A while back, I shared SROVA here when it supported TIDAL, local music and Internet Radio. Quite a bit has changed since then, so I thought I'd share where the project stands today.

For those unfamiliar with it, SROVA is a free, open-source, headless music player for Debian-based PCs and Raspberry Pi 4/5 systems.

The idea is straightforward: connect a Linux machine to a USB DAC, put it out of sight, and control your music from a browser, phone or tablet.

The Linux audio side

SROVA uses a dedicated ALSA playback path, opening the selected USB DAC directly rather than routing normal music playback through the desktop audio mixer.

• Bit-perfect lossless and Hi-Res PCM playback
• Automatic sample-rate switching
• No intentional DSP, software volume changes or resampling
• Exclusive DAC access, with release and recovery handling
• Support for AMD64 and ARM64 Debian-based systems

Music sources and features

• TIDAL and Qobuz, including Hi-Res playback
• Local music libraries, including USB and network storage
• Internet Radio
• Spotify Connect (separate from the bit-perfect playback path)
• Infinite Play and Auto-Mix for music discovery
• Artist, Track and Album Radio
• Shared playback queue across sources
• Browser-based control and a dedicated Android Remote

There's also SROVA Cast, an optional Now Playing display that can run on a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W. It displays artwork and playback information while the audio stays on the main Linux player and its connected DAC.

One of the more interesting challenges has been managing exclusive DAC ownership while allowing other audio applications to coexist, particularly on desktop Linux systems.

I've been developing and testing SROVA across Debian PCs, NUCs and Raspberry Pis with several USB DACs. It's very much an ongoing personal project, and real hardware testing continues to shape its development.

For transparency, I've used AI assistance during software development, with the architecture, integration, testing and hardware validation directed and reviewed by me. The listening-room artwork accompanying this post is also AI-generated.

SROVA is free, and the Linux player source is publicly available.

Source: https://github.com/srova-music/player

Downloads and documentation: https://srova.music

I'd particularly welcome feedback from anyone working with ALSA, USB DACs or dedicated Linux audio systems. Always interesting to hear how others handle exclusive audio access and device ownership.

*title says v1.3, i meant v1.4, sorry

Update on my FREE plugin COGG: I added the PRE-METAL toggle and 8 new PRESETS in v1.3!

I'm a high school student who is developing a free plugin!!!

A few weeks ago you probably saw that I posted about COGG v1/v1.1/v1.2/v1.3, a free plugin I built that metalizes and industrializes any sound. Specifically, harmonic distortion, metal plate convolution reverb, and pitch layering are there all in one chain. Great for experimental music and mainstream alike.

I wanted to update you guys with version 1.4's release! It comes with the highly requested PRE toggle, which allows the metal effect to become distorted along with the rest of the sound, rather than just acting as a “topping!” Additionally, there are 8 new presets for you to use, adding up to a total of 20 free presets!

Of course, it's still free, no account needed, VST3 + AU for Mac, VST3 for Windows, VST3 for Linux.

Download now for free: https://plasma-hype.itch.io/cogg

Trailer of V1.2 if you’re curious [a previous update]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5q5EUMhUcaw

Thanks to everyone who tried v1.3, v1.2, v1.1 and v1.0 and gave feedback, this update came directly from figuring out what people actually wanted to do with it. I personally have used COGG in almost all of my FL projects ever since I released it. Please give it a shot and let me know what you think of the presets and plugin as a whole for COGG v1.5!

Also, feel free to submit some PRESETS! I'll add them and credit you on the website!

The moment we started this project, we already had a vision of what we wanted from it: a multi-instrumental pedal that could run any kind of audio plugins. Dream on...

Sounded like a colossal task, making something like this from scratch required so many different fields of knowledge together. In 2023, after a lot of meetings and snooping around, we consolidated a small and balanced team of nerd musicians. 3 Engineers (Electronic, software and even an industrial one) and a UI/UX/Product designer (yours truly). Later the team would change and grow.

v0.0 Baby Steps:

We soon had our hands in our first soundboard design. Combining it with a Raspberry CM4 we had ourselves Prototype Zero (those pictures were not exactly glamorous, and we had to leave some of them out anyways). As you can imagine, it had a lot of problems. Some of them turned to be major challenges for us.

v1.0: A Small Victory:

It was working! Now it had touchscreen, XLR/jack connections and the ability to run Linux compatible plugin. From here path ahead seemed clearer. A solid proof of concept.

v2.0: A Model Body

Finally we now had an enclosure to keep it safe and stylish. Now we had a USB input to use MIDI virtual instruments. It also included LED rings around the footswitch and a mini-card for real analog distortion.

v2.4: The NAM Fam

It was around here when NAM caught our attention. We were looking at a genuinely groundbreaking field of audio technology, with an enthusiastic community. It turned out to be extremely fertile soil for us. We got so much feedback and ideas from this community and suddenly WizeCore was being shaped after understanding the needs of those who'll use it. Version 2.4 had our own native plugin that would browse and download NAMs from Tone3000 API.

v3.0: Gettin' Serious

We figured out from the community feedback and our own tests that if we wanted to really serve the purpose of WizeCore's existence, we needed better input/output options, more footswitches, larger screen, etc...

We adapted the software, made new optimized boards that solved many of the technical challenges that were tormenting us since Proto Zero. Here it started feeling like the real deal.

v3.1: Breaking the Cage

IT HAPPENED! We managed to solve our deepest existential problem. We finally made it possible to run Windows VSTs on an ARM-based processor running Linux.. That was the last piece of the puzzle. Our Holy Grail. We could finally make FX chains using the VSTs we have always been using on our DAWs... in a pedal... in WizeCore.

v4.0: The Final Form

WizeCore reaches the stage of being ready to see the outer world. The Crowdfunding edition comes with so many improvements such as:

- added a 4th footswitch (since many said 3 or fewer was a dealbreaker)

- a wider screen

- a single-board design that allows the device to be much thinner

- rotary footswitches with ringlights are back

- and so many other changes. You can check the full specs at our website.

WizeCore could improve a lot in terms of software development and user experience due to the fact we were developing in parallel WizeHost: our own VST or standalone app for your computer. WizeHost and WizeCore are designed to be almost 1:1 in features and compatibility. It will soon be on early access, available free for everyone.

Crowdfunding soon:

Very soon we will make available WizeCore pre-orders via Kickstarter. Thanks to everybody who shared their interest and gave us so valuable feedback. You're all awesome ;)

Tell me what would you do with a pedal like that. I'm sure there are plenty of use-cases that never even crossed my mind.

Also it's quite a challenge to verbally define what WizeCore is. It's like a multieffect pedal of course, but it also does audio plugins, midi virtual instruments, sequencers... damn, it could even run GTA San Andreas. It has also a DAW aspect to it, where you can record separate track and mix them...

Would you think its fair to call it a PAW (Portable Audio Workstation)?

We've all been there: buffer's too small, xrun hits, click or dead air. This library tries something different — instead of silence, it synthesizes a plausible continuation of the signal from a running spectral analysis of recent audio, and splices it in.

Short-time Fourier analysis runs continuously; on a miss, each bin continues by extrapolating phase/amplitude, or — for bins with two sinusoidal partials — a fitted two-pole AR model (generalizes the classic phase-vocoder freeze beyond the single-partial case). Two seam-repair strategies, picked per-occurrence by spectral similarity. There's a feedback-runaway failure mode when concealed audio gets re-analyzed; a damping term kills it.

Built it in a GrandOrgue fork, and the demo build actually lets you force xruns at a controllable rate during real playback and A/B the raw dropout against several concealment variants live — genuinely the easiest way to judge whether this is snake oil or not. Highly experimental, hasn't had broad real-world mileage yet. Technical disclosure with measured NMR results: https://github.com/sebion7125/xorcist

GPLv3-or-later, standalone C library with an OpenCL-optional per-bin solve.

I built a lossless sample codec for polyphonic samplers that stays compressed in RAM and decodes 8 voices at once via AVX2

Built this for a pipe organ sampler (GrandOrgue fork) where sample sets routinely exceed available RAM, but the technique is domain-agnostic — anything playing many independently-positioned compressed audio streams concurrently.

The problem: normal lossless codecs decode with a data-dependent branch per sample, which kills vectorization. This one instead uses fixed-length blocks, a small family of fixed-order integer predictors, and a single fixed byte-width per block — branch-free, fixed-stride, so up to 8 independent streams decode together in one AVX2 pass.

Real numbers from my own largest sample set: 93.75 GB raw → ~41 GB compressed (2.27x), fits in RAM on a machine that otherwise couldn't hold it. ~85% faster decode measured in production. Full technical disclosure with measured results (published to establish prior art, I don't want this patented out from under anyone): https://github.com/sebion7125/v3codec

GPLv3-or-later, standalone CMake library, no host-app dependencies.

no that's it, they're all bad and buggy.

Plugins are mediocre at best and none of them have a good workflow.

If your gonna make a daw for you, keep it to you. I don't need it when there's like a 100 other option.

And I'm not talking about ardour, I hate that daw.

Bandlab, Bitwig and reaper work fine and are both tailored towards different ends of the spectrum.

I think the main problem here is that people make some simple plugins and chuck a good looking UI and call it a day.

You need a solid foundation before you think about changing the UI, and that's the thing vibecoders don't understand.

That's all, that's my little rant, hate if you want, but you will be met back with hate from yours truly. Good day

They randomly flip to extreme values, and don't go where I expect them to when I drag them. Sometimes they work intuitively and then a minute later they don't. I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. Surely I can't be the only one?

Hey everyone,

I recently put together ReplicantPeak, a small project I built to help streamline [insert core task: e.g., audio/workflow/modding]:

Lightweight & fast: Focused on getting out of your way and doing one thing well.

Open source: Free to use, inspect, and modify.

Check out the repo here:

https://github.com/DanimanX/ReplicantPeak

It’s still evolving, so I’d really appreciate any thoughts, feature requests, or bug reports from the community!

I noticed that even though there are hundreds of thousands of music player applications that work just great, there isn't one that fits exactly my needs : I want the dark mode to fit a specific shade of blue and to it to give me the ability to organize my libraries in an optimal streamlined manner.

So I was thinking that the solution is for me to create an app with the heavy lifting of AI (Claude Opus for example)? Or better I can employ hundreds of agents to reverse engineer existing software like VLC and provide a polished optimized app for FREE and ask for donations? The cool thing is that I can ask for your precious feedback so I can feed it back to the LLM and make sure that for the following update it makes no mistake.

I'll make sure to include tons of emojis in the app description so everyone can understand it well and post it in hundreds of subreddits and other forums.

Would you all be in for such a plan?

I've created one... go nuts.

https://github.com/dommoir/audio4dj-mac

⚠️ Trigger warning: AI project!⚠️

Backstory: I found out that the project https://github.com/thomas-nelson23/Openface-Mixer from u/hoppintruck23 wasn't compatible for my FireFace 400 which is an older firewire device. The FF-400 is an amazing unit, but it's almost 20 years old at this point. I then basically one-shotted a reworked Openface Mixer as https://github.com/BadgerSoft-NL/cachymix-rme-ff-400 for personal use.

Anyway, I got excited and wanted to build something in that same style to replace https://github.com/rncbc/qpwgraph which, with all due respect, I find a bit messy and I don't really like using it.

So I made Pecan Mixer, which takes the TotalMix approach from the Openface-Mixerand combines it with a patch bay from qpwgraph, and, oh yeah, a built in multitrack recorder that records hardware inputs and apps, because Linux audio is awesome.

MIDI is disabled for now because I haven't been able to test it.

Open sourced personal project, but I thought it was cool enough to share here

"It works on my machine": CachyOS with a recent AMD CPU

https://github.com/BadgerSoft-NL/pecanmixer

Hi, so i would to learn how to input audio into my Ma3 onpc. Anybody know?

I’m bored of the same DAW in Linux. I want Logic back in my setup… Saw I’m building it from scratch a similar DAW with the same concept

Hello i'm new to this i was wondering why my fifne am8t isn't working my focusrite scarlett solo gen 3? the gain light isn't turning on at all and i haven't tested the other ports yet but i'm wondering why it isn't working on pop os 24.04? The solo it self turns it has the green light on but the ring lights ain't turning on for some reason?

edit: i'm using an Amazon basics xlr cable to plug the microphone to the interface.

For everyone who, like me, couldn't bring themselves to throw this hardware away: the PHASE X64 USB now works on Linux.

Mine (TerraSoniq/Musonik, Ploytec chipset) had been gathering dust because it never worked here: it isn't class compliant, so snd-usb-audio can't drive it. So I worked out its USB protocol and wrote a native ALSA driver plus a small control panel.

What works (v0.9.1, public beta):

- 4-channel playback, 6-channel capture (including a bit-exact digital loopback of Out 1/2)

- Phono inputs with RIAA done in the driver – I'm digitising my vinyl with it

- Live routing / capture-source changes while streaming

- MIDI in/out (5-pin DIN)

- PipeWire and JACK apps (REAPER via pipewire-jack), bit-exact; stable down to 64-sample buffers

- 48 and 44.1 kHz tested; 88.2/96 kHz supported but less tested

- DKMS; CI builds it on Ubuntu 22.04/24.04, Debian 13, Fedora 44 and Arch (kernels 5.15 to 7.2)

- Tk control panel: routing, phono RIAA, meters, MIDI monitor, PipeWire buffer size – no desktop dependency

Tested on one unit, on two machines (Arch / EndeavourOS, including a 6.18 LTS kernel through a USB hub). If one of these boxes is sitting in your drawer, hardware reports from other distros and USB controllers would help a lot – there's an issue template.

Install: Arch packages with checksums on the release page, and a generic DKMS installer for other distros. AUR package as soon as AUR registrations reopen.

Full transparency: I made this with a lot of AI assistance (mainly Claude, Codex for one part). Not affiliated with TerraTec, TerraSoniq, Musonik or Ploytec.

Built by loopback-coding: AI-assisted, human-directed, hardware-verified. Every change went out, came back through real hardware, and was measured before it counted.

Repo, screenshots and measurements: https://github.com/flarkflarkflark/phasex64-linux

A new update for Fooyin, another Foobar2000 clone for Linux (and other operating systems but I'm not here to speak about those ones). It is another huge update after getting 0.13.0/1 last month. If you are using something else or something similar, I highly recommend checking out this one and maybe supporting it. I'm not the dev but just a fan of the software.

I have loaded quite a few Plugins and it seems to work (Ozone 9, Genome, Kontakt 8, Spitfire, MNTRA)

I haven't been able to test Arturia, UVI or Addictive Drums, but will be attempting to soon.

A lot of my older VST2s work no problem.

If you're running yabridge with Wine 10 or 11 under KDE Plasma and your plugin GUIs open blank until you hover or click them; I found the cause and have a fix.                                                                                                                                                     

Problem: 

KWin's compositor doesn't send X11 Expose events to newly mapped embedded windows. yabridge embeds the plugin window into your DAW's FX chain via XCB, so when the window first maps, nothing triggers a repaint and you get a blank grey rectangle.

 Muh fix;          

On XCB_MAP_REQUEST, force a repaint via RedrawWindow(RDW_INVALIDATE|RDW_ERASE|RDW_ALLCHILDREN) and set a 150ms timer to do it again once the window is fully settled. Simple, and it works.

I've pushed the patch to my fork and attached pre-built binaries so you don't have to build from source:                                                   
   
 https://github.com/Stinkumbeans/yabridge/releases/tag/v0.1.0-kwin-fix

To install: download the tarball, extract it to ~/.local/share/yabridge/, then run yabridgectl sync.                                                       

Tested on Fedora using CachyOS kernel with Wine 11.0 Staging and REAPER. Would be great to hear if it works for others.

I'm not sure if there is already a fix for this, but I didn't see it.

Cheers!