I want to share a project I've been working on: RICO, a Windows application that acts as a central hub for real-time multimedia protocols — the kind of glue layer that VJs, installation artists, and creative technologists usually end up hand-rolling or patching together in Max/MSP or TouchDesigner.
What it does
RICO bridges together:
MIDI — routing, learn mode, remapping
OSC — send/receive to multiple destinations at once
Spout — real-time texture sharing between DirectX apps
NDI — video streaming over a network
DMX/Art-Net — lighting control
MQTT — IoT/custom hardware
Audio analysis — FFT-based reactivity with beat detection
Guitar-to-MIDI — live audio-to-MIDI conversion
Ableton Link — tempo sync across devices
Virtual MIDI — software MIDI ports via teVirtualMIDI
Why
Anyone who's tried to connect a MIDI controller to a generative visuals engine, then also route DMX to a lighting rig, then sync it all to Ableton's tempo, knows there's no single lightweight tool that does all of this without a ton of setup. RICO tries to be that tool — plug in, open the app, route signals, done.
Stack
Built in C++ with DirectX 11 and ImGui for the UI, and leans on some solid libraries under the hood: RtMidi, oscpack, Spout, the NDI SDK, paho-mqtt, miniaudio, pffft, and Ableton Link.
Status
It's in public beta (v2.2.0), Windows 10/11 x64 only. Closed source for now, with a public source release planned for later. There are demo videos in the repo showing it driving audio-reactive projection in TouchDesigner and running as a live video switcher.
If you work in real-time visuals, interactive installations, or live performance tooling, I'd love feedback on what protocols or workflows are missing.
