Linux Audio Development (LAD)
The Him DSP
Linux Audio Developers Spotlight interview with Jeroen Jay Kerstens from The Him DSP
This interview was conducted by Amadeus Paulussen in 2026.
Dear Jay,
I'm hyped to be able to talk with an EDM legend, turned plugin developer, turned Linux audio supporter. 🤓
First things first, can you introduce yourself, please?
Hi! I'm Jay, aka The Him. I started out DJing and producing EDM/House, and was extremely fortunate to be able to do that as a full time job, touring the world while making music, it was really awesome! I always really loved programming as well and dreamed of making plugins one day.
Before we get into your work as a software developer, what should someone have heard to get an idea of your musical output as The Him?
Probably "Feels Like Home" and "Always", those are some of the bigger tracks, and they're quite different in style too!
How did you go from touring and doing remixes for Tiësto, The Chainsmokers, Martin Garrix, and Miley Cyrus to plugin development, and what does the split between producer/DJ and developer look like for you these days?
I've always been interested in making tools for my workflow, my main DAW was Reaper for a long time, and I had tons of little scripts and tools to adjust it to my workflow (and both Sub Ninja and Ninja AB are plugin recreations of tools I made for Reaper).
I dabbled in creating plugins a few times, but found the learning curve quite steep and just didn't really have the time to push through. The beginning of 2020 gave me more time at home, so I picked it up more seriously.
These days, it does sadly mean that I barely have time to make music. I keep wanting to make time for it, but if I'm honest, being an indie dev is already more than a full time job. And I really love building things. So, making music is sadly getting less attention at the moment.
If I'm not mistaken, you use JUCE to develop Kick Ninja, Sub Ninja, and Ninja GB. Can you tell us about your experience choosing this framework, and how it's held up for you since?
JUCE is great! Before finding JUCE, a long, long time ago, I read this book by Will Pirkle about building plugins. It came with its own framework, well, that stuff was so messy that I gave up, lol. OK, times were different, and JUCE with the Projucer was also not such a great experience. But these days with CMake and things like Pamplejuce (shoutout to Sudara, you should checkout his awesome additive synth Sine Machine, it works on Linux too!), you can build your first experiment and demo plugin in 10 minutes (ok, that's maybe over stating it a bit, but it's MUCH easier).
And sure… there's probably lots of stuff to complain about. But you're completely free to change whatever you want. And the fact that I don't really have to think about all the platforms and formats is amazing! It depends somewhat on what you're building, but I do most of my dev on macOS, and the fanout to Windows and now Linux are not that painful.
Which plugin formats do you develop for, and do you have a favorite?
Well, the list is pretty decent now, which I'm quite happy with: VST3, AudioUnit, CLAP, and AAX. But I do most of my testing in the (dev only!) Standalone and VST3. I don't really have a favorite, and if it was up to me, all these silly formats would get replaced by one industry standard tomorrow. And I also think that some of these formats should seriously rethink their restrictions. But I think most people are able to work with this list.
Any thoughts around Steinberg open sourcing the VST3 SDK and CLAP?
Not really, as a developer, these formats are a hurdle I have to jump over. It's cool if one format pushes things forward by adding new features, but I still have to think about adoption, for my users, and what they can run.
How much weight does UI/UX carry for you when designing audio plugins?
A lot!!! We are making instruments. In the sense that it's something you can play, but also that it's a tool that has to make sense. You have to "feel" the whole thing. If functionality is hard, or you can't find something, it might as well not be there. I usually go through a couple iterations of getting things in a better shape, so they make more sense. And it's still usually a bit of a compromise. The "plugin" format is a bit of a weird one. We want everything to be crammed into this little window that should probably only take up a quarter of the screen. Definitely no scroll bars. Maybe some tabs. Sometimes my biggest problem with adding a feature is literally: where do I put the knob. So, it can be pretty hard to get it all to fit together. I really hope I'm able to strike a balance there for people.
Can you tell us a bit about how you ended up making your plugins available on Linux as well?
With all the tools at our disposal, it was really not that hard to get it to build. There's a few quirks that had to be ironed out, but thankfully, I had some REALLY NICE beta testers, and together, we got things in a working condition in a few days. Thanks, guys!
And the nice thing is that now this work is done, everything I release from here on will benefit from this pipeline and should be pretty doable.
Were there any notable hurdles to overcome while building your plugins for Linux?
Some small stuff, having to do with paths. I think the hardest thing might be still to come: niche bugs or small performance issues that are hard for me to recreate.
Have you ever experienced the infamous Linux fragmentation as a real problem?
Ha! It's kinda cool, but I've found that the beta testers were pretty reasonable in warning me about certain fringes. And I might have to disappoint a few people in unique setups, but hopefully, most Linux users can have a good experience!
As a JUCE developer, have you had to deal with things like Wayland vs. X11, or PipeWire vs. JACK?
Not before you guys started bugging me about how great it would be if the plugins worked on Linux ;).
Speaking for myself and other Linux Audio enthusiasts I know, we're happy just getting the plugin binaries, maybe with a README or an install.sh on top at most. What are your thoughts on plugin delivery in general (not just on Linux)?
Well, that's one place where Linux is actually much better than Windows/macOS! Making an install.sh is peanuts compared to installers for the other platforms.
But, yeah, in general, it absolutely sucks. It's a real burden on both the user and the dev. For users, it's super annoying to update your plugins, it takes a lot of time, and it's hard to know where you stand in terms of backwards compatibility and breaking changes. Which then makes it really tricky for devs to ship new features and fixes, cause I want to be very careful when I ask users to go through the pain of updating things.
What's your philosophy on copy protection for plugins?
Man, this question has a lot of different angles and nuances to it. My middle ground is to have a system that's fairly easy for most users (you enter a key). I absolutely don't like forcing people into hardware dongles, but I do require online activation and an occasional Internet connection. For some people, that last part is too invasive, and I respect that, but sometimes I have to make a decision that serves one group and not the other. It would be great if copy protection wasn't necessary at all, but it turns out that locking your house is also just generally a good idea.
But I also have no illusions, most copy protection gets cracked. I have mixed feelings about that. I've now been on both sides of that equation (not having money to buy plugins and living off selling them), and I would really argue for paying for what you use. I think, especially with smaller companies and solo devs like myself, it leads to getting back what you put in, as well. If a business is thriving, it's much easier to put more time and effort into making more awesome things.
If you had to pick three key lessons from bringing Linux support to your plugins, what would you share with other vendors considering the same move?
Besides it not being all that hard (so far!), my most important lesson is that there are some serious audio software fanatics here. And those people are going to be my first email next time I have a beta version to test :D. So, it can be a great asset too!
What are your thoughts on Open Source as a business model for plugin development?
I actually haven't used too much Open Source plugins in my production process, if I'm totally honest. I do really think that, for a certain amount of polish in a product, you need a serious time and attention effort. Especially if you want that over a continued period of time (as in years, or decades). And, since time usually means money, somewhere, someone probably has to pay for it.
I think there's also a bit of a mixing of audiences going on here. Because if there's a spectrum, from people that produce music on one end, and people that make music software on the other, not everyone is in the middle. And I would actually argue that, to be successful in either of these, you'd probably have to make a choice (I know I did for sure! When I was more on the music production side, I had to somewhat force myself to not work too much on software). Both are a full time endeavor. And I think, as a business, you probably also have to choose which part of that spectrum you're targeting. I think I'm more on the producer to technical producer side of things.
Do you have any hopes or concerns for the future of computer-based music production in general, and for Linux in particular?
I hope people keep having fun making music! In whichever way, and whatever platform, they like.
Would you be curious to move your own music production entirely to Linux for a month, just to see whether you'd call Linux audio ready for prime time? 😜
Hahaha. Umm, if you set up my whole system! And, I think, I'd be missing some tools that I've come to rely on as well. I think I'd need some more convincing first.
In today's competitive music market, how do you stay visible and relevant, not just as a plugin vendor, but as an artist, too?
I have no clue. The thing I try to do is to make good stuff that I believe in and hope it connects. I think it's probably a decent idea to try to think about where what you want to make and what you think people want have some common ground. That goes for all fields.
Is there anything I haven't touched on that you'd like to add?
Thanks for taking the time for this interview! :)