Musique · music notation and audio · In active development · early access
One owned music suite, built in the open — a notation engraver for writing scores and SONUS, an audio workstation for recording and mixing.
Musique is two tools that share one home: a notation engraver, where you enter notes and it sets them into engraved, print-ready scores and parts, and SONUS, a multitrack audio workstation, where you record, edit, and mix sound. The name is the plain French word for music, chosen because that is exactly what the suite is for. Musique is a tool a person writes and records their own music with. It does not compose for you, and there is no AI-generated music here.
Musique is being built in the open. It is not yet generally available. This page describes what the suite is and where it is going; the honest next step is to ask about early access.
What Musique is
Writing music and recording music are two different crafts, and most people who make music end up doing both. You write a part on a staff, and you also want to hear it played, layered, and mixed. Musique keeps both crafts under one roof so the score you engrave and the audio you record are not two disconnected worlds.
The notation engraver is the writing side. You place notes on staves — pitches, rhythms, dynamics, articulations, lyrics — and the engraver handles the typesetting: spacing, beaming, page layout, and the extraction of individual instrument parts from a full score. The goal is engraved output a musician can read from and a printer can produce cleanly.
SONUS is the recording side: a multitrack audio workstation. You capture audio and MIDI onto tracks, arrange and edit them on a timeline, and mix with levels, panning, and effects. It is the studio surface for turning a written idea, or a live performance, into a finished recording.
Musique is in active development. What is described on this page is the suite’s design and the direction it is being built in — not a claim that every part is finished and running today. Where something is a plan rather than a shipped feature, this page says so. The honest summary: the suite is being built, early access is how you get in early, and there is no generative or AI-composed music anywhere in it.
The notation engraver: note entry to engraved score
The writing side of Musique is built around one idea: you should think about the music, and the program should handle the engraving. These are the areas the notation tool is being built around.
Note entry that stays out of the way
Enter pitches and rhythms by keyboard, by MIDI instrument, or by clicking onto the staff. The point is speed and accuracy at the moment of writing — getting the idea onto the page without fighting the tool — so the notes you meant are the notes that land.
Engraving and layout done for you
Once notes are entered, the engraver sets them: note spacing, beam grouping, stem direction, collision avoidance, system and page breaks. Good engraving is the difference between a page a performer trusts and one they squint at. This is the work the tool is designed to take off your hands.
Score and parts from one source
A full score and each player’s individual part come from the same underlying music. Change a note in the score and the part reflects it; there is no second copy to keep in sync by hand. Part extraction — pulling a clean, transposed single-instrument part out of the full score — is a core intent of the engraver.
Print-ready output
The output is meant to be printed and played from: clean page layout at real paper sizes, readable at a music stand. The engraver targets print-ready pages and parts as its finished product, not a screen-only preview.
Playback to hear what you wrote
Notation is easier to trust when you can hear it. The engraver plays the score back so you can check a rhythm, an interval, or a balance by ear. Playback is a proofing aid for the written page — a way to hear your own writing, not a generated arrangement.
A bridge to the audio side
A written part is often the start of a recording. Musique is designed so a score can hand off to SONUS — the written material becoming the starting point for a multitrack session — rather than forcing an export-and-reimport detour between two unrelated programs.
The engraving engine underneath: real today, not a plan
Most of this page describes the suite we are still building. This section is different: it describes a piece of infrastructure that already exists and is already gate-verified -- the native engraving engine at the core of the notation side. It is owned by us, written in Rust, and carries no GPL or other copyleft code.
Its own glyph rendering, not a font subprocess
The engine reads the SMuFL music-font glyph specification directly and bakes each symbol’s outline in house, using a permissively licensed, pure-Rust font reader rather than a GPL library or an external font tool. No third-party font-rendering process is invoked to draw a note, a clef, or a rest.
Deterministic, integer-only engraving math
Note spacing, beam grouping, stem direction, collision avoidance, and system and page breaks are computed by the engine itself, using deterministic integer-only geometry -- the same input always produces the same output, with no floating-point drift and no hidden call-out to another notation program to do the layout for it.
Its own SVG and PDF writer
The engine writes native SVG directly, and writes PDF bytes with its own PDF writer -- not by shelling out to Ghostscript or any other external PDF-printing tool. The output format is ours end to end.
A fail-closed license gate, not a self-declared claim
Every dependency the engine draws on is checked against an explicit allowlist of permissive licenses (MIT, Apache-2.0, and similar) before the engine can ship. Copyleft, GPL-family code is not on that allowlist and cannot pass the gate. This is enforced automatically, not asserted by us after the fact.
What this is not claiming. This section describes the engine as a piece of infrastructure -- it is not a claim that the finished writing product (note entry, an editor a musician opens and works in, an in-browser app) is available now; that is still in active development, same as the rest of this page. It is also not a claim about any score already published on this site or elsewhere on the platform: this engine has not been wired to produce those, they were made with separate, existing tools, and this page makes no claim that those existing scores are clean or GPL-free. The engine is a real, clean-licensed, newly built capability that is not yet connected to that catalog.
SONUS: the multitrack audio workstation
SONUS is the audio side of the suite. It is where sound gets recorded, arranged, and mixed. These are the areas SONUS is being built around.
Record audio and MIDI onto tracks
Capture a microphone, a line input, or a MIDI instrument onto its own track. Multiple tracks run together so a full arrangement — a vocal, a few instruments, a rhythm part — lives in one session you keep working on.
Arrange and edit on a timeline
Move, trim, split, and loop recorded regions on a timeline. Editing is where a rough take becomes a shaped arrangement: fixing timing, choosing the best pass, and laying parts out against the bar and beat grid.
Mix with levels, panning, and effects
Balance the tracks: set levels, place each part in the stereo field, and apply effects on the way to a final mix. The mixer is where separate recordings become one coherent piece of audio.
MIDI instruments and virtual sound
A MIDI track can drive a software instrument, so a written or played part can sound without a live player in the room. This is the same material a musician performs — sequenced and rendered, never machine-composed.
Export a finished recording
When a mix is done, SONUS is designed to render it out to a standard audio file you can share, submit, or archive. The finished recording is the product the session is built toward.
Paired with the written page
Because SONUS lives in the same suite as the engraver, the written score and the recorded audio are meant to stay connected rather than living in separate applications. Write it on the staff; record it in SONUS; keep them in one place.
Who Musique is for
Musique is for people who both write and record music, and for the programs that teach them. A student musician can notate an assignment, hear it back, and record a performance without moving between unrelated tools. A composer or arranger can engrave a score and parts for players, then build a demo recording of the same music in SONUS. A music teacher or program can give students one suite that covers both the written and the recorded side of the craft.
The through-line is ownership of your own work. Musique is a tool you use to make music that is yours — your notes on the page, your recordings on the tracks. It is not a service that writes music for you, and nothing here is AI-generated or auto-composed.
Where the build is, honestly
Musique is in active development. In active development That means this page describes the suite’s design and the direction it is being built in, and is careful not to present unfinished work as a shipped, working product. When a specific capability is a plan rather than something you can use today, the honest framing is exactly that: a plan.
What is settled is the shape of the suite: a notation engraver for writing and printing music, and SONUS for recording and mixing it, under one owned roof, with the two sides designed to connect. The core engraving engine underneath the notation side is real today, not a plan -- it is an owned, GPL-free engine with its own glyph rendering, its own deterministic spacing and layout math, and its own SVG and PDF writer, gated by a fail-closed license check (see "The engraving engine underneath" above). What is still being built is the finished writing product around that engine: the note-entry editor a musician opens and works in, and an in-browser app. We would rather tell you exactly which part is real and which part is still ahead than dress an in-progress build up as finished, or undersell a piece that already works.
If the suite fits what you are trying to do, early access is how you get in while it is being built and help shape where it goes. There is no price on this page and no checkout — just a way to start the conversation.
Common questions
Is Musique available to use right now?
Not yet. Musique is in active development and this page is honest early-access: it describes what the suite is and where it is going, not a finished product you can download today. Early access is the way to get in while it is being built.
What is the difference between the notation engraver and SONUS?
The notation engraver is for WRITING music: you enter notes on staves and it sets them into engraved, print-ready scores and parts. SONUS is for RECORDING music: a multitrack audio workstation where you capture audio and MIDI, edit on a timeline, and mix. One suite covers both the written page and the recorded sound.
Does Musique generate or compose music for me with AI?
No. Musique is a tool you use to write and record your own music. It does not compose, arrange, or generate music for you, and there is no AI-generated audio anywhere in the suite. Playback and virtual instruments render the notes YOU wrote or played; they do not invent new material.
Can a score I write turn into a recording?
That is a core design intent: a written part in the notation engraver is meant to hand off to SONUS as the starting point for a multitrack session, rather than forcing an export-and-reimport between two unrelated programs. Because both tools live in the same suite, the written page and the recorded audio are designed to stay connected.
Does it produce print-ready scores and parts?
Yes, that is what the engraver targets: clean page layout at real paper sizes, readable at a music stand, with individual instrument parts extracted from the same source as the full score. Print-ready output is the finished product the notation side is built toward.
Who is Musique built for?
People who both write and record music — student musicians, composers and arrangers, and the music teachers and programs that work with them. If you notate music AND record it, Musique is meant to keep both crafts in one place.
How much does it cost?
There is no pricing on this page. Musique is in early access; the honest next step is to ask about access and talk through what you need, not to check out. Pricing is not something this page claims today.
Is the notation engraving engine real, or is that also still a plan?
The core engraving engine is real today: an owned, GPL-free, pure-Rust engine with its own SMuFL glyph rendering, its own deterministic integer-only spacing and layout, and its own native SVG and PDF writer, gated by a fail-closed license allowlist so no copyleft code can ship in it. What is still in active development is the finished writing product around that engine -- the note-entry editor and an in-browser app -- not the engine itself.
Does this engine power the scores already published on your other pages?
No. This engine has not been wired to any score already published on this site or elsewhere on the platform. Those existing scores were produced with separate, existing tools, and this page makes no claim that they are clean or GPL-free. The engine described here is a distinct, newly built, clean-licensed piece of infrastructure that is not yet connected to that catalog.
Why the name Musique?
Musique is the plain French word for music. It is a generic, descriptive name for a music-creation tool, chosen for exactly that reason: it says what the suite is for without dressing it up.
Related surfaces
Musique is the tool for making music. These adjacent destinations cover the wider platform and the neighbouring creative and program surfaces.
homeroom.software
The flagship platform brand home and the wider product family Musique belongs to. The full picture of the platform and every tool on it.
musicschool.software
Running a music program: lessons, studios, scheduling, and enrollment. Adjacent, not the same product — that runs the school; Musique is the tool a musician writes and records with.
composition.software
The writing desk for student authors — prose, revision, and the literary magazine. A sibling creative tool for text rather than music.
What this page is and is not claiming
Musique — a notation engraver for writing and printing scores and parts, and SONUS, a multitrack audio workstation for recording, editing, and mixing — is in active development and is not yet generally available. This page describes the suite’s design and direction; it does not present unfinished work as a shipped product. One narrower exception is called out separately, above: the core engraving engine itself (own glyphs, own deterministic layout, own SVG/PDF writer, fail-closed GPL-free license gate) already exists and is gate-verified today, even though the finished writing product built on top of it does not yet exist and this engine has not been wired to any score already published on this site. There is no AI-generated or auto-composed music in Musique: it is a tool you use to make your own music, and playback and virtual instruments render only the notes you wrote or played. No competitor brand names appear on this page. Money, pricing, and checkout are not on this page. The honest next step is to ask about early access.