The Song Cage plugin is the same writing canvas this manual describes, now living inside your DAW. It is an AU and VST3 MIDI plugin: it runs the full editor on a track and sends chord and melody notes to the instruments you already use. It plays through its own sounds while you write, and steps aside for whichever part you route to your DAW. This chapter covers installing it, adding it to a track, routing MIDI with the Output Role, dragging a part onto a track as a clip, saving your work, and the trial and license.
What you'll learn
- What the plugin is, and why it sends MIDI to your instruments rather than audio to your DAW
- System requirements and where to download for macOS and Windows
- How to install on a Mac (Audio Unit and VST3)
- How to install on Windows, including the SmartScreen prompt you may see
- How to add the plugin to a track and read the host tempo
- How the Output Role routes chords, melody, or both to your instruments
- How to drag a MIDI clip straight onto a DAW track
- How songs save inside your DAW project, and how to open cloud songs
- How to pull a phone capture into the session from the Ideas Inbox
- How the 14-day trial and the one-time license work
- How signing in works, and what stays available offline
- Which DAWs the plugin runs in
Chapter 19 put Song Cage in your dock as a native app. This chapter puts it on a track in your DAW. Everything you've learned across this manual carries over unchanged: the chord palette, voicings, word tools, melody detection, playback, and PDF and MIDI export are all here. What the plugin adds is a direct line from the canvas to your session. Write a progression in Song Cage, and the chords play through the synth, sampler, or virtual instrument already loaded in your project, in time with the DAW.
20.1 What the plugin is
The Song Cage plugin is an AU and VST3 MIDI plugin that runs the complete Song Cage editor on a track in your DAW. You write the same way you do in the browser or the desktop app: build a progression, set voicings, work the lyrics, capture a melody.
The important thing to understand up front is what the plugin sends downstream. It is a MIDI generator, not an instrument and not a sample library: it puts no audio into your DAW's signal path. What goes downstream is MIDI notes to the instrument on the track, and that instrument makes the sound your DAW records and mixes. A held C major chord in Song Cage becomes three or four MIDI note-ons routed to whatever you have loaded: a piano patch, a pad, a guitar sampler. You pick the voices; Song Cage supplies the notes and the timing.
That does not make the plugin silent. Song Cage has the same playback it has everywhere else, so you can write and audition without loading an instrument at all, and with Output Role on Off (the default) that is exactly what happens. What it does is step aside for the part you route: set the role to Chords and Song Cage stops sounding the chords itself so you never hear them twice, once through your DAW instrument and once through Song Cage, while the melody carries on playing through Song Cage. Set it to Both and your instrument has the whole song, so what's left from Song Cage is the metronome. The metronome is never routed, so it always comes from Song Cage. See §20.6 for the routing itself.
This is the same theory-based, no-AI approach as the rest of Song Cage. The plugin does not invent music for you or suggest pre-built progressions. It captures the song you write and plays it through your session.
20.2 System requirements and downloads
| Platform | Requirement | Formats |
|---|---|---|
| macOS | macOS 11 (Big Sur) or later, universal (Apple Silicon M1+ and Intel) | Audio Unit (AU), VST3 |
| Windows | Windows 10 or later, 64-bit | VST3 |
The plugin is universal on macOS: one download runs natively on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs. On macOS it installs as both an Audio Unit and a VST3, so it shows up in Logic Pro and GarageBand (which use Audio Units) as well as VST3 hosts. On Windows it installs as a VST3.
Download the installer for your platform from the plugin page.
Note that the plugin's macOS floor is macOS 11, one version lower than the desktop app's macOS 12. AAX and Pro Tools are not supported in this version of the plugin.
20.3 Installing on macOS
- Download the macOS installer from the plugin page.
- Open the installer and follow the prompts. It places the Audio Unit and the VST3 in the standard plug-in folders so your DAWs can find them automatically.
- Relaunch your DAW so it rescans for new plug-ins. Logic Pro and GarageBand validate Audio Units on launch, so the plugin appears once that scan completes.
If the plugin doesn't show up immediately, quitting and reopening the DAW is almost always the fix: most hosts only scan for new plug-ins at startup.
20.4 Installing on Windows
- Download the Windows installer from the plugin page.
- Run the installer and follow the prompts. The VST3 lands in the system VST3 folder.
- Relaunch your DAW (or trigger a plug-in rescan) so it picks up the new VST3.
The "Windows protected your PC" prompt
On a newly released version, Microsoft Defender SmartScreen may show a blue "Windows protected your PC" screen. This appears for any recently published installer until enough people have run it to build a reputation with Microsoft; it is not a verdict on the software. The installer is code-signed by Digital Candy LLC, the company behind Song Cage.
To continue: click More info, confirm the publisher reads Digital Candy LLC, then click Run anyway. The prompt fades on its own as more people install each version.
20.5 Adding the plugin to a track
Add Song Cage to a track the way you add any MIDI or instrument plug-in in your DAW. The exact menu differs by host, but the plugin slots in like a MIDI effect or instrument that feeds the track.
When it opens, you start with a blank Untitled song, the same fresh canvas you'd get from a new browser tab. From there:
- The timeline follows the host. Tempo and time signature come from your DAW project, so your song stays locked to the session. Change the project tempo and the plugin's timeline follows.
- The transport follows the DAW. Press play and stop in your DAW and the plugin plays and stops with it, in sync with the rest of your tracks.
There's nothing to configure to get this sync; it happens as soon as the plugin is on a track.
20.6 Sending MIDI to your instruments
Because the plugin sends MIDI rather than audio, each instance has an Output Role parameter that decides what, if anything, it sends to the DAW. The choices are:
- Off (the default): play inside Song Cage only and send nothing to the DAW. Use this while you're writing and auditioning with Song Cage's own playback.
- Chords: send the chord notes to the track's instrument, on MIDI channel 1.
- Melody: send the melody notes to the track's instrument, on MIDI channel 2.
- Both: send the whole song at once, chords still on channel 1 and melody still on channel 2. In your DAW's automation lane this one is spelled out as Chords + Melody.
Both is the one-track answer. An ordinary instrument plays every note it's given and pays no attention to the channel, so you get chords and melody through the same patch — a piano playing the song the way you'd play it at the keyboard, ready to record in one pass. A multi-timbral instrument, one that assigns a different sound per MIDI channel, will split them instead: the chords land on its channel 1 sound and the melody on its channel 2 sound, from a single plugin instance.
To drive two separate tracks — a pad on one, a lead synth on the other, each with its own fader and effects — use two instances: set one to Chords and the other to Melody, each on its own track. Load the same song into both and they play the two parts in parallel.
Output Role is a standard plug-in parameter, so it is DAW-automatable: you can record or draw automation to switch a part in and out across an arrangement, the same way you'd automate any other parameter.
One thing to know about all of this: the notes ride your DAW's transport. Song Cage sends MIDI while the DAW is rolling, so pressing play in Song Cage's own toolbar auditions the song through Song Cage's sounds and sends nothing out. Press play in your DAW — space bar, in most hosts — and the routed part switches over to your instrument.
20.7 Dragging a MIDI clip onto a track
Output Role streams notes live while the transport runs. Sometimes you want the opposite: the part as a clip you can edit, sitting on a track like anything else you recorded. The Drag MIDI handle in the toolbar does that.
Press it and drag onto any track in your DAW. Your host receives a standard MIDI file and creates a clip from it, exactly as if you had dragged one in from Finder or Explorer. From there it's an ordinary part: quantize it, transpose it, split it, feed it a different instrument.
What ends up in the clip follows Output Role, which is why the handle sits next to that selector:
- Chords: the chord notes, with the voicings you chose.
- Melody: the melody notes, with the timing they have on the timeline.
- Both: chords and melody together, in one clip.
- Off: nothing to drag. The handle stays inactive and tells you to pick a role first.
A clip lands on one track feeding one instrument, so a Both drag merges the two parts into that single part rather than splitting them. When you want them on separate tracks, drag twice: set the role to Chords, drag onto your pad track, switch to Melody, and drag onto your lead track.
Two things worth knowing:
- It's a press and drag, not a click. Pressing the handle starts the drag immediately; there's no dialog and no file to find afterwards.
- The handle tells you when there's nothing to send. If the song has no chords yet and the role is Chords, it says so rather than dropping an empty clip on your track.
The clip is a plain MIDI file, so nothing about it is Song Cage-specific once it lands. This is also the fastest route out of the plugin and into an arrangement: write the part on the track, drag it down, and carry on in the DAW.
20.8 Saving your work
The plugin saves your song inside the DAW project. When you save the project, the song's chords, lyrics, and melody are stored with the plugin's state. Reopen the project later and the song comes back exactly as you left it, on the same track. There's no separate "save" step and no extra file to keep track of: your song travels with the session.
If you're signed in, you also have your cloud library available. An in-plugin library lets you open any of your existing Song Cage songs directly on the track, so you can pull a sketch you started on your phone or the desktop app into a session. Signing in is covered in 20.11.
20.9 Your captured ideas, on the track
The plugin carries the same Ideas Inbox the web and desktop editors have, in the right panel's Ideas tab. A hum you recorded on the bus is one drag from the track you're building, without leaving the DAW to go and fetch it.
It behaves exactly as described in The Interface: click a card to expand it, then drag its individual pieces (the chord progression, a lyric section, a single voice memo) onto a section or into the gap between sections. A voice memo you drag in is copied onto that section's Audio track, so it's ready for Detect melody without ever touching a file browser.
Two things are specific to the plugin:
It needs a subscription, not the license. The Ideas Inbox is the one part of the plugin the one-time purchase does not unlock. The one-time license buys the software you run offline; carrying a capture from your phone into your DAW crosses the network between two devices, and that side of the product belongs to the Pro subscription. Without one, the Ideas tab still tells you how many captures are waiting and names the two most recent, so you can see your work arrived. It lights up, with those ideas already in place, the moment you subscribe.
Opening the tab is the refresh. Unlike the web, desktop and mobile apps, the plugin does not watch for new captures while it runs: it reads your ideas when you sign in. If you record something on your phone while the DAW is still open, switch away from the Ideas tab and back to it, and the new capture appears.
20.10 The trial and the license
The plugin starts with a 14-day free trial: the full editor, no card required. Install it, add it to a track, and sign in once to start the clock; after that the trial runs offline. The trial belongs to your account, not the machine, so the desktop app and the plugin share one 14-day window and reinstalling does not restart it. After the 14 days, the plugin locks until you buy the license:
- The one-time license. This is the single Song Cage Desktop + Plugin purchase (current price). It unlocks both the plugin and the desktop app, on macOS and Windows, offline, for life, with free updates across the v1.x line.
There is no separate plugin price and no double-buying: one purchase covers both products.
A Pro subscription does not unlock the plugin. As of 31 July 2026 the two are priced separately: Pro is the web and mobile plan, and the one-time license is the software you own outright. If your plugin entitlement was granted by a subscription before that date, you keep it.
One thing the one-time license does not include is cloud sync. The one-time purchase unlocks the software itself; syncing your songs across the plugin, desktop, web, and mobile is a subscription feature, as described in the Collaboration and Account & Subscription chapters. You can write and save songs inside DAW projects forever on the one-time license; reaching your shared cloud library across devices is what a subscription adds.
20.11 Signing in
You sign in once to start the trial or unlock a purchased license, and again only if you want to buy the license or open your cloud songs. Writing itself never needs a connection.
When you do sign in, it happens in your operating system's browser, not inside the plugin. The plugin opens a Song Cage page where you sign in as usual, and the browser hands the session back to the plugin. You never type your password into the plugin itself. This is the same handoff the desktop app uses, and it keeps your credentials in the browser where you already trust them.
20.12 Working offline
The plugin does not need an internet connection to write. With no network you can still:
- Build and edit songs (they save inside the DAW project)
- Use every chord, voicing, and modulation tool
- Use the word tools: rhymes, slant rhymes, synonyms, and associations, all of which ship inside the plugin
- Run melody detection
- Play back and arrange
- Export a PDF chord sheet or a MIDI file
The word data lives inside the plugin, so even a rhyme lookup needs no network call. Signing in, opening cloud songs, and buying a license are the parts that require a connection; the writing itself does not.
20.13 Which DAWs it works in
The plugin runs in any host that loads Audio Units or VST3 plug-ins. In practice that covers the DAWs most writers use:
- Logic Pro and GarageBand, via the Audio Unit (macOS)
- Ableton Live, FL Studio, Cubase, Studio One, and REAPER, via VST3 (macOS and Windows)
If your DAW hosts AU or VST3 plug-ins, Song Cage will load. Add it to a track, set the Output Role, and your DAW's instruments become the voice of the songs you write.
Chapter 19 put Song Cage in your dock, and this chapter put it on a track. One surface is left, and it's the odd one out: not the full canvas at all, but the free phone app that catches ideas on the go and feeds everything else. The next chapter covers The Mobile App.