CLI based audio visualizer
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cli-visualizer
Command line visualizer. Supports mpd, with experimental support for alsa and pulseaudio.
This project was heavily inspired by C.A.V.A, ncmpcpp, and rainbow
Installing Pre-requisites
fftw and ncursesw libraries are required to build. Note that ncurses with wide character support is needed.
A C++ compiler that supports C14 is also needed. On arch linux, the latest g or clang++ will work.
256 Colors
In order to show the colors, you need a terminal with 256 color support.rxvt-unicode out of the box.
For xterm, the default $TERM setting needs to be changed to rxvt-256color. To change this run
export TERM=rxvt-256color
Setting TERM to xterm-256color may also work but seems to cause issues with rendering of the visualizers in some terminals.
Debian & Ubuntu
sudo apt install libfftw3-dev libncursesw5-dev cmake
For pulseaudio support, the pulseaudio library also needs to be installed
sudo apt install libpulse-dev
Older versions of Ubuntu also need newer a newer gcc compiler. Note, while this should be safe, it will upgrade some base libc libraries that might break your system.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-toolchain-r/test
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gcc-4.9 g++-4.9
Arch Linux
In arch, the ncursesw is bundled with the ncurses package.
sudo pacman -S ncurses fftw cmake
Fedora
sudo dnf install fftw-devel gcc-c++ ncurses-devel pulseaudio-libs-devel cmake
Solus
Solus requires a handful of development packages and creating a link for libtinfo before installing.
sudo eopkg it -c system.devel
sudo eopkg install fftw fftw-devel ncurses ncurses-devel pulseaudio-devel cmake
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libncurses.so.5 /usr/lib/libtinfo.so.5 # Should already be there, but just in case.
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libtinfo.so.5 /usr/lib/libtinfo.so
./install.sh
Gentoo
Make sure to compile ncurses with unicode flag, have fftw and
cmake installed on your Gentoo system.
sudo emerge fftw cmake
sudo USE="unicode" emerge ncurses
Mac OS X
Mac os x has a version of ncurses builtin, but a newer version is required.
brew install fftw cmake
brew tap homebrew/dupes
brew install ncurses
Installing
After the pre-requisites have been installed, run the install script.
./install.sh
The configuration file is installed under “~/.config/vis/config”.
Older version of Ubuntu need to compile with the newer g++ compiler.
export CXX=g++-4.9
./install.sh
Arch Linux
The Arch Linux install is much simpler since an AUR package exist for cli-visualizer.
yaourt -S cli-visualizer
You will have to copy config and colors manually.
Setup
At least one of the following needs to be configured (and linked in the config): mpd, alsa, pulseaudio or squeezelite.
MPD Setup
The visualizer needs to use mpd’s fifo output file to read in the audio stream. To do this, add the following lines to your mpd config file.
audio_output {
type "fifo"
name "my_fifo"
path "/tmp/mpd.fifo"
format "44100:16:2"
}
If you have any sync issues with the audio where the visualizer either get ahead or behind the music, try lowering the audio buffer in your mpd config.
audio_output {
...
#this sets the buffer time to 50,000 microseconds
buffer_time "50000"
}
ALSA Setup
WARNING: alsa support is very very experimental. It is very possible that it will be completely broken on various systems and could cause weird/bad behaviour.
Similar to the MPD setup, the visualizer needs to use a fifo output file to read in the alsa audio stream. To do this, add the following lines to your alsa config file, usually at /etc/asound.conf. If the file does not exist create it under /etc/asound.conf.
pcm.!default {
type file # File PCM
slave.pcm "hw:0,0" # This should match the playback device at /proc/asound/devices
file "|safe_fifo /tmp/audio" #safe_fifo will be in the cli-visualizer/bin/safe_fifo directory
format raw # File format ("raw" or "wav")
perm 0666 # Output file permission (octal, def. 0600)
}
Next change the visualizer config ~/.config/vis/config to point to the new fifo file
mpd.fifo.path=/tmp/audio
A normal fifo file can not be used since otherwise no sound would work unless the fifo file is being read. This effectively means that no sound would be played if the visualizer is not running. To get around this issue a helper program safe_fifo is used. The safe_fifo program is essentially a non-blocking fifo file, it takes stdin and writes it to a fifo files given as the first parameter. If the fifo buffer is full, it clears the buffer and writes again.
Note that alsa support is still very experimental. There are a couple of caveats with this approach. Firstly safe_fifo must in a location alsa can find it. If you are building from source it us under cli-visualizer/bin/safe_fifo. Secondly slave.pcm must match whatever your alsa playback device is.
ALSA with dmix
On sound cards that do not support hardware level mixing, alsa uses dmix to allow playback from multiple applications at once. In order to make this work with the visualizer a dmixer plugin needs to be defined in /etc/asound.conf and the visualizer pcm set to use dmixer instead of the hardware device directly. This configuration might will change slightly depending on the system.
This is an example asound.conf for Intel HD Audio.
pcm.dmixer {
type dmix
ipc_key 1024
ipc_key_add_uid false
ipc_perm 0666 # mixing for all users
slave {
pcm "hw:0,0"
period_time 0
period_size 1024
buffer_size 8192
rate 44100
}
bindings {
0 0
1 1
}
}
pcm.dsp0 {
type plug
slave.pcm "dmixer"
}
pcm.!default {
type plug
slave.pcm "dmixer"
}
pcm.default {
type plug
slave.pcm "dmixer"
}
ctl.mixer0 {
type hw
card 0
}
pcm.!default {
type file # File PCM
slave.pcm "dmixer" # Use the dmixer plugin as the slave pcm
file "|safe_fifo /tmp/audio"
format raw # File format ("raw" or "wav")
perm 0666 # Output file permission (octal, def. 0600)
}
Pulse Audio Setup (Easy)
Pulse audio should be the easiest to setup out of all the options. In order for this to work pulseaudio must be installed and vis must be built with pulseaudio enabled. To build with pulseaudio support run make ENABLE_PULSE=1.
To enable pulse audio in the vis config set audio sources to pulse with
audio.sources=pulse
If this does not work, then vis has most likely not guess the correct sink to use. Try switching the pulseaudio source vis uses. A list can be found by running the command pacmd list-sinks | grep -e 'name:' -e 'index'. The correct pulseaudio source can then be set with
audio.pulse.source=0
Troubleshooting with Pulse For MacOS Users:
If vis is hanging for you after running it make sure the pulseaudio daemon is running. You can start it if you installed it with brew by running
brew services start pulseaudio
Alternatively you can run the pulseaudio command and send it to the background, then run bg to continue it.
Then try to run vis again. You’ll know it worked if it asks to have access to your microphone.
Port Audio Setup (Wicked Easy)
Install portaudio, then build vis. That’s it.
To enable port audio in the vis config set audio sources to port with
audio.sources=port
The correct port audio device can then be set with
audio.port.source=DEVICE NAME
squeezelite Setup
squeezelite is one of several software clients available for the Logitech Media Server. Squeezelite can export its audio data as shared memory, which is what this source module uses. Just adapt your config:
audio.sources=shmem
shmem.shmemname=/squeezelite-AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF
where AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF is squeezelite’s MAC address (check the LMS Web GUI (Settings>Information) if unsure).
Note: squeezelite must be started with the -v flag to enable visualizer support.
Usage
Start with
vis
Controls
| Key | Description |
|---|---|
| space | Switch visualizers |
| q or CTRL-C | Quit |
| r | Reload config |
| c | Next color scheme |
| s | Toggle Mono/Stereo Mode |
| + | Increase scaling by 10% |
| - | Decrease scaling by 10% |
Configuration
Reloading Config
The config can be reload while vis is running by either pressing the r key or by sending the USR1 signal to vis. Sending the USR1 signal can be done with killall -USR1 vis, this is useful if you want to dynamically reload colors from a script.
Colors
The display colors and their order can be changed by switching the color scheme in the config under colors.scheme. This is a comma separated list of color schemes.
Each color scheme must be defined at ~/.config/vis/colors/<name_of_the_color_scheme>. There are three different ways to specific a color within the scheme: by name, by hex number, and by index.
An example color scheme configuration with only one scheme would be
colors.scheme=rainbow
Using two color schemes
colors.scheme=rainbow,blue
Note, vis does not override or change any of the terminal colors. All colors will be influenced by whatever terminal settings are set by the users terminal. Usually these colors are specified in .Xdefaults.
Color Schemes by Visualizer
Each visualizer supports its own list of color schemes. This will control the colors of a particular visualizer without effecting the others and will override the global defined by colors.scheme.
An example of settings the spectrums visualizer to rainbow color scheme and the default for other visualizers to the blue color scheme.
visualizer.spectrum.color.scheme=rainbow
color.scheme=blue
Color Gradients
Gradients are turned on by default. To disable gradients add gradient=false to the top of the color scheme file. Note this is NOT in the main config but instead in the color scheme file.
Color scheme example with gradients disabled.
gradient=false
#4040ff
#03d2aa
#56fc2d
Color scheme example with gradients enabled that blends red to blue.
red
blue
RGB colors
The color scheme can be defined in two ways with RGB values or by index. The RGB values are defined as a hex color code, they are useful for creating a 256 bit color scheme.
The displayed color will not be the true color, but instead an approximation of the color based on 256-bit terminal colors.
RGB color scheme example
#4040ff
#2c56fc
#2a59fc
#1180ed
#04a6d5
#02abd1
#03d2aa
#04d6a5
#12ee7f
#2bfc58
#2dfc55
#56fc2d
Color indexes
The second way to define a color scheme is by the color index. Specifically this is the exact color index used by ncurses.
Color indexes are useful for creating a visualizer that matches the terminal’s set color scheme.
Color index color scheme example
4
12
6
14
2
10
11
3
5
1
13
9
7
15
0
All the basic 16 terminal colors from 0-15 in-order. The spectrum colors can be ordered in any you want, this example was done in order to show all colors.
Color names
The third way to define a color scheme is by the color name. Only 8 color names are supported: black, blue, cyan, green, yellow, red, magenta, white.
Note that these 8 colors are the basic terminal colors and are often set by a terminal’s color scheme. This means that the color name might not match the color shown since the terminal theme might change it.
For example, dark themes often set white to something dark since white is usually the default color for the terminal background.
A color scheme with only one color blue.
Spectrum
The spectrum visualizer allows for many different configuration options.
Smoothing
There are three different smoothing modes, monstercat, sgs, none.
#Available smoothing options are monstercat, sgs, none.
visualizer.spectrum.smoothing.mode=sgs
Sgs Smoothing
SGS smoothing Savitzky-Golay filter. There are a couple of options for sgs smoothing.
The first option is controlling the number of smoothing passes done when rendering the bars. Increasing this number with make the spectrum smoother. This is set with visualizer.sgs.smoothing.passes.
The second option is the number of neighbors to look at when smoothing. This is set with visualizer.sgs.smoothing.points. This should always be an odd number.
A larger number will generally increase the smoothing since more neighbors will be looked at.
Default sgs smoothing.
Sgs smoothing with number of passes set to 5.
MonsterCat Smoothing
Monster cat smoothing is inspired by the monster cat youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/MonstercatMedia). To control the amount of smoothing for montercat use visualizer.monstercat.smoothing.factor. The default smoothing factor for monstercat is 1.5. Increase the smoothing factor by a lot could hurt performance.
No Smoothing
Smoothing can be completely turned off by setting the smoothing option to none.
visualizer.spectrum.smoothing.mode=none
Spectrum with smoothing off
Falloff
This configures the falloff effect on the spectrum visualizer. This effect creates a slow fall in bar height. Available falloff options are fill,top,none. The default falloff option is fill.
visualizer.spectrum.falloff.mode=fill
With the top setting the falloff effect is only applied to the top character in the bar. This creates a gap between the main bar and the top falloff character.
top falloff effect with the spectrum character set to #.
The fill option leaves no gaps between the very top character and the rest of the bar.
fill falloff effect with the spectrum character set to #.
The none option removing the falloff effect entirely…
Falloff effect removed with the spectrum character set to #.
Spectrum Appearance
Certain aspects of the spectrum appearance can be controlled through the config.
The bar width can be controlled to make it wider or narrower. The default is 2.
visualizer.spectrum.bar.width=2
Bar width set to 5.
The spacing between bars can also be controlled to make it wider or narrower. The default is 1.
visualizer.spectrum.bar.spacing=1
Bar spacing set to 0.
The margin widths of the spectrum visualizer can also be controlled. The margins are set in percent of total screen for spectrum visualizer. All margin percentages default to 0.0.
visualizer.spectrum.top.margin=0.0
visualizer.spectrum.bottom.margin=0.0
visualizer.spectrum.right.margin=0.0
visualizer.spectrum.left.margin=0.0
Spectrum with the top margin set to 0.30, stereo mode set to false, and the left right margins set to 0.10.
Turn stereo mode off to show only one set of bars.
audio.stereo.enabled=false
Normally the bars are ordered so that the lowest frequencies are handled by the left most bars and the highest frequencies by the right most bars.
The reversed option gives the option to reverse this so that the highest frequencies come first.
visualizer.spectrum.reversed=true
Spectrum with reverse set to true.
Scaling
The spectrum visualizer should auto-scale, but for lorenz and ellipse visualizers scaling is based off volume. If your music volume is a lot lower than the system volume then you can scale the visualizers with the settings
visualizer.scaling.multiplier=1.5
This setting can also be controlled with +/- keys.
Full configuration example
#Refresh rate of the visualizers. A really high refresh rate may cause screen tearing. Default is 20.
visualizer.fps=20
#Defaults to "/tmp/mpd.fifo"
mpd.fifo.path
#If set to false the visualizers will use mono mode instead of stereo. Some visualizers will
#behave differently when mono is enabled. For example, spectrum show two sets of bars.
audio.stereo.enabled=false
#Specifies how often the visualizer will change in seconds. 0 means do not rotate. Default is 0.
visualizer.rotation.secs=10
#Configures the samples rate and the cutoff frequencies.
audio.sampling.frequency=44100
audio.low.cutoff.frequency=30
audio.high.cutoff.frequency=22050
##Applies scaling factor to both lorenz and ellipse visualizers. This is useful when the system audio is set
#to a low volume.
#visualizer.scaling.multiplier=1.0
#Configures the visualizers and the order they are in. Available visualizers are spectrum,lorenz,ellipse.
#Defaults to spectrum,ellipse,lorenz
visualizers=spectrum,ellipse,lorenz
#Configures what character the spectrum visualizer will use. Specifying a space (e.g " ") means the
#background will be colored instead of the character. Defaults to " ".
visualizer.spectrum.character=#
#Spectrum bar width. Defaults to 1.
visualizer.spectrum.bar.width=2
#The amount of space between each bar in the spectrum visualizer. Defaults to 1. It's possible to set this to
#zero to have no space between bars
visualizer.spectrum.bar.spacing=1
#Available smoothing options are monstercat, sgs, none. Defaults to sgs.
visualizer.spectrum.smoothing.mode=monstercat
#This configures the falloff effect on the spectrum visualizer. Available falloff options are fill,top,none.
#Defaults to "fill"
visualizer.spectrum.falloff.mode=fill
#Configures how fast the falloff character falls. This is an exponential falloff so values usually look
#best 0.9+ and small changes in this value can have a large effect. Defaults to 0.95
visualizer.spectrum.falloff.weight=0.95
#Margins in percent of total screen for spectrum visualizer. All margins default to 0
visualizer.spectrum.top.margin=0.0
visualizer.spectrum.bottom.margin=0.0
visualizer.spectrum.right.margin=0.0
visualizer.spectrum.left.margin=0.0
#Reverses the direction of the spectrum so that high freqs are first and low freqs last. Defaults to false.
visualizer.spectrum.reversed=false
#Sets the audio sources to use. Currently available ones are "mpd" and "alsa"Sets the audio sources to use.
#Currently available ones are "mpd", "pulse", "port", and "alsa". Defaults to "mpd".
audio.sources=pulse
##vis tries to find the correct pulseaudio sink, however this will not work on all systems.
#If pulse audio is not working with vis try switching the audio source. A list can be found by running the
#command pacmd list-sinks | grep -e 'name:' -e 'index'
audio.pulse.source=0
#vis tries to find the correct portaudio device (through portaudio default method), however its not for-sure.
#If port audio is not working with vis try switching the audio srouce. A list can be found by setting
#this value to "list" and checking the vis log file. Replace this value with the device name desired
audio.port.source=auto
#This configures the sgs smoothing effect on the spectrum visualizer. More points spreads out the smoothing
#effect and increasing passes runs the smoother multiple times on reach run. Defaults are points=3 and passes=2.
visualizer.sgs.smoothing.points=3
visualizer.sgs.smoothing.passes=2
#Configures what character the ellipse visualizer will use. Specifying a space (e.g " ") means the
#background will be colored instead of the character. Defaults to " ".
visualizer.ellipse.character=#
#The radius of each color ring in the ellipse visualizer. Defaults to 2.
visualizer.ellipse.radius=2
## Turns off overriding the user's terminal colors
#colors.override.terminal=false
#Specifies the color scheme. The color scheme must be in ~/.config/vis/colors/ directory. Default is "colors"
colors.scheme=rainbow
Trouble Shooting
General
vis is overwriting my terminal colorscheme
Turn off overriding terminal colors.
colors.override.terminal=false
Due to the way terminal color schemes work, there is no portable way for ncurses to get the original color scheme. By default it overrides the user’s terminal colors with the visualizer colors. It does this to get a smoother transition between gradients, however this overrides the user’s terminal color scheme.
Tearing our corrupt output
This is usually and issue with ncurses versions past versions 6.0+20170729. Try changing the TERM variable to rxvt with
export TERM=rxvt-256color
Mac OSX
vis hangs with no output #1
It is possible there is a naming conflict with an existing BSD tool vis. Try running vis -h. If the output looks something like
mac ❯❯❯ vis -h
vis: illegal option -- h
usage: vis [-cbflnostw] [-F foldwidth] [file ...]
then there is a naming conflict with cli-visualizer. To fix this issue, put /usr/local/bin before /usr/bin/ in $PATH.
vis hangs with no output #2
MPD on mac os does not automatically create the output file for the visualizer.
mkfifo /tmp/mpd.fifo
Running mkfifo will create the output file. This file is usually /tmp/mpd.fifo, but please make sure it matches any overrides set in your mpd.conf and vis config ~/.config/vis/config.