Category Archives: Freeware

Free To Use Audio Software

MeasureLab ~ Audio Measurement Suite

Posted by tom2tec on

A collection of DIY audio measurement and analysis tools, grown organically as needed. This software is compatible with standard audio devices.

PyQt6 desktop app bundling 28+ DIY modules: signal generator, spectrum/PSD analyzer, sound level & LUFS meters, loopback finder, distortion/IMD tools, network/impedance analyzers, oscilloscope, spectrogram, ultrasound modulator, transient analyzer, lock-in/FRA, inverse filter, frequency counter, recorder/player, sound quality analyzer, noise profiler, boxcar averager, goniometer, BNIM meter (ITD/ILD neural map), HRTF Player, and more.

Built for hobbyists and engineers: device routing, calibration (input/output/SPL), multi-language UI, light/dark themes.

github.com/youtube-at-vach/MeasureLab
youtube-at-vach.github.io/MeasureLab

pre.di.c ~ Digital Crossover

Posted by tom2tec on

This program makes a linux computer equipped with a modern sound card behave as a traditional hi-fi preamp, but able also to make advanced DSP equalization and crossover tasks.

That means that, with a proper soundcard, external sources can be used, be them analog or digital, along with digital libraries or streamed sources.

codeberg.org/rripio/pre.di.c
github.com/rripio/pre.di.c

Earful ~ Audiophile Hearing Test App

Posted by tom2tec on

What is it? And a WARNING!

Earful is an app designed to measure and evaluate the lower threshold of hearing across a frequency spectrum. It is designed to run on Windows and support ASIO, WASAPI, and Direct Sound audio devices. Use with headphones is recommended for greater accuracy and noise elimination.

In addition, with version .10, Earful now supports two other types of tests:

  • Equal-loudness testing using the same device and 1kHz reference tone
  • Two devices equal-loudness testing, using a reference device, such as speakers, and a test devices, such as headphones

The app is free to use, but to use it, you must agree to do so AT YOUR OWN RISK ONLY. Make sure that the volume settings are set such that any loud sounds played through your system will not damage your equipment or your hearing! This is important. Set the frequency range in Earful correctly, and also specify the maximum volume setting at a low number to avoid surprises (default is -20dBFS).

Features:

  • Pick your own frequency range for the test
  • Specify any number of logarithmically spread points to test along the frequency axis
  • Compare your results to others, compare to your older tests to check for changes, or compare to any of the industry standard, published curves
  • Test with a single tone, a warble tone, or a band-limited white noise
  • Using a simple text format supported by REW, so the result can be loaded into that tool directly
  • Supports ASIO, WASAPI exclusive/shared, and Direct Sound device drivers
  • Display in dB SPL or in db FS with configurable dBSPL calibration
  • Apply a flat calibration curve to account for variations in headphones or speakers
  • Equal-loudness testing using a 1kHz reference or a separate audio device

distortaudio.org/earful

Use is entirely at your own risk.

AFsp ~ Audio File I/O Routines

Posted by tom2tec on

The AFsp package is a library of routines for reading and writing
audio files. The emphasis is on providing support for the type of
audio file used by the speech processing research community. The
routines have been designed to be easy to use, yet provide transparent
support the reading of several audio file formats. A secondary
purpose for distributing these routines is to encourage the use of a
standard audio file format for the header information in the output
files.

The following file formats are supported for reading.

  • NIST SPHERE audio files
  • Sun/NeXT audio files
  • DEC audio files
  • IRCAM SoundFiles
  • INRS-Telecom audio files
  • ESPS sampled data feature files
  • Headerless audio files

The audio file open routine automatically senses the file type and
communicates it to the audio file reading routines. Formats are
converted on the fly as the file is read, so the user manipulates
floats and doesn’t need to worry about the underlying data format.

For writing, the routines produce a standard format file, though
options are available to produce headerless files if desired. This
standard format is a compatible with the Sun audio file format. There
is provision for storing extra information in the extensible part of
the header.

Several audio file utilities (for copying, comparing, and filtering
audio files) are included in the package.

www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/ai-repository/ai/areas/speech/systems/afsp/0

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

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

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

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

It’s MyTabs ~ Tablature Viewer & Player

Posted by tom2tec on

Open source, web based, self hostable guitar/bass tab viewer and player, similar to Songsterr.

github.com/louislam/its-mytabs
sourceforge.net/projects/it-s-mytabs.mirror

foo_truepeak ~ True Peak Scanner

Posted by tom2tec on

foo_truepeak is a ITU-R BS.1770-5 compliant True Peak scanner. It can also scan ReplayGain, Loudness Range (LRA), Dynamic Range (DR), show the amount of clipping samples and report the position of highest peak.

www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_truepeak

For users primarily concerned with playback quality and simplicity, foo_truepeak can replace foobar2000’s ReplayGain and DR scanners. It uses modern loudness standards, detects true peaks and can write all relevant tags in a single pass. While its ReplayGain and DR values may not exactly match legacy scanners, they are more appropriate for real-world playback on modern systems.

1. Download and install foo_truepeak

  1. Download foo_truepeak.fb2k-component from the official component page.
  2. In foobar2000, open File → Preferences → Components.
  3. Click Install…, select the foo_truepeak.fb2k-component file.
  4. Restart foobar2000 when prompted.

2. Disabling legacy scanners (optional but recommended)

To avoid confusion or duplicate workflows:

  1. Don’t try removing the ReplayGain scanner as it’s built in.
  2. You can uninstall foo_dr_meter and or foo_dynamic_meter.

This keeps foo_truepeak as your single analysis tool.

3. Open foo_truepeak preferences

Go to File → Preferences → Advanced → Tools → True Peak Scanner

4. Ensure the following is enabled

✔ Scan True Peak Values

True peak scanning accounts for inter-sample peaks created during digital-to-analog conversion, ensuring that peak levels reflect what a real DAC actually outputs, not just what is stored in the file.

5. Enable ReplayGain scanning

✔ Scan ReplayGain values

Notes:
  • Gains are derived from EBU R128 loudness, but written as ReplayGain tags.
  • Peaks are true peaks, not simple sample peaks.
  • Playback normalization works normally in foobar2000.

6. Enable Dynamic Range scanning

✔ Scan Dynamic Range (DR) values

Notes:

  • These values are analytical, not official TT DR Meter values.
  • They are suitable for comparison within your library, not for DR Database submissions.

7. Choose tag writing behavior

✔ Use ReplayGain tag fields for peak and gain

8. Run a True Peak scan

  1. Select a track, tracks or albums in a playlist.
  2. Right-click → True Peak Scan.

You can also create custom buttons on the toolbar for Album or Track scans.

Download True Peak Toolbar Button Icons

9. Verify tags at first

After scanning, check the file(s) to ensure tagging happened correctly:

  • Open Properties > ReplayGain
  • Confirm presence of values for:
    • Track Gain
    • Album Gain
    • Total Peak
    • Lowest gain (loudest track)
    • Highest gain (quietist track)

10. Use ReplayGain during playback

  1. Enable ReplayGain in Preferences → Playback → ReplayGain.
  2. Choose your preferred mode, Track or Album.

foobar2000 will now use modern loudness analysis and playback without intersample clipping.

Summary:

  • One scan
  • One pass
  • Peak safe playback
  • Modern loudness normalization

This setup is ideal for users who prioritize listening quality and ease of use over legacy metric compatibility.

References:

www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_truepeak
foobar.hyv.fi/?view=foo_truepeak
wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/Foobar2000:Components/True_Peak_Scanner
hydrogenaudio.org/index.php/topic,125719.0
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amplitude
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_normalization
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReplayGain

Alternative DSP
www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_dsp_replaygain