Multi-keyboard rigs
Compose a rig of keyboards, pads, footswitches, expression pedals. Layer instruments across keyboards with zones, splits, and transposition. Each device has its own MIDI in / out config.
Stardust Pit
A virtual instrument host built for the pit — patches that load before the downbeat, plugins that can't take down the show, vocabulary that matches how theatre actually works.
What it does
Patch advancement
Every show is Shows → Songs → Patches. Advance via footswitch, MIDI, or keyboard. Patches preload so the change happens at the downbeat, not after it.
Plugin hosting
VST3 and CLAP plugin support, with AU on macOS. Sandboxed per plugin — a crash takes the plugin’s audio to silence, not the whole show.
Cascading settings
Set up your rig once. Override only where a Show, Song, or Patch needs something different. The cascade shows where each value came from and lets you reset back.
Why this exists
Every working theatre keyboardist has a story about MainStage crashing mid-show. The dominant tool for the job is closed-source, macOS-only, and has well-known reliability gaps. Whose career depends on it loading the patch on time? The musician’s.
Stardust Pit is the open-source response — built on Rust + Tauri for cross-platform support, with out-of-process plugin sandboxing so a misbehaving VST can’t take down the host. Musical theatre vocabulary (Shows, Songs, Patches, Sounds) is first-class, not bolted on. Reliability isn’t a feature; it’s the point.
Status
In active development — v0.1 Foundations. Not yet usable as a daily driver. Audio engine and plugin hosting land in v0.2; the full app proper in v0.4; the public 1.0 is the target.
See the Pit roadmap for version-by-version detail.
Where to dig in
Shows, Songs, and Patches The core mental model
Cascading settings One rig, many shows, careful overrides
Architecture Overview How the Rust + Tauri pieces fit together
Comparison Pit vs MainStage, Gig Performer, Cantabile, Camelot, Mainstage etc.