glacier paletteA slow satellite waltz over a four-beat pulse.
76 BPM · Lilac paletteA crisp liquid breakbeat with offbeat droplets.
134 BPM · Glacier paletteA playful green jelly-funk conversation.
93 BPM · Citrus paletteA fractured chrome electro beat.
142 BPM · Rose paletteA crystalline half-time bell pattern.
84 BPM · Glacier paletteA sparse orbital pulse with long luminous tails.
62 BPM · Lilac paletteA call-and-response portal shuffle.
122 BPM · Lilac paletteA sparkling login-pop motif.
116 BPM · Glacier paletteA slow tidal dub with floating arpeggios.
72 BPM · Glacier paletteA glossy four-on-the-floor promenade.
126 BPM · Citrus paletteA midnight notification-garage rhythm.
132 BPM · Rose paletteA sunlit chord-hop with a chiming reply.
90 BPM · Glacier paletteA buoyant ascending flute-and-tine bounce.
102 BPM · Citrus paletteA punchy rubber-pop pinball break.
138 BPM · Rose paletteA brushed coastal groove with a skipping tine melody.
112 BPM · Citrus paletteAn electric-piano lagoon with syncopated answers.
96 BPM · Glacier paletteA submerged bass heartbeat and airy organ.
64 BPM · Glacier paletteA bright glass shower in interlocking phrases.
128 BPM · Lilac paletteA neon pulse break with a glass-clap backbeat.
136 BPM · Rose paletteA gated mallet ostinato with color-changing responses.
118 BPM · Citrus paletteA suspended bell lullaby above a quiet engine bed.
58 BPM · Lilac paletteA tactile desktop shuffle with wood and chrome.
106 BPM · Rose paletteA low cyber-garden dub with shield accents.
82 BPM · Citrus paletteA spacious bloom beat with scattered crystal replies.
98 BPM · Rose paletteA bouncing mallet break with metallic answers.
124 BPM · Lilac paletteA woven five-note glass pattern over gentle pulses.
88 BPM · Glacier paletteA precision tine-machine with a ticking turnaround.
120 BPM · Citrus paletteA blooming pentatonic canopy with offbeat shimmer.
104 BPM · Citrus paletteA rotating choir with a slow breathing pulse.
68 BPM · Lilac paletteA fast launch-gate electro rhythm.
144 BPM · Rose paletteA tight late-night glass-and-wood breakbeat.
130 BPM · Lilac paletteA bubbling botanical groove with playful syncopation.
100 BPM · Citrus paletteA lounge groove of congas and soft keys, with dolphins and koi splashing through a sunny lagoon.
SHOWCASE · 92 BPM · Ocean palette · Liquid pool & dolphinsA 2000s trance anthem: supersaw stabs, a bouncing bass and a glossy lead over a four-on-the-floor kick.
SHOWCASE · 136 BPM · Lilac palette · Plasma links & glass shineHand drums, glass harmonica and a vibraphone arpeggio in a garden of birdsong and ripples.
SHOWCASE · 84 BPM · Forest palette · Meadow & butterfliesA bright desktop-pop beat with droplet piano, liquid plucks and a startup chime that says hello.
SHOWCASE · 120 BPM · Aero palette · Bubble swarm & ribbonsA splashy plaza groove of bubble kicks, droplet hats and a steel-pan answer.
NEW · FRUTIGER AERO · 94 BPM · Aero palette · Aero jet streamsA springy gel-funk bounce with a wobbling bass.
NEW · FRUTIGER AERO · 127 BPM · Rose palette · Lens bokehA slow underwater sway of tabla, kelp bass and a misty flute.
NEW · FRUTIGER AERO · 74 BPM · Ocean palette · Lens bokehA bright greenhouse of harp runs, bells and rain on glass.
NEW · FRUTIGER AERO · 86 BPM · Citrus palette · Aero jet streamsA rolling harbor shuffle with tide kicks and a chrome bass.
NEW · FRUTIGER AERO · 111 BPM · Aero palette · Tide surgeA glossy interface pop beat: hover blips, toggles and a dock that bounces.
NEW · FRUTIGER AERO · 121 BPM · Glacier palette · Lens bokehA lazy meadow lilt of nylon strings, handpan and garden calls.
NEW · FRUTIGER AERO · 80 BPM · Forest palette · Aero jet streamsA running chiptune platformer beat with coin blocks and a triangle bass.
NEW · EARLY RETRO · 150 BPM · Ocean paletteA neon arcade break of lasers, flippers and a score tally.
NEW · EARLY RETRO · 139 BPM · Cyber lime palette · CRT scan fieldA warm tape-delay dub with FM steel and a sliding bass.
NEW · EARLY RETRO · 78 BPM · Ember paletteA gentle chip waltz of FM bells, triangle flute and timpani.
NEW · EARLY RETRO · 91 BPM · Glacier palette · Pixel snowA breakneck filter-sweep run with double-time flipper kicks.
NEW · EARLY RETRO · 162 BPM · Violet palette · Warp gridA late-night broadcast of static, speech chips and a pulse bass.
NEW · EARLY RETRO · 70 BPM · Graphite palette · CRT scan fieldA clicky desktop shuffle of windows, menus and a recycle crunch.
NEW · Y2K & RETRO DESKTOP · 117 BPM · Aero palette · Desktop iconsA chirping modem rhythm of keypad tones and handshakes.
NEW · Y2K & RETRO DESKTOP · 125 BPM · Rose palette · Cursor trailsA pumping millennium trance anthem with offbeat bass and gated pads.
NEW · Y2K & RETRO DESKTOP · 140 BPM · Lilac palette · Warp gridA tidy pocket-gadget groove of stylus taps, beams and a waltz ringtone.
NEW · Y2K & RETRO DESKTOP · 101 BPM · Forest palette · Cursor trailsA disk-drive disco of seek chatter, stepper arps and crunchy kicks.
NEW · Y2K & RETRO DESKTOP · 123 BPM · Violet palette · Desktop iconsA start-up procession of self-test beeps, wizard steps and a login chord.
NEW · Y2K & RETRO DESKTOP · 107 BPM · Aero palette · CRT scan fieldA weightless screensaver drift of starfield pings and tooltip glints.
NEW · Y2K & RETRO DESKTOP · 68 BPM · Ocean palette · Lens bokeh & cursor trailsA frantic notification rush of mail drops, pops and toasts.
NEW · Y2K & RETRO DESKTOP · 133 BPM · Glacier palette · Desktop iconsA shiny mall-atrium bop of pagers, keypads and a glass cowbell.
NEW · Y2K & RETRO DESKTOP · 114 BPM · Rose palette · Lens bokeh07 / KEEP THE HAPPY ACCIDENTS
Save complete projects with samples and arrangements; Ctrl+S writes back to the file you opened. Drop a project or audio files on the window, and if Soundbox ever closes unexpectedly, it offers your unsaved work back. Keep full scenes in My presets, reusable layers and ★ favorite sounds in My sounds, and export preset backups to move your work between computers. Both libraries search and sort, and Undo removal brings back an entry you deleted. Use Undo/Redo and confirmed resets while experimenting.
.soundbox project files wear their own glossy Aero Gel document icon and open in Soundbox with a double-click, Open with or a drop onto the program; with unsaved changes, Soundbox asks first. The full edition registers this for your own Windows account when it starts, and the new ⚙ Settings dialog (Ctrl+,) turns it off again.
Graphics offers Lite, Economy, Full and Ultra, plus adaptive quality that eases effects when frames drop and Test this computer to pick a level. Choose 24–240 fps or display refresh, 50–200% rendering resolution, and separate settings for lighting, particle detail, trails, sparks, background animation, interface glass and scene effects. Stage renderer picks the GPU stage or the Canvas 2D stage, and GPU visuals choose Automatic, Off or Enhanced. Graphics never changes how particles move or sound. Reduced motion freezes decorative effects while musical physics stays playable.
The unlicensed Windows demo has ten sounds, five basic shapes, one emitter, up to six placed colliders, 80 particles, its own studio light, three particle styles, Hit ripples and a Bubble swarm; the other styles and effects play a short preview. It includes guided tours and graphics settings with unlimited play time. Saving, sampling, recording and Song studio require a full-studio license.
Soundbox runs as a 64-bit Windows application, not a VST, AU or AAX plugin. The portable build can check for, download and verify its own updates. A full-studio license works on one computer at a time; activation and its checks need the internet, and the studio keeps opening offline for 3 days after a successful check. See licensing for complete terms.
Licensing details · Version notes · Contact SoundBoxQD
Every image on this page shows a 2.3 preview build; the homepage tour film shows 2.2 footage.