What is MNodes?

MNodes is a modular environment for playing and building instruments, audio effects and MIDI tools. It runs as a standalone app or as a plugin inside your DAW.

You can open a finished device and play its controls straight away. When you want to change how it works, open the editor and connect nodes: small building blocks that generate sound, process it or control other parts of the patch. A patch is the collection of nodes and connections that makes your instrument or effect work.

Play a device·Build a patch·Reuse your ideas

Start from Home

Home gives you a starting point before you reach the editor. Open the featured device, discover Elements, return to a recent project or start something new.

Choose what you want to do first. Home shows the featured device and starting points from your installed content. Your recent projects appear as you open them. Click any screenshot to enlarge it.

1. Play: click Open instrument on the featured instrument. It opens in Perform mode, with its Front Panel ready to use. An effect may show Open device instead.
2. Build: click New project to choose a starting point.
3. Browse: use Library for saved and installed projects, or Hub to discover more devices and collections.

Discover Elements opens the Elements modular instrument when it is installed. Scroll down for Open a file, the first-patch tutorial, Documentation and Forum. Show Home on startup controls whether this page greets you when MNodes opens.

Back to project returns to your current patch. To reach Home again, click the house button at the right of the header, or choose View → Home in the editor. In Perform mode, move the pointer to the MNodes logo at the top left first, so the header shows.

A device still needs something to play

Start with your listening volume low. An instrument usually needs notes from a controller, your DAW or an on-screen keyboard if the device provides one. An audio effect needs incoming audio. A MIDI effect produces or transforms MIDI messages, which need an instrument downstream to become sound.

If a device opens silently, check its input before changing the patch. MIDI explains how to check for notes, and audio setup covers the standalone device settings.

Find your devices: Library and Hub

Library is where you return to projects you have saved or installed. Search by name, narrow the type, mark favorites, or use Recent and your own collections. Cards show a visual preview; the list view gives you a more compact way to browse.

Library is your installed and saved content. Select All Presets, search for a name, or change between cards and a compact list. The projects shown here are examples from an installed Factory library.

Hub is the catalogue for discovering instruments, effects, MIDI tools, modules and bundles. Its categories sit above Library in the same browser. Get downloads content you do not have yet; Open appears for an installed project. The available action depends on the item and its installation state.

Hub helps you find something new. Choose a category or search the catalogue. Its contents can change; a module is a building block to insert into a patch, rather than necessarily a complete playable project.

See Preset Library for organizing your projects and MNodes Hub for catalogue and installation actions.

Create your own project

Click New project, then click the kind of patch you want to create it and open the editor directly. The available choices depend on whether MNodes is running standalone, as an instrument, as an audio effect or as a MIDI effect.

File → New Project and Ctrl/Cmd + N open the same chooser. You can return to your current project without changing it; after you choose a template, MNodes asks whether to save any unsaved edits before creating the new project.

Starting point	What you get	Choose it when…
Poly Synth	A playable synth, with its envelope and filter ready to adjust	You want to start from a working sound
Sequenced Synth	The same synth playing a melody of eight notes you can edit	You want something playing while you shape the sound
Stereo Effect	Stereo input, a volume stage and stereo output	You want to process a track or incoming audio
Tremolo	An effect whose level rises and falls in time with the music	You want an effect that moves with the beat
MIDI Effect	MIDI input, a Transpose knob and MIDI output	You want to transform notes, rhythms or expression
Empty Project	A blank graph	You want to build every connection yourself

The standalone app shows all six. The instrument plugin offers the two synths, the audio effect plugin Stereo Effect and Tremolo, and the MIDI effect plugin MIDI Effect, each with Empty Project as well. They are part of MNodes, so they are there before you install any Factory content. For Your first patch, choose Empty Project so you can build the tutorial from scratch.

Click a starting point to open it in the editor. This is the standalone chooser with all six choices. Choose Empty Project to follow the first-patch tutorial, or Back to Home to leave the chooser.

Creating a project opens the editor. You can keep the initial wiring, replace parts of it, or add your own controls as you learn. Save your current work before starting another project.

How the pieces fit together

Nodes

Each node has a job. Saw generates a tone, Filter shapes it, Volume sets its level, and Audio Out sends it to the output channels. Other nodes play samples, handle MIDI, create modulation or perform calculations.

The Graph Panel

The graph is where you build the patch: add nodes, arrange them and draw cables between their pins. The connections determine where sound and control signals travel. Zoom and pan to move around a large patch; use the minimap to find your way back.

Build in the graph; adjust the selected node in the Inspector. Here, Knob controls Filter and also appears on the Front Panel below. The Perform button at the top switches to playing the panel.

You do not have to understand a large instrument's entire graph before playing it. Start with the three-node example in Your first patch, then learn the cable gestures in Connections & Wiring.

The Front Panel

The Front Panel is the control surface you use to play the patch: knobs, sliders, keyboards, displays and other controls. A patch can look like its own instrument or effect while its nodes and wiring sit behind that interface.

Edit mode shows the workspace for building. Click the Perform button beside the MNodes logo to give the Front Panel the window for playing; in Perform mode the same button is Edit and takes you back to the editor. It shows only its icon, and its tooltip says what it does.

A finished device puts its controls in front of you. This is Nostalgia's Front Panel. Use the button beside the logo to see how a device is built; you do not need to edit its wiring to play it.

The default shortcut Ctrl/Cmd + P switches between the two. In Perform mode, move the pointer to the logo at the top left if the header is hidden.

When building your own panel, the Front Panel walkthrough shows how to reveal its editor below the graph, add a control and position it.

Four Signal Types

The cable's type tells you what it carries. Colours below refer to the Default theme.

Type	Carries	Example
Audio · gold	The sound, sample by sample	Saw → Filter → Volume
CV · mint green	A continuous control signal at audio rate	An LFO moving a filter's frequency
MIDI · red	Note, controller and timing messages	A keyboard telling a synth which note to play
Data · blue	Values and events when they change	A knob sending a new parameter value

Some pins accept both Data and CV. You can learn those details when you reach hybrid pins; you do not need to memorise every signal type to open a device.

Subgraphs

You can group part of a patch into a Subgraph and reuse it. Modules package reusable parts with their own controls, while Rack Modules are marked for use in a rack. These let you build with larger pieces instead of recreating the same wiring every time.

The Modules explorer groups installed content into collections, with All, Modules, Racks and Subgraphs filters. Search across the library, or use a collection's magnifier to search inside that collection. See Subgraphs, Modules and Rack Canvas when you are ready to reuse or assemble your own devices.

The Lab

The Lab can generate a complete instrument or FX chain, including its wiring and Front Panel. Open Lab from the left side of the editor, choose a Patch Type and flavour tags, then use Generate. You can play the result and edit the patch it creates.

Start with a recipe, then explore the result. Here the Lab is set to an FX Chain. Check the Build options before generating, especially whether it will create a new patch. See The Lab for the full walkthrough.

Choose the app or plugin for the job

Standalone (Windows, macOS)

Use the standalone app to run MNodes without a DAW. Select your audio device and MIDI inputs in Settings → Audio & MIDI. Audio, CV, MIDI and Data can all travel inside its patches; external audio and MIDI depend on the devices and routing you configure.

VST3 (Windows, macOS)

Variant	Use it for
MNodes Instrument	Synths, samplers and other patches played from notes
MNodes FX	Processing audio on a track or bus

Audio Unit (macOS)

Variant	Use it for
AU Instrument	MIDI-controlled instruments
AU FX	Audio effects
AU MIDI FX	MIDI processing in a compatible host such as Logic Pro, feeding an instrument

Your DAW manages the plugin's audio and MIDI routing. Choose a variant that provides the inputs and outputs your patch needs. See DAW Integration for the setup.

Find the next building block

Nodes are grouped by what they do, such as Oscillators, Filters, MIDI and Widgets. Search the Node Palette by the node's name, or browse the Node Reference for its parameters and pins.

Ready to build? Continue with Your first patch. To explore the workspace first, open The Interface.