Tag Archives: macOS

Light Crime ~ MacOS Audio Player

Posted by tom2tec on

The 90s and early 00s were an era of personal computing, self-expression, rapid technical expansion, the web. We were barreling forward at the speed of innovation and culture, and for a brief period, the utopia of new media and self-expression were fueled by the imagination. And then… it stopped. Hotline, KaZaa, Lime Wire, Napster, Tumblr, ICQ, AOL Messenger, IRC, Usenet, Winamp… remember WinRAR? All became irrelevant really quickly, either due to legal restrictions or gutting of communities and platforms. Many artists have reflected on this, but I feel at this moment in time we’re seeing that passion creep back through the cracks of the corporate chokehold on open web.

Light Crime aims to create modern software with a cozier personal computing approach. Spotify is great. Apple Music is meh but no ICE ads, and yet… they still separate you from your media and personal space. All the tools and technologies still exist, sitting dormant, but maybe people have moved on, or recessed to small corners of the web.

When I started coding it was with BASIC and Visual Basic 3. What a joy! But now, with the advent of paired programming with tools like Claude Caude, I don’t have to worry about the labor intensive time suck of building something that cuts against the grain of modern technology. What I would have said “eh who is going to use that?” is replaced with “Who cares, I can spend an afternoon and be done with it.” So I’m going through my backlog of software and art work I want to see in the world. And am no longer stuck in the mind trap of wondering how it fits into the current culture of social media and people’s relationship to software.

ahem … Anyways, I think curating your music on your computer is fun. Making playlists is fun. And generally, just enjoying your computer rather than a terminal to SaSS platforms is refreshing in 2026. Enjoy. – chris

Features:

  • Plays MP3, FLAC, AAC, M4A, WAV, AIFF, CAF, MP4, MOV (audio extracted automatically)
  • Parses M3U, M3U8, PLS, and XSPF playlist files
  • Winamp-style scrolling marquee for long track/artist names — hover a queue row to marquee its title
  • Bitrate + sample rate readout
  • Custom borderless window with drag-anywhere chrome
  • Lives in the menu bar — Dock icon hides when window is closed
  • Hardware media key support (play/pause/next/prev F-keys)
  • Now Playing integration (lock screen, Control Center)
  • Shuffle with Fisher-Yates, previous-track restart threshold
  • Loop mode — loop all or loop one track
  • Drag-to-reorder tracks in the queue and inside playlists
  • Drag-and-drop folders or files to add music
  • Missing file detection — tracks turn red if moved, tap to re-link
  • Playlist manager — create, load, and edit named playlists
  • Audio visualizer — 7 modes: Spectrum Bars, Waveform Scope, Radial Spectrum, Audio Starfield, Frequency Mountains, Beat Tunnel, Starfield
  • Theme editor — 5 built-in presets (Default, Amber, Phosphor, Rose, Slate) + custom color creator
  • Window title brightens when the app is focused, dims when it’s not
  • Persistent library, playlists, and theme across restarts

github.com/chrisallick/light-crime-audio-player

moscue ~ Mac Cue Sheet Player

Posted by tom2tec on

A Compact Disc Digital Audio player simulator for macOS

Delivering an authentic playback of CD rips from Cue Sheet (.cue) files and their paired audio files.

www.moscue.app

GSonic ~ Stereo Redefined

Posted by tom2tec on

GSonic Reference is a high-quality speaker and room correction tool that generates precision FIR correction filters from in-room measurements. It combines spatial measurement averaging with advanced filter generation to deliver studio-grade correction for any stereo listening environment.

Features:

  • Integrated Measurement & Filter Generation — Measure and generate in a single application
  • Spatial Averaging — Multi-position measurement for robust, position-independent correction
  • Automatic Clock Drift Compensation — No need for loopback cables or synchronized clocks
  • Low Latency Filters — 32,768-tap FIR filters at 48 kHz (pure C++ codebase, 341 ms processing latency)
  • Stereo Balance — Perceptual loudness-based stereo balancing
  • Target Curve Support — Built-in presets or bring your own custom target curves
  • Multiple Output Formats — Mono (L/R) and interleaved stereo WAV filters for maximum compatibility
  • ASIO & WASAPI Support — Choose your preferred audio backend on Windows

github.com/ObsessiveCompulsiveAudiophile/GSonic
hydrogenaudio.org/index.php/topic,129351.0

Pear Desktop ~ Desktop Client For YouTube Music

Posted by tom2tec on

Pear Desktop is an Electron-based desktop client for YouTube Music designed for Windows, Linux and macOS. The project keeps the standard YouTube Music interface while adding desktop integration, plugins, themes and additional playback features.

The application is open source and distributed under the MIT license.

Features:

  • Native desktop-style window and controls
  • Plugin framework
  • Ad blocker
  • Lyrics support
  • Last.fm scrobbling
  • Discord Rich Presence
  • Media key support
  • Custom themes and CSS
  • Audio compressor
  • Equalizer
  • Crossfade
  • Skip silences
  • SponsorBlock integration
  • Video/audio mode toggle
  • Notification support
  • Downloader plugin
  • OBS integration
  • System tray support
  • Global keyboard shortcuts

How It Works

Pear Desktop loads the standard YouTube Music web interface inside a desktop application window and extends it through plugins and Electron desktop integration. It is not a standalone music service and still requires a YouTube Music or Google account for normal use.

Basic Usage

  1. Download the correct installer for your operating system from the Releases page.
  2. Install and launch the application.
  3. Sign into your Google account.
  4. Use YouTube Music normally.
  5. Optional plugins can be enabled or disabled from the Plugins menu.

Platforms

  • Windows
  • Linux
  • macOS

Notes

Because Pear Desktop uses Electron, memory and CPU usage are generally higher than lightweight native audio players such as foobar2000 or AIMP. The project is intended primarily as a feature-enhanced desktop frontend for streaming music from YouTube Music rather than as a traditional local-library music player.

github.com/pear-devs/pear-desktop

GrooveKraft ~ Mac Music Collection Viewer

Posted by tom2tec on

GrooveKraft is a fast, lightweight music collection manager that uses Discogs and MusicBrainz to enrich your collection with detailed metadata and artwork.

Features:

  • Import your Discogs collection into a local database
  • View and filter your Discogs collection locally, with artwork
  • Matches releases with MusicBrainz automatically to get release dates
  • “On this day” function shows anniversaries in your collection
  • Randomizer to help you pick something to listen to
  • Missing or incorrect release dates can be manually entered
  • Match quality shown with traffic-light icons (Red, Amber, Yellow, Green)

github.com/v8oholic/groovekraft

Groove ~ Cross-platform Music Player

Posted by tom2tec on

A cross-platform music player based on PyQt5, supports Win32, Linux and macOS.

github.com/zhiyiYo/Groove

lx-music-desktop ~ Electron Based Player

Posted by tom2tec on

LX‑Music‑Desktop is an open‑source, Electron‑based music player built with Vue 3, offering a simple, fast interface for managing and playing local music libraries on desktop systems.

github.com/lyswhut/lx-music-desktop
sourceforge.net/projects/lx-music-desktop.mirror

iscream ~ MacOS Audio Recorder

Posted by tom2tec on

iScream is a free recording application for macOS. It lets you record sound from your microphone or other sound sources. The app sits in the Dock, so when you want to start recording, just click its icon. To stop recording, click the icon again. With support for hotkeys, it’s even easier to start and stop recording without reaching for your mouse. iScream is great for making voice notes, capturing quick sound bites, recording short interviews, and any other small recordings you might need. Its simple design and easy-to-use features make it a handy tool for anyone, especially those who often need to capture audio on the fly.

  • One click recording
  • Saves in MP3, AAC or WAV format
  • Hotkeys support

www.mediahuman.com/iscream

lowhum ~ Deep Brown Noise For Focus

Posted by tom2tec on

Deep brown noise for focus, for the macOS menu bar. 

Single-purpose menu bar app that generates deep brown noise locally and plays it on loop. Install it, click play, forget about it. Cumulative-sum brown noise through a Butterworth bandpass (1 to 500 Hz, 20 Hz sub-bass highpass), RMS-normalized per chunk, crossfaded at boundaries. Everything is stored in ~/.lowhum/. Playback streams through PortAudio via memory-mapped files, so the full WAV never sits in RAM. The app polls audio devices every 2 seconds and stops instantly if headphones disconnect or a Bluetooth device drops.

Menu bar controls

The menu bar icon is a template image, so macOS handles dark/light mode automatically. Further, use it for:

  • Play / Stop from the menu bar
  • Pick any connected audio device from the Output Device submenu
  • Noise color selection (brown, pink, white)
  • Auto-stops when headphones connect or disconnect

Requires macOS and Python 3.12+.

lmarkmann.github.io/lowhum
github.com/lmarkmann/lowhum

References:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownian_noise

Aceforge ~ AI Music Workstation

Posted by tom2tec on

AceForge is a local-first AI music workstation for macOS Silicon powered by ACE-Step

Features:

  • .100% Local (only needs to download models once)
  • Music Generation with ACE-Step prompts
    • Use Stem separation to rebalance vocals vs instrumentals
    • Use existing Audio as reference (optional)
    • Train ACE-Step LoRAs from your own datasets
      • Mass-create _prompt.txt / _lyrics.txt files
      • Auto-tag datasets using MuFun-ACEStep (experimental)
  • Stem Splitting using Demucs for high-quality audio separation
  • Voice Cloning TTS using XTTS v2
  • MIDI Generation using basic-pitch for audio-to-MIDI transcription
  • Embedded Music Player to explore generation catalog
  • Manage and reuse prompt presets

github.com/audiohacking/AceForge

Sampletoy ~ Sampler & Synthesiser

Posted by tom2tec on

Sampletoy is a radical new musical instrument / plaything;
part sampler, part granular synthesiser.

Use it to capture sounds through the microphone,
then play, loop, pitch and distort them live on the screen.

www.elf-audio.com/sampletoy
www.facebook.com/elfaudioapps

FeelUOwn ~ Hackable Music Player

Posted by tom2tec on

trying to be a robust, user-friendly and hackable music player

Features:

  • Stable and Easy to Use
  • One-click installation, packaged for all popular platforms (e.g., Arch Linux, Windows, macOS, etc.)
  • Plug-ins for various media resource platforms, making full and reasonable use of free online resources (e.g., YouTube Music)
  • Comprehensive basic functions, including desktop lyrics, intelligent resource replacement, multiple audio quality options, and the nowplaying protocol
  • Core modules have good test coverage, and core interfaces maintain good backward compatibility
  • Large-scale support: AI radio, natural language to playlist conversion, etc.
  • High Playability:
    • Provides a TCP-based interactive control protocol
    • Provides an MCP Server (experimental feature) for programmatic control of player/resource capabilities
  • Text-based playlists for easy sharing with friends and synchronization across devices
  • Supports Python-based configuration files (.fuorc), similar to .vimrc and .emacs

github.com/feeluown
github.com/feeluown/FeelUOwn
sourceforge.net/projects/feeluown.mirror
github.com/feeluown/feeluown-bilibili
github.com/feeluown/feeluown-download
github.com/feeluown/homebrew-feeluown
github.com/feeluown/feeluown-kuwo
github.com/feeluown/feeluown-ytmusic