Record audio continuously. Save it when you need it.
Polarity-Recorder keeps the most recent 1 to 20 minutes of audio and incoming plug-in MIDI. Select and export WAV, MIDI, or both, edit your audio, or automatically sample single notes. The standalone app also captures desktop audio.
Current version: v0.2.3. Page updated: 2026-10-09.
What’s new:
Record incoming plug-in MIDI alongside audio. Save the same source selection as WAV, a Standard MIDI File, or both. MIDI export retains tempo changes and completes held notes at selection boundaries. Route MIDI to Recorder in your host; on Windows and macOS, DRAG MIDI sends it to a compatible target.
Place Recorder after your instrument and route MIDI to it. Choose AUTO SAMPLER, enter a base name, and press ARM. After note-off and gated silence, it trims, fades, and saves a WAV with pitch, velocity, and round-robin numbering. Adjust the gate, pre/post roll, fades, and maximum take length. Overlapping notes are discarded. Available in the plug-in.
Choose the ring-buffer bit depth in Settings. Lower depths reduce RAM and add sampler-style quantization to captured history. The 32-bit float default preserves full detail. Live audio passthrough stays unchanged; raising the depth cannot restore detail already removed from history.
Open the header gear, browse to an existing writable folder, and press APPLY. The preference is shared by Recorder instances and the standalone app for the current user. Existing files stay in their previous folder. Settings can also retain clip naming metadata when loading another source selection.
Polarity-Recorder writes incoming audio to a ring buffer. Select a history length from 1 to 20 minutes. Use record hold to stop changes to the buffer.
Record the complete system output directly in the standalone app, or switch to a microphone or audio interface. Desktop capture mutes the recorder’s own output to prevent feedback.
Hover over the source pane to hold its displayed viewport while recording continues. Leave the pane to return smoothly to the live history.
Enable COLOR to tint bass red, mid frequencies teal, and high frequencies pale blue. It is off by default so timeline markers stay prominent.
The history shows sample-aligned play-start, bar-start, and beat markers. Selection edges prefer bar and beat boundaries, and near-exact bar ranges are corrected to prevent loop drift. Hold Ctrl to move freely.
The preview and editor show bars, quarter notes, eighth notes, and sixteenth notes as zoom allows. Follow the host or set BPM and meter manually. Switch to TIME for a seconds-based grid.
Select audio in the current history. The lower waveform shows a preview. Copy the selection to an owned editor clip before you use destructive edit commands.
On Windows and macOS, drag a history or editor selection to a compatible DAW, plug-in, or file manager. On all platforms, use SAVE to export the current selection.
Set clip metadata in the editor. SAVE and DRAG WAV use it to create readable filenames with the project, sample type, form, BPM, key, scale, and take.
Search across titles and structured metadata. Preview or drag a clip directly, then use its menu to load, rename, or delete the WAV file.
Copy, cut, paste, silence, delete, crop, reverse, trim, rotate, or wrap a range. Add fades, adjust gain, normalize to peak or integrated LUFS, and optionally hard-clip the result.
Every destructive audio edit is undoable with the controls or standard keyboard shortcuts. Exported files and clipboard-only actions stay outside the edit history.
Place the start marker with a click, then play the lower clip with optional looping. SYNC starts from the same marker when the host begins playback.
Drop a mono or stereo WAV file on the editor. The editor loads the audio into memory and keeps the source path. SAVE FILE replaces the source only after confirmation.
When audition is off, the plug-in sends the input to the output without changes. It supports mono and stereo buses.
The audio thread does not allocate memory, use locks, write logs, or access files. Other tasks run on a background task lane.
Download v0.2.3 for your operating system. Each package contains the available plug-in formats and a standalone application. SHA-256 checksums
install.sh to install for one user or for all users. See the Linux install guide.Add Polarity-Recorder to the audio chain. It keeps the newest audio for the selected history length. Route MIDI to the plug-in to capture notes alongside audio.
Hold or zoom the history view. Use frequency colors, host markers, and musical duration feedback to select the audio.
Copy the selection to the editor. Use the musical grid and edit commands, set the clip metadata, and listen to the result.
Save the source selection as WAV, MIDI, or both. Save edited audio or drag it to a compatible target. Use the clip browser to reopen a clearly named WAV export.
1, 2, 5, 10, or 20 minutes
Windows x86_64, macOS Universal, Linux x86_64
CLAP, VST3, LV2, AUv2 on macOS, standalone
Mono and stereo, transparent passthrough, WAV export
8-, 12-, 16-, or 24-bit PCM; 32-bit float by default
Host-routed MIDI history, Standard MIDI File export, single-note Auto Sampler in the plug-in. The standalone app records audio.
The editor clip and its naming metadata remain available after you close and open the UI. The DAW project does not contain the recorded audio.
Free download. Source code is not publicly available.