Anyone else noticed the increase of Vibe coded plugins flooding the market?

[billinder33]

Name some names. What are some examples of vibe coded plugins? Genuinely curious.

Yeah. How would you even know if a plugin was vibe coded or not? Does it smell different?

[billinder33]

Anyone here have any coding experience? I have a plugin concept that I'd love to vibe code, but I know very little about coding beyond some basic concepts, SQL, shell, & light Python. How hard is it?

Not even looking to release to the general public. I'd probably look to see if I could make a working prototype and give it to a reputable dev to 'harden' it in exchange for a free copy (assuming it would actually work as I expect).

[Dave_p]

This is a nightmare becoming a reality.

[jamcat]

Anyone here have any coding experience? I have a plugin concept that I'd love to vibe code, but I know very little about coding beyond some basic concepts, SQL, shell, & light Python. How hard is it?

Not even looking to release to the general public. I'd probably look to see if I could make a working prototype and give it to a reputable dev to 'harden' it in exchange for a free copy (assuming it would actually work as I expect).

This is exactly why so-called "vibe coding" is nonsense. If you can't code, you can't vibe code, either. The truth is every software developer from guys doing indie freeware up to multinational corporations are "vibe coding". It is simply the automation of the software industry, just as every industry has seen automation. You can't walk into Toyota and start building a car with no knowledge of how cars are built, just because they have assembly line automation. Same for software.

That said, AI makes it a lot easier to be a one-man operation. AI is built into every IDE now. Software can be anywhere from thousands of lines of code to millions of lines of code. The good news is you don't have to write them all yourself anymore. Testing and bug-tracing and bug fixing are a major part of development. A lot of development time is taken up by discovering bugs, chasing them down, figuring out how to fix them, and then figuring out what that fix broke, and then fixing that. Again, AI speeds that up immensely. It can analyze pages of code, see how it interacts, and pinpoint the error in minutes, if not seconds, rather than you losing hours if not days on it.

But as I said, you have to actually know how to develop software. You don't have to be a walking encyclopedia of library functions to be a programmer anymore. AI can tell you the best library to use and the functions to call. But you need to know how to use an IDE, and you need to know software design patterns and good coding hygiene. You have to understand C++ classes and inheritance and all that goes with it.

But the good news here is AI can teach you that as well.

If you want to start "vibe coding" you need to first learn the fundamentals of C++ and JUCE. Even with AI assistance (which EVERYONE uses), you still will want to use a framework like JUCE, which has lowered the barrier to entry recently by removing the need for an account to start using it, and building Steinberg's VST3 SDK in, as well.

[El°HYM]

This is a nightmare becoming a reality.

Its basically what happened to the Buy & Sell board on here. Some might remember it being a pretty decent place to really buy or sell some stuff, even just exchange. Then something sneaked in, first just a very few then after a while it got flooded with people selling their gathered codes for some random freebies. So instead of actually selling their own unused plugins, they started to sell unused codes of stuff given away for free a few weeks earlier. Now look at that place and tell me how useful it still is for people wanting to go the good old ways.

This is why, ignorance is a Bliss!

[andi75]

As many other developers, I am using AI - Claude Code - daily in my work. Of course this is not "vibe coding", as you have clear specifications. The thing is, if you don't have any idea of coding at all, you will quickly run into traps, and there are many. The risk grows with the size of the code base, and the complexity of the code. You need to review each code change thoroughly and use many unit tests to verify your assumption. I notice that the effort, which has been reduced by letting AI do the coding, now goes into writing specs, prompts, making reviews and verifying the output. Bugfixing often is kind of hit-and-miss, it can work very well, but also run in circles forever without a solution.
TL;DR - without coding knowledge, you are still not able to do more than very basic apps using AI. With coding knowledge though, it can boost your productivity - if you know the weaknesses of AI and how to use it best in your work.

[dreamvoid]

The thing is, if you don't have any idea of coding at all, you will quickly run into traps, and there are many. The risk grows with the size of the code base, and the complexity of the code. You need to review each code change thoroughly and use many unit tests to verify your assumption.

I know personally one example where someone is vibe coding for a client and let do the debugging and reviewing by other AI platforms. He bounces the then 'optimized' code back and forth between these AI platforms to refine it.
How this works out in the end I don't know.
What's your take on this?

[andi75]

The thing is, if you don't have any idea of coding at all, you will quickly run into traps, and there are many. The risk grows with the size of the code base, and the complexity of the code. You need to review each code change thoroughly and use many unit tests to verify your assumption.

I know personally one example where someone is vibe coding for a client and let do the debugging and reviewing by other AI platforms. He bounces the then 'optimized' code back and forth between these AI platforms to refine it.
How this works out in the end I don't know.
What's your take on this?

There is no easy answer to this, as coding is such a complex task, and each code base is different.
We are working on large code bases, some grown over a decade, where coding agents often fail to recognize and minimize side effects.
I am using AI on smaller code bases privately, where I often do not need to make huge changes to the generated code, when the specs and coding guidelines are good in the first place. But I am sure that specs from a developer will look different than specs of a non developer. A developer is aware of good practices, technical limitations, the license situation when using third party libraries and so on.
Given the current skills of coding agents, I would absolutely not recommend to vibe code apps which need to work reliably....

[andi75]

[duplicate]

[billinder33]

Anyone here have any coding experience? I have a plugin concept that I'd love to vibe code, but I know very little about coding beyond some basic concepts, SQL, shell, & light Python. How hard is it?

Not even looking to release to the general public. I'd probably look to see if I could make a working prototype and give it to a reputable dev to 'harden' it in exchange for a free copy (assuming it would actually work as I expect).

This is exactly why so-called "vibe coding" is nonsense. If you can't code, you can't vibe code, either. The truth is every software developer from guys doing indie freeware up to multinational corporations are "vibe coding". It is simply the automation of the software industry, just as every industry has seen automation. You can't walk into Toyota and start building a car with no knowledge of how cars are built, just because they have assembly line automation. Same for software.

That said, AI makes it a lot easier to be a one-man operation. AI is built into every IDE now. Software can be anywhere from thousands of lines of code to millions of lines of code. The good news is you don't have to write them all yourself anymore. Testing and bug-tracing and bug fixing are a major part of development. A lot of development time is taken up by discovering bugs, chasing them down, figuring out how to fix them, and then figuring out what that fix broke, and then fixing that. Again, AI speeds that up immensely. It can analyze pages of code, see how it interacts, and pinpoint the error in minutes, if not seconds, rather than you losing hours if not days on it.

But as I said, you have to actually know how to develop software. You don't have to be a walking encyclopedia of library functions to be a programmer anymore. AI can tell you the best library to use and the functions to call. But you need to know how to use an IDE, and you need to know software design patterns and good coding hygiene. You have to understand C++ classes and inheritance and all that goes with it.

But the good news here is AI can teach you that as well.

If you want to start "vibe coding" you need to first learn the fundamentals of C++ and JUCE. Even with AI assistance (which EVERYONE uses), you still will want to use a framework like JUCE, which has lowered the barrier to entry recently by removing the need for an account to start using it, and building Steinberg's VST3 SDK in, as well.

Thanks for the detailed response. I kind of assumed as much. I started by querying Gemini about some of the characteristics and parameters related to this 'project'. While I thought the topic was quite obscure, it did have some very useful suggestions on the science behind the virtual modeling I want to build, what kind of code to include and avoid, and even came up with a 'brain' for certain functions. It also suggested JUCE and recommended some needed plugins for VSCode. I wasn't originally planning to go deep into this rabbit hole, so of course all this initial groundwork was researched in Gemini's 'Temporary Chat' and it's disappeared into the ether!!!

Question for you and anyone else who may know.... understanding that I'm just trying to get to a prototype/MVP stage, if I did decide to pursue this, do you think I could make it happen with free Gemini, or would I need a sub for Claude code?

[ATS]

Name some names. What are some examples of vibe coded plugins? Genuinely curious.

this

[pabloaldunate]

I noticed some plugins looked very similar and did a little search.
I don't know if its AI, but it made me think about this thread.

https://www.audioloom.com
https://www.audioloom.com/become-a-creator


Edit:
They look very similar to Black Salt Audio plugins because Audio Loom coded them and they use the same frameworks.

They look similar between them because "Plugins created for the Audioloom ecosystem (such as those by Canvas Audio, Gilder Audio, and JVAL Audio) are built using a standardized Drag-and-Drop UI Editor."

Black Salt Audio https://blacksaltaudio.com
Carve Audio https://carveaudio.com
Audio Issues https://www.audioissues.com
JVAL Audio https://www.audioloom.com/tommee-profitt/epicizer
Tommee Profitt https://www.audioloom.com/tommee-profitt/epicizer
cr8ive audio https://www.audioloom.com/cr8ive-audio/ ... essor-code
Styx Audio https://styxaudio.com
Sage Audio https://www.audioloom.com/sage-audio/sage-velvet
Canvas Audio https://www.canvasaudio.net
DSP Tone https://dsptone.com/exodelay/

Edit 2:
Audio Loom is owned by Joey Sturgis https://joeysturgistones.com (Joey also owns URM https://urm.academy Drumforge https://drumforge.com)

[Zeisner]

https://www.soundsdope.net/bang

[Gamma-UT]

I noticed some plugins looked very similar and did a little search.
I don't know if its AI, but it made me think about this thread.

<span class="skimlinks-unlinked">https://www.audioloom.com</span>

It's hard to tell because it's only early access, but it looks like a competitor to things like Max/RNBO that's maybe a bit more like the way you slap together things in Reaktor. From the scanty details on the website, it looks like there are 70-add readymade DSP modules and you lash those together into a "vintage compressor" or whatever and slap a skin on it.

I would guess there's some kind of C++ interface for custom code (which you could vibe code), but I don't think it's an AI thing at its core.

[pabloaldunate]

I would guess there's some kind of C++ interface for custom code (which you could vibe code), but I don't think it's an AI thing at its core.

Seems like its not AI, but they are a lot of similar looking plugins that made me think where do they came from and why they are not upfront with the coding.