Author Archives: tom2tec

MicToggle ~ Microphone Control Tool

Posted by tom2tec on

MicToggle is a lightweight microphone control tool designed for focus and clarity. Instantly mute or unmute your mic using a custom hotkey — no matter what you’re doing. Stay aware of your mic status with a movable on-screen overlay, system tray icon, and optional audio cues. Choose your preferred microphone, set startup behavior, and enjoy a clean, unobtrusive interface. Whether you’re gaming, streaming, or in meetings, MicToggle keeps you in control.

Features:

  • Custom Hotkey — Instantly mute or unmute your mic using a hotkey you choose.
  • Microphone Selection — Pick which mic to control if multiple devices are connected.
  • On-Screen Overlay — Always know your mic’s status with a floating icon that you can reposition or disable.
  • Startup Options — Start minimized, run at Windows startup, or launch with mic muted.
  • Mic Status on Launch — Optionally hear a sound or get a notification showing your mic’s state when the app starts.
  • Visual Status Indicators — Colored icons clearly show your mic state both in the app and system tray.
  • Tray Controls — Toggle mute, open settings, or exit — all from the tray.
  • Clean Interface — Simple, responsive UI designed to stay out of your way.
  • Lightweight & Fast — Uses minimal resources, ideal for streamers, meetings, and gamers.

sourceforge.net/projects/mictoggle

Foobar2000 ~ Backing Up & Restoring Themes

Posted by tom2tec on

Before layout changes are made and periodically, it’s a good idea to backup your current theme.

Open File > Preferences > Display > Default User Interface

Now select Export Theme to open the Choose Theme Selections to Export dialog

Normally everything is left selected. Click Ok and give the .fth theme backup file a useful name and save it in a folder that itself is backed up.

If you make a layout mistake or need to install a new instance of foobar2000 just import the .fth theme file

shntool ~ WAVE Processing & Reporting Utility

Posted by tom2tec on

shntool is a multi-purpose WAVE data processing and reporting utility. File formats are abstracted from its core, so it can process any file that contains WAVE data, compressed or not – provided there exists a format module to handle that particular file type.

shntool has native support for .wav files. If you want it to work with other lossless audio formats, you must have the appropriate helper program installed. The “Helper programs” section below contains links to helper programs for each format that shntool supports.

shnutils.freeshell.org/shntool
github.com/bayun/shntool

foo_scrobbler_mac ~ Foo Scrobbler For Macs

Posted by tom2tec on

Foo Scrobbler (foo_scrobbler_mac) is a native Last.fm scrobbling plugin for foobar2000 on macOS. Submits tracks based on precise playback rules, caches scrobbles when offline, and operates silently after one-time authentication. Built using the official foobar2000 plugin API, it focuses on reliability, low overhead, and correct metadata handling. Fully open-source under GPLv3.

Supports macOS ≥ 11.5 on both Intel and ARM.

github.com/zfoxer/foo_scrobbler_mac

Splitting A Single Album File Into Tracks

Posted by tom2tec on

Convert an album from a single media file with a .cue file to individual tracks instead.

Option 1: foobar2000 (easy, very reliable)

If you already use foobar2000, this is usually the best choice.

Steps

  1. Open foobar2000
  2. Drag either the .cue file or the .flac file into foobar
    • If the CUE is correct, you’ll see the album broken into tracks.
  3. Select all the tracks
  4. Right-click → Convert → …
  5. Choose:
    • Output format: FLAC
    • Processing: none needed
  6. Click Destination
    • Output path: your album folder
    • File name pattern (example): %tracknumber% - %title%
  7. Convert

Result

  • Individual FLAC tracks
  • No quality loss (bit-perfect split)
  • Metadata pulled from the CUE

💡 Note: If the cue has gaps or pre-emphasis flags, foobar2000 handles them correctly.

Option 2: CUETools (best for archival accuracy)

If you care about log verification, AccurateRip, or preserving exact offsets, this is the gold standard.

Steps

  1. Download CUETools
  2. Open it and load the .cue file
  3. Set:
    • Action: Encode
    • Audio Output: FLAC
    • Mode: Tracks
  4. Start

Result

  • Sample-accurate track splits
  • Excellent for archival rips
  • Strong metadata handling

This is especially good if the album originated from a CD rip.

Option 3: FLAC + shntool (command line, Linux-friendly)

If you’re on Linux, shntool works well.

Example

shnsplit -f album.cue -o flac album.flac

Then tag the files:

cuetag album.cue *.flac

Result

  • Clean, lossless splits
  • Metadata from CUE applied
  • More manual, but very transparent

Option 4: MusicBrainz Picard (semi-automatic)

Useful if:

  • The CUE has weak or missing metadata
  • You want MusicBrainz tags

Workflow:

  • Load the CUE
  • Let Picard identify the release
  • Use Tools → Split files

Not as precise as foobar or CUETools for offsets, but fine for most albums.

foo_schedule ~ Foobar2000 Alarm Clock

Posted by tom2tec on

One of the easy ways to increase Foobar2000’s usefulness is by adding the ability to automate and schedule certain tasks. To accomplish this you’ll need:

  1. A current install of Foobar2000
  2. Then install foo_schedular
  3. Create a playlist or use an existing one
  4. Navigate to File > Preferences > Scheduler
  5. Add an Action list
  6. Add an Event
  7. Apply


Note: This component is still only 32bit

Resources:

foo_alarm ~ for earlier foobar2000 releases

Frugal Horn ~ Open Source Speaker Box

Posted by tom2tec on

The Frugel-Horns (the name is a cross between flugelhorn & frugal) is a series of 3 sizes of tapped horns based on redesign of the original Frugel-Horn with goals of simpler, smoother, more versatile… all have been met, and driver versatility has proven to exceed hopes & expectation.

www.frugal-horn.com/FH-family

caudec ~ Multiprocess Audio Converter

Posted by tom2tec on

caudec is a command-line utility that transcodes (converts) audio files from one format (codec) to another, among other things.

It leverages multi-core CPUs and runs multiple processes concurrently (one per file and per codec, and more than one thread per codec when it supports it). The objective is to hog the CPU as much and as long as possible. One strategy is to sort input files by size, so that the largest files potentially get more threads towards the end of the job.

Features:

  • Supported input formats / codecs: WAV, AIFF, CAF, FLAC, WavPack, Monkey’s Audio, ALAC.
  • Supported output formats / codecs: all of the above, as well as LossyWAV / LossyFLAC, MP3, AAC (.m4a), Ogg Vorbis, Opus.
  • Supported platforms: macOS, Linux.
  • Transcoding to several different codecs at once is possible. In that case, decoding of input files is done only once.
  • Metadata is preserved (as much as possible) from one codec to another.
  • Artwork can be embedded into each file, and / or copied to the output directory. It can be done selectively (e.g. embed and / or copy one image for lossless files, and another image for lossy files).
  • Audio can be resampled (e.g. 48kHz to 44.1kHz) and downmixed (e.g. 6 channels to stereo). A profile can be provided to set a maximum value for the number of channels, bit depth and sampling rate. When a profile is provided, the source will only be altered after decoding and before encoding, if some metric of the source is above the given profile.
  • Multiprocess ReplayGain scanner for FLAC, WavPack, MP3, Ogg Vorbis, Opus.
  • Ability to hard link lossy files to a different directory when encoding to WavPack Hybrid. The point is to have two libraries that takes the storage of just one, with a lossy collection that has its own root directory and that’s easy to drag and drop to a device such as a smartphone or a Digital Audio Player (DAP).
  • Ability to touch files and album directories using metadata to reflect the music’s release date and duration (see example below).

github.com/gcocatre/caudec

Drops ~ Single Sample Player

Posted by tom2tec on

Drops is a single audio file sample player plugin in lv2 and vst format for linux.

Load an audio file, play it, loop it, pitch shift it, and make it into something entirely new.

github.com/clearly-broken-software/drops

Buzz ~ Audio Transcription & Translation

Posted by tom2tec on

Buzz transcribes and translates audio to text offline using OpenAI’s Whisper. Import audio and video files into Buzz and export them as TXT, SRT, or VTT files. Buzz supports Whisper, Whisper.cpp, Faster Whisper, Whisper-compatible models from the Hugging Face repository, and the OpenAI Whisper API.

Features:

  • Transcribe audio and video files or Youtube links
  • Live realtime audio transcription from microphone
    • Presentation window for easy accessibility during events and presentations
  • Speech separation before transcription for better accuracy on noisy audio
  • Speaker identification in transcribed media
  • Multiple whisper backend support
    • CUDA acceleration support for Nvidia GPUs
    • Apple Silicon support for Macs
    • Vulkan acceleration support for Whisper.cpp on most GPUs, including integrated GPUs
  • Export transcripts to TXT, SRT, and VTT
  • Advanced Transcription Viewer with search, playback controls, and speed adjustment
  • Keyboard shortcuts for efficient navigation
  • Watch folder for automatic transcription of new files
  • Command-Line Interface for scripting and automation

github.com/chidiwilliams/buzz
sourceforge.net/projects/buzz-captions

ZuseMe ~ Last.fm Client

Posted by tom2tec on

ZuseMe allows you to scrobble songs to Last.fm from players like Groove Music, Media Player (Windows 11) and more.

github.com/dumbie/ZuseMe

MODICIA OS ~ Multimedia Digital Workstation

Posted by tom2tec on

MODICIA O.S. is a complete multimedia workstation for creatives, professionals, and curious users. Runs live from USB with no installation required. Stable, multilingual, and packed with ready-to-use tools.

✨ Key Features

🔃 Live system — boot from USB without modifying your PC

🎥 Multimedia suite — video, audio, graphics, photography

🗂 Office suite — documents and business tools

🧰 Curated software — no duplicates, no broken tools

🖥 Optimized interface — compact layout with visual alerts

🌍 Multilingual — over 30 languages supported

🛡 Invisible fallback logic — safety and stability

🔗 Clickable license buttons — semitransparent, linking to local control files

🎯 Ideal Users

🎬 Filmmakers, editors, streamers

🎧 Musicians, podcasters, sound designers

🎨 Designers, illustrators, photographers

🧑‍🏫 Teachers, writers, office professionals

🧑‍💻 Students and beginners

🐧 Open source users seeking localization and compliance

📦 Included Applications (Examples)

Category Applications

🎞 Video Kdenlive, Shotcut, OBS Studio

🎚 Audio Audacity, Ardour, LMMS

🖌 Graphics GIMP, Inkscape, Krita

📷 Photo Darktable, RawTherapee

📝 Office LibreOffice, PDF Studio

🌐 Web Firefox ESR, Thunderbird, FileZilla

🧹 Utilities GParted, Timeshift, BleachBit

🚀 How to Use

📥 Download the ISO from modiciaos.cloud

🔧 Write it to USB using Rufus or Balena Etcher

💻 Boot the live system on any compatible PC

🎉 Start creating — no installation, no subscriptions, no limits

www.modiciaos.cloud
sourceforge.net/projects/modicia-o-s