Lacinato ABX ~ Comparing Track Quality


Lacinato ABX is the only cross-platform ABX and shootout blind testing software for audio. It allows double-blind ABX testing of audio files (seeing if you can tell which file is being played), as well as “shootouts” (picking your favorite from a shuffled, anonymized list). Or you can just use it as a convenient way to switch between files (maintaining the current play position, if you like.

Lacinato ABX

Website
Web Service ~ online version
ABX Testing ~ Wikipedia

Audacious & XMMS ~ VU Meters Plugin


Open source, multi-instance, skinnable VU meters for Audacious and XMMS.

sc5

Audacious with several instances

vumeterplugin.sourceforge.net
Discussion
Downloads

Skins:
http://vumeterplugin.sourceforge.net/themes.php
http://www.gnome-look.org/content/show.php/LED+VU+meter?content=140540

Sox ~ The Swiss Army Knife Of Sound Processing


SoX is a cross-platform command line utility that can convert various formats of computer audio files into other formats. It can also apply various effects to these sound files, and, as an added bonus, SoX can play and record audio files on most platforms.

Sox
Sox sample session

Website
Features
Download
Documentation
Scripts
FAQ

Additional resources:
www.audiofaidate.org/sw/sox-dsd/
codeberg.org/sox_ng

Peppy Players ~ DIY Audio Players


Peppy Players

Hardware, software and woodware do-it-yourself audio players

Peppy Players ~ GitHub

YAFS ~ Changing Song Order On USB Sticks


Some players display, or play files, in the order that the file was originally copied to a USB drive or stick. YAFS (Yet Another FAT Sorter) allows the order to be changed to whatever you prefer. YAFS is a multi-platform, open source, freeware, command line utility with a GUI (Graphical User Interface).

image2

Website
Visual YAFS ~ Frontend

REW ~ Room EQ Wizard


REW is free room acoustics analysis software for measuring and analyzing room and loudspeaker responses. The audio analysis features of REW help you optimize the acoustics of your listening room, studio or home theater and find the best locations for your speakers, subwoofers and listening position.

aftereq500h

www.roomeqwizard.com
www.hometheatershack.com/forums/rew-forum
sourceforge.net/projects/equalizerapo
Multi-Sub Optimizer
Convolver – A Convolution Plugin

PeppyMeter ~ Linux Analog VU Meter


PeppyMeter is a software VU Meter written in Python. It was originally developed as the new ‘VU Meter’ screensaver for Peppy Player. With minor modifications it became a stand-alone application. PeppyMeter gets audio data from media players (e.g. mpd) via fifo and displays current volume levels in a Graphical User Interface in the form of a traditional VU Meter.

  • Written in Python.
  • Pygame library leveraged for UI purposes.
  • UI is available in three resolutions 800×480, 480×320 and 320×240 pixels.
  • The input for the program is the data from the named pipe. That signal should be provided by peppyalsa plugin.
  • Supplies 9 default meters out of the box.
  • Allows you to add your own meters.
  • Open-source. All source files are available on Github.
  • Several data sources are available for testing and tuning.
  • Provides four types of output: Display, Serial, I2C and PWM.

meters

github.com/project-owner/PeppyMeter.doc/wiki
github.com/project-owner/PeppyMeter
diyaudio.com/forums/pc-based/291010-peppymeter

AcousticBrainz ~ Analyze Your Music


The AcousticBrainz project aims to crowd source acoustic information for all music in the world and to make it available to the public. This acoustic information describes the acoustic characteristics of music and includes low-level spectral information and information for genres, moods, keys, scales and much more. The goal of AcousticBrainz is to provide music technology researchers and open source hackers with a massive database of information about music. ~ AcousticBrainz

Blog
Downloads
FAQ
Github
Wiki

Ex Falso / Quod Libet ~ Tag Editor / Player


Quod Libet is a GTK+-based audio player written in Python, using the Mutagen tagging library. It’s designed around the idea that you know how to organize your music better than we do. It lets you make playlists based on regular expressions (don’t worry, regular searches work too). It lets you display and edit any tags you want in the file, for all the file formats it supports.

Unlike some, Quod Libet will scale to libraries with tens of thousands of songs. It also supports most of the features you’d expect from a modern media player: Unicode support, advanced tag editing, ReplayGain, podcasts & Internet radio, album art support and all major audio formats – see the screenshots.

Ex Falso is a program that uses the same tag editing backend as Quod Libet, but isn’t connected to an audio player. If you’re perfectly happy with your favorite player and just want something that can handle tagging, Ex Falso is for you.

Quod Libet

Website
Download
Features
Guide
Screenshots
Quod Libet Companion Plugins

RareWares ~ Freeware Audio Archive


Providing hard-to-find pieces of software since 2001

Repository of open audio CODECs, compiled LAME binaries and freeware utilities.

http://rarewares.org

freedb.org ~ Metadata Lookup Service


Sadly, this service was terminated as of March 2020, apparently due to corporate indifference.

freedb was a free CD and music database service to look up textual metadata about music, audio or data CDs. This was done by a client which queried the freedb database. As a result, the client displayed the artist, CD title, track list and some additional information. Clients are for example CD players, CD rippers and CD burning software.

www.freedb.org
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedb

Alternative CDDB servers:

  • freedb.dbpoweramp.com – defunct link
  • gnudb.org

Resources:

DRC ~ Digital Room Correction Filter Generator


DRC is a program used to generate correction filters for acoustic compensation of HiFi and audio systems in general, including listening room compensation. DRC generates just the FIR correction filters, which can be used with a real time or offline convolver to provide real time or offline correction. DRC doesn’t provide convolution features, and provides only some simplified, although really accurate, measuring tools.

drc-fir.sourceforge.net
sourceforge.net/projects/drc-fir/files/
Documentation
Wikipedia