Author Archives: tom2tec

SOF ~ DSP Firmware Infrastructure & SDK

Posted by tom2tec on

Sound Open Firmware (SOF) is an open source audio Digital Signal Processing (DSP) firmware infrastructure and SDK. SOF provides infrastructure, real-time control pieces, and audio drivers as a community project. The project is governed by the Sound Open Firmware Technical Steering Committee (TSC) that includes prominent and active developers from the community. SOF is developed in public and hosted on the GitHub platform.

The firmware and SDK are intended for developers who are interested in audio or signal processing on modern DSPs. SOF provides a framework where audio developers can create, test, and tune the following:

  • Audio processing pipelines and topologies.
  • Audio processing components.
  • DSP infrastructure and drivers.
  • Host OS infrastructure and drivers.

sofproject.org
thesofproject.github.io
github.com/thesofproject/sof
Youtube: Sound Open Firmware – Liam Girdwood, Intel

SJPlot Online ~ Phono Cartridge Frequency Response Analysis

Posted by tom2tec on

You can now use this WEB UI to generate frequency response graphs

sjplot.com/online
www.audiosciencereview.com/…introducing-the-phono-cartridge-measurement-library

Cavern ~ Object-based Audio Engine & CODEC

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Cavern is a fully adaptive object-based audio rendering engine and (up)mixer without limitations for home, cinema, and stage use. Audio transcoding and self-calibration libraries built on the Cavern engine are also available. This repository also features a Unity plugin and a standalone converter called Cavernize.

Cavern goes beyond fixed-channel audio systems by rendering any number of audio “objects” in three-dimensional space, tailored to the listener’s speaker arrangement or headphone output. It is also supported by a standalone conversion tool, Cavernize, which allows users to convert spatial mixes into conventional channel-based PCM formats while maintaining positional accuracy.

Key Features and Capabilities:

Object-Based Rendering
Cavern supports an unrestricted number of audio objects and output channels. This allows precise spatial placement and movement of sounds in 3D space, independent of specific channel layouts.

Codec and Container Support
The engine and its companion tools support a wide range of codecs and containers, including those commonly used for immersive audio delivery. Traditional formats such as WAV and common multimedia containers are also supported.

Calibration and Room Correction
Cavern includes tools for self-calibration and room equalization. These can flatten frequency response, compensate for acoustic irregularities, and help unify tonal characteristics across speakers.

Headphone Virtualization
Through HRTF-based processing, Cavern enables spatial rendering over stereo headphones. This simulates direction, distance, and spatial cues to reproduce the effect of multichannel speaker setups in a binaural listening environment.

Real-Time Up-Mixing
Legacy stereo or multichannel content can be up-mixed into fully rendered 3D scenes. This provides an immersive experience even when the source was not originally produced as object-based audio.

Integration with Game Engines
Cavern offers integration with Unity, enabling developers to incorporate real-time positional audio into games, simulations, and interactive media.

Use Cases

Home Cinema and Media Playback
Cavern can render object-based audio tracks for users who do not have commercial hardware processors. It allows accurate spatial playback through both speakers and headphones.

Headphone-Focused Listening
The binaural virtualization system benefits users who rely on headphones for movies, music, gaming, or general media consumption.

Game and VR Development
Developers can use Cavern inside Unity to produce dynamic, spatially accurate audio scenes in interactive applications.

Archiving and Conversion
Cavernize converts object-based audio into standard PCM or channel-based formats, preserving positional intent while enabling playback on conventional systems.

Speaker Optimization
Its calibration tools provide a software-based approach to room correction and multi-speaker alignment without requiring dedicated hardware processors.

Limitations and Considerations

  • Some supporting utilities are not fully open-source and may be distributed under separate licensing terms.
  • Spatial rendering benefits depend on input quality; poor-quality stereo sources will not yield true immersive results.
  • Speaker hardware, room acoustics, and HRTF compatibility affect the perceived accuracy of spatialization.
  • Integrating Cavern into custom software projects requires familiarity with its API and spatial-audio concepts.

Why Cavern Matters

Cavern stands out by making advanced spatial-audio technology accessible without requiring specialized hardware or proprietary processors. By combining open-source rendering, a flexible object-based architecture, codec support, calibration tools, and developer integration, it provides a versatile platform for enthusiasts, researchers, and media creators.

For users interested in experimenting with immersive audio workflows, whether for home cinema, headphone listening, archiving, or game development, Cavern offers a free, comprehensive and adaptable approach.

References:

  • VoidXH / Cavern – GitHub repository
  • Cavern documentation website
  • Cavern package listing on NuGet

cavern.sbence.hu/cavern
github.com/VoidXH/Cavern
github.com/VoidXH/HRTF
cavern.sbence.hu/cavern/doc
cavern.sbence.hu/cavern/downloads
www.nuget.org/packages/Cavern
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_room_correction#Cavern_QuickEQ

flacopyus ~ FLAC To Opus Library Transcription

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Flacopyus is a CLI tool that mirrors your lossless FLAC library to a portable Opus collection. It performs rsync-like batch mirroring with incremental encoding/copying to save time. It preserves metadata and is idempotent, so repeated runs safely keep the destination in sync.

pypi.org/project/flacopyus/
github.com/curegit/flacopyus

DiscogsCSV ~ Query Discogs Via The API

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A CSV-based client for discogs.com release data API.
discogs-csv.com
github.com/steve-davey/discogsCSV

DiscoDOS ~ Discogs Command Line

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github.com/JOJ0/discodos
discodos.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index
www.discogs.com/forum/thread/1112957

Music ~ Android Intent Player

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A music player, made simple yet customizable for Android.

Music is designed to integrate seamlessly with other apps and system functions through intent filters, enabling users to play audio files directly from various external sources.

It aims to provide a responsive and user-friendly experience while leveraging Android’s powerful intent-filters.

github.com/feivegian/music

Schism Tracker ~ Create High Quality Music

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Schism Tracker is a free and open-source reimplementation of Impulse Tracker, a program used to create high quality music without the requirements of specialized, expensive equipment, and with a unique “finger feel” that is difficult to replicate in part. The player is based on a highly modified version of the ModPlug engine, with a number of bugfixes and changes to improve IT playback.

Where Impulse Tracker was limited to i386-based systems running MS-DOS, Schism Tracker runs on almost any platform that SDL supports, and has been successfully built for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, AmigaOS, BeOS, and even Wii. Schism will most likely build on any architecture supported by GCC4 (e.g. alpha, m68k, arm, etc.) but it will probably not be as well-optimized on many systems.

schismtracker.org
github.com/schismtracker
Schism Tracker Tutorial on YouTube
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impulse_Tracker

rtspeccy ~ Realtime Spectrum Analyzer

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rtspeccy is a real time spectrum analyzer. Plug in your microphone and speak, rtspeccy shall visualize your words.

Main features:

  • Keep it simple. “It” refers to the code. No complex configuration
    file, simply a config.h.
  • Displays the spectrogram using OpenGL.
  • Split screen: Show history as well as current spectrum.
    Freeze, zooming and panning.

    Overtone guidelines: Click and hold the left mouse button to show
    guidelines which indicate where over- and undertones of the current frequency are located.

    History is colored via a color ramp.

    Free software (GPL3+).

    Files

github.com/vain/rtspeccy

Foobar2000 ~ foo_whatsnew Feature Watcher

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foo_whatsnew monitors your foobar2000 installation for any new additions or changes and records them. After installing foo_whatsnew, there will be a What's New? menu option on the Help menu which opens a panel displaying a list of recent changes. There’s now support for 64 bit installs and dark mode.

www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_whatsnew

After downloading the component, double click on it to install it and restart foobar2000.

References:

foosion.foobar2000.org/components/?id=whatsnew&version=1.0.7
github.com/stengerh/foo_whatsnew

Music Radar ~ Linux Music Recognition

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Music Radar is a music recognition application for the Linux Desktop.

Features:

  • Can identify song’s title, artist, albums, albumArt etc.
  • Record from Microphone or sound coming from other applications on your system.
  • Saves history of what you have searched.
  • Allows playing preview of identified song, Search it on Youtube, Open it directly in Spotify etc.
  • Dark theme support.

github.com/keshavbhatt/music-radar

foobar2000 ~ Adding A Console Display

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foobar has a diagnostic console that displays confirmations, events and error messages. The console can be accessed via the View > Console submenu or a panel or tab can be assigned to it.

Steps to add a Console Display panel or tab

  1. Create a new area with a splitter or add a new Tab and select it.
  2. Right-click the blank area or new tab area and choose Add New UI Element.
  3. Navigate down to the Utility section and select Console and click Ok.
  4. For tabs, right-click the tab header and choose Rename Tab. Provide a descriptive name like “Console” or “Diagnostics”.
  5. Toggle Layout Editing Mode off.

The console display can be toggled to read from the left or the right sides.

Note for Columns User Interface (CUI) Users

If you are using the Columns User Interface (CUI), you will need the foo_ui_console component:

References:

github.com/reupen/console_panel
wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=Foobar2000:Components/Console_(foo_uie_console)