Denormal Audio has announced the launch of Guardrail, the company’s debut plugin.
Designed for songwriters, producers, composers, and musicians of all keyboard skill levels, Guardrail transforms blocky piano roll chords into expressive performances and fresh musical ideas through an intuitive, performance-driven workflow.
Rather than generating music for the user, Guardrail gives musicians new ways to expand and transform their own ideas. As AI-generated music tools continue to reshape the industry, Denormal Audio is taking a different approach by building software that helps musicians explore their own creativity through performance, not prompts.
Guardrail began as a personal tool created by Denormal Audio co-founders Kurt Feldman and Raphael Radna to solve a frustration in their own songwriting workflows. The pair spent several years refining the concept, combining Feldman’s experience as a producer with Radna’s experience as an audio developer to produce a faster, more intuitive way of capturing and iterating on musical ideas.
For Feldman, that philosophy grew directly from more than a decade spent producing records, composing for video games, and creating product sounds for globally recognized brands including Spotify, Disney+, Microsoft, Ford, Kia, and Tinder. Across that work, he has seen firsthand how the physical act of performing an idea can shape both the creative process and the final result.
There’s a certain magic that comes from physically working through an idea yourself. We built Guardrail to give more musicians that experience, even if they aren’t keyboard players. When you’re actively performing an idea instead of programming it, you develop a stronger connection to the music and a greater sense of ownership over what you create—not to mention, you’re able to iterate much more quickly.
Radna’s vision for Guardrail builds on years of work at the intersections of music composition, performance, and technology. His experience building software that enhances creative expression without surrendering participation helped shape Guardrail into a tool designed around musical intuition rather than technical complexity.
Watch the Guardrail product demo
Today, these priorities sit at the core of Guardrail. Musicians can focus on rhythm, texture, and feel instead of painstaking MIDI editing. Every performance is automatically captured in a built-in performance list, making it easy to compare ideas, favorite standout takes, and drag MIDI directly into a DAW without interrupting creative momentum. The result is a workflow that centers artists and their ideas, encouraging experimentation, creative ownership, and a deeper connection to the music they create.
At a Glance:
- Performance-based workflow transforms blocky piano roll chords into expressive new musical ideas.
- Designed for producers, composers, songwriters, and musicians of all keyboard skill levels.
- Record your ideas in Guardrail, then drag and drop them back into your arrangement.
Key Features:
- Performance Zone: White keys trigger chord tones while black keys perform passing tones and chord extensions tuned to your song.
- Performance List: Automatically captures every performance in a built-in file list. Favorite, organize, and instantly recall ideas.
- Mapping Controls: Customize the performance interface with exact and compact chord modes, randomization, and transposition.
Pricing & Availability:
Guardrail is sold exclusively through the Denormal Audio website for the introductory launch price of $39 (reg. $59) for macOS and Windows in AU, VST3, and AAX formats.
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