ROLI has announced JUCE 5 – a major update to the cross-platform audio development platform.

JUCE 5 (aka Huckleberry JUCE) extends support for plug-ins on a range of mobile operating systems. iOS audio apps can be quickly converted and optimized for Android with JUCE 5’s new set of Android support tools.

Support for Apple Audio Units and Inter-App Audio, plus new graphical user interface tools, make JUCE 5 the most powerful version of JUCE for both mobile and desktop audio apps.

JUCE 5 also introduces a new, revenue-tiered licensing system. Any developer generating revenue up to $50,000 annually will gain free access to JUCE and its coding libraries, which are instrumental to apps created by KORG, Akai, Arturia, Cycling ‘74, and other leading companies. Educators and students are also offered free access. Developers or organizations generating more than $50,000 can access the JUCE environment for $35 or $65 per month per developer, depending on their revenue.

JUCE code works on plug-ins across platforms from macOS and Windows to iOS and Android. All JUCE 5 licenses include access to a complete kit of coding tools that works across all platforms.

“We want to make JUCE even more accessible to all developers, including people building their first music app” said Julian Storer, founder of JUCE and head of software architecture at ROLI, the London-based music creation startup. “We’re proud to release a new version of JUCE that offers an even wider range of tools for any audio developer.”

JUCE 5 launches one year after JUCE 4: Grapefruit JUCE. The community has grown over the past year, with over 500 licensed companies and independent developers. In the past year 297,000 lines of code were added to the JUCE libraries, and 460,000 lines were removed as the libraries continue to become more efficient and up-to-date.

Sponsored by JUCE, the third annual Audio Developers Conference will take place at CodeNode in central London on November 13-15. JUCE calls on all developers to submit proposals for papers to present at ADC ‘17, which will build on the first two successful gatherings of audio developers worldwide.

Features of JUCE 5.0:

• For plug-in development
  • Standalone plug-in format: In addition to VST, VST3, AudioUnit, Audio Unit v3 and AAX, JUCE now supports the “Standalone” plug-in format which will compile a standalone app of your plug-in. This plug-in format is supported on all platforms. You can enable this format in the Projucer in the “Project Settings” page
  • Added support for VST3 SDK 3.6.7
• For Mobile development
  • Support of Apple’s Inter App Audio: Standalone plug-ins can be used as Inter-App Audio instruments and effects on iOS. See details here .
  • Android
  • Complete re-write of Android audio backend with various performance and stability improvements
  • Various stability and performance improvements for Android MIDI
  • Improved Android touch-latency
  • Performance improvements to Bluetooth LE on Android
  • Added support for type-face ligature rendering
  • Support for non-experimental gradle plug-in versions >= 2.2
  • Support for Android Studio 2.3
  • Bluetooth BLE MIDI reliability improvements
• For third-party modules
  • Closed source module integration: JUCE modules support the inclusion of pre-compiled static libraries
• For MIDI and MPE development
  • Windows Bluetooth LE MIDI: JUCE can use the new Windows 10 MIDI API, providing better support for runtime device changes and supporting Bluetooth Low Energy devices. See more details here .
• Graphic User Interface
  • New Look & Feel with modern UI elements
• Code modernisation
  • Support for C++11/14 features such as auto, lambdas, range-based for loops, move semantics, nullptr etc.
  • Added range-based for loops to HashMap, MemoryBlock,
• Embedded development
  • Support for Linux embedded: JUCE no longer requires a desktop environment on linux enabling the deployment to headless, embedded linux devices
  • Added IPv6 support to JUCE
• Linux
  • Support for WebBrowserComponent on Linux (WebBrowserComponent is now supported on every desktop OS)
• Projucer
  • Support for the latest versions of Xcode, Visual Studio and Android Studio
  • New UI design
  • Improved workflow and UX