andrewrk/pydaw

PyDaw is a Python library that lets you read and inspect project files from Digital Audio Workstations, the software musicians use to compose and produce music. Right now it supports FL Studio files, with plans to add other formats like LMMS and MIDI in the future. The main practical use today is extracting information from a project file without having to open it in FL Studio itself. You can load a file and pull out details like the tempo, project title, and lists of what the project depends on, generators, samples, and effects. This could be useful if you're building a tool that manages music projects, checks whether all required sample files are present, or catalogs what plugins and sounds a given project uses. Under the hood, the library already parses nearly the entire FL Studio file format, but only exposes a subset of that information in a clean, usable way. The author notes that the parsing logic understands most of the project data and would just need some cleanup to surface more of it. So while the current feature set is narrow, essentially read-only dependency checking, the foundation is there to expand without needing to reverse-engineer the format further. The project is written primarily in C++ despite the Python-focused pitch, which means it's a compiled extension that Python code calls. Installation involves building it from source. The FL Studio parsing code was adapted from an existing open-source import filter originally written for LMMS, another music program. It's released under the GPL license. This is a small, single-author project that solves a specific need, the creator built it to check project dependencies and shared it openly. It's not a polished, feature-complete toolkit, but rather an early-stage utility with room to grow if others contribute or the author expands it.