The self-playing drone synth. Everything below came from a question somebody actually asked.
This page is the manual. It is kept up to date here, so there is nothing to re-download when something changes. Last updated 6 August 2026.
The 30 second version
It is pronounced arjish
Like jump, not like go. You are not the first to ask.
The six buttons under the wheel
These are not switches, they are macros. Each one moves several knobs at once. That is why they can feel confusing: you are looking for one job per button and there is not one.
Where do the arpeggio sparkles come from?
The ARP control. EPIC just sets it to halfway along with those other changes. If you want the sparkles without the rest, leave EPIC alone and turn ARP up yourself.
The strip down the left side
Six drawers, each opening a set of controls for one layer of the sound. SYNTH is the pads, PULSE the rhythm, BASS the low end, GRAIN the granular texture, FX the effects, MIX the balance.
Page 2 is a different job, not a second version of page 1
Page 1 is you playing chords. SCORE writes a whole piece of a length you choose, then plays it to you.
The bit that catches everyone: GENERATE only writes the piece. It does not play it. If you press GENERATE and nothing happens, that is expected. Press PLAY afterwards.
A playhead moves along, with a coloured strip underneath showing where you are in the piece. It resolves and stops itself at the end. Press GENERATE again for a different piece in the same style, every time.
How do I fade a part in, without riding faders in my DAW?
The curve above the strip is a drawing, and the tabs across the top choose which part you are drawing. ENERGY is the whole thing, then PAD, ARP, BASS, KICK and GRAIN each get their own lane.
Draw a lane low at the start and rising later and that part fades in by itself, inside the plug-in, before it ever reaches your DAW. Much easier than automating five tracks.
I can hear it, but my recording comes back silent
This is the single most common question, and it is not you. ARGISH generates its music in real time, inside the plug-in. An offline bounce renders faster than real time, so there is nothing there to render and you get silence.
The trap: Bounce Track in Place has no realtime option at all. It is always offline. If you are hunting for a Realtime setting in that window, it is not there and never was.
The fix, in Logic
Logic now plays the whole thing through while it records, so a three minute piece takes three minutes. That is normal and it means it is working.
Recording MIDI does not work either
A self-playing instrument does not send notes out for your DAW to capture, so you get a region with almost nothing in it. What you are hearing is the synth itself. Audio is the only way to keep it.
The method that cannot fail
If the bounce is still fighting you, record it live instead. This captures exactly what you hear, including knob moves as you make them.
Check this first, before anything else. Press play in your DAW and watch ARGISH. Is it actually making sound while the transport runs? If it goes quiet the moment the DAW plays, that is the whole problem and it has nothing to do with bounce settings. ARGISH has its own PLAY button and it needs to be on.
The notes carry on after I stop my DAW
Fixed in v1.2.2. Self-play now stops when your DAW stops and starts again when you play. There is a Follow Transport switch if you would rather it kept running through a stop.
Re-download from your Gumroad library, your key is unchanged.
It will not load at all on an older Mac
Also fixed. An early build was stamped with the wrong minimum macOS, so it refused to load on anything before macOS 26. The current build runs on macOS 11 and up. Re-download and you are set.
Knobs slide around on a phone or tablet
Known, on the browser demo. The controls were built for a mouse, so on a touchscreen a drag can get treated as a page gesture. It is on the list. On a desktop browser with a mouse or trackpad it behaves.
Can I get the MIDI out of it?
Not yet. It is a real candidate rather than a polite no: the mechanism already exists in REHEAT, so the pieces are there. No date promised.
Is there an iOS version?
No, and I will not promise a date. If it happens it will be AUv3 so it behaves properly inside AUM, Cubasis and Logic on iPad. Doing it badly is worse than not doing it.
Where is my licence key?
In your Gumroad receipt email, and on your Gumroad library page. There is a separate key for each instrument, so if you bought the Collection you have three of them.
It is silent and asking for a key
That is normal. Every instrument stays silent until it is unlocked. Paste the key on the first screen and press UNLOCK.
Do I have to activate every format separately?
No. One activation covers the AU, the VST3, the AAX and the Standalone on that machine.
If your DAW blocks the internet check, activate once in the Standalone app and the plug-in versions unlock along with it. All formats share the same activation.
Does it phone home? Do I need to stay online?
No, and no. It checks the licence once, when you first activate. After that the activation is written to a file on your own machine and it never contacts a server again. You can take the machine permanently offline and it keeps working.
On macOS the record lives at ~/Library/Tunary Instruments/ARGISH/license.json. The
installer never touches that file, so updating never costs you your activation.
My key was rejected
Send me the key you are using and the email address you bought with, and I will sort it at my end. james@tunary.io
The easy way
Download the installer from your Gumroad library and double-click it. It puts the Audio Unit, the VST3 and the AAX where every host looks for them, and you can untick any format on the Installation Type screen. macOS will ask for your password, which is normal for the shared Plug-Ins folder.
Installing by hand
Use the folders at the top level of your disk, not the ones inside your home folder. In Finder press Shift Cmd G, paste the path, and drag the file in.
Tunary /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components//Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3//Library/Application Support/Avid/Audio/Plug-Ins/The one that catches people. There is a similar folder inside your home folder that starts
with ~. Logic and Final Cut read both, but DaVinci Resolve and Premiere Pro only read
the top-level one, so a plug-in put in the home-folder version simply never appears in them.
Quit your host first
Fully quit your DAW or editor with Cmd Q before installing, then reopen it. Hosts only look for new plug-ins when they start.
What it runs on
macOS 11 Big Sur and later, Universal, so native on both Apple Silicon and Intel. Signed and Apple notarised, so macOS opens it with no security warning. Windows is VST3, 64-bit, Windows 10 and up. The AAX for Pro Tools is Mac only, and it comes in the Mac installer rather than the zip, because it has to go into a folder the zip cannot write to.
Windows says "Windows protected your PC"
The Windows builds are not code-signed, so SmartScreen warns on first run. Click More info then Run anyway. You do it once. A Windows signing certificate runs to several hundred dollars a year, which is a lot for a small label, so for now that warning is the honest trade.
Also, before you unzip: right-click the zip, choose Properties, tick Unblock, then extract. Windows tags anything downloaded and copies that tag onto every file inside.
Where does it show up in my DAW?
Under Tunary Instruments, not under the product name.
Not there at all in Logic? Logic Pro > Settings > Plug-in Manager, search for it. If it is unticked, tick it. If it failed validation, select it and click Reset & Rescan Selection. Usually it just means Logic was open while you installed.
Pro Tools
ARGISH is an instrument, so it goes on an Instrument track, in the first insert slot.
Getting ARGISH's MIDI into Pro Tools
To drive your other instruments with ARGISH's MIDI, turn on MIDI OUT on the ARGISH panel, top row next to TEMPO SYNC. It is off until you do.
The four parts arrive on their own channels: chords 1, arpeggio 2, bass 3, drums 10, so you can send each to a different instrument.
Not there in Pro Tools? It only scans plug-ins when it launches, so quit it fully with Cmd Q and reopen. That is nearly always it.