georgkreimer / eqmac

macOS System-wide Audio Equalizer & Volume Mixer 🎧

Notice: Currently the code in this repository corresponds to v1.3.2 of eqMac and all the newer releases are done on a private fork. I'm still unsure if new releases will be open sourced, mostly because I don't see the benefit of open sourcing the app anymore. Change my mind.

Features

Current

• System audio Source
• Volume Booster
• HDMI Volume Support
• Volume Balance support for all devices (including HDMI)
• Basic EQ - Bass, Mids, Treble control
• Advanced EQ - Fixed 10 bands
• Expert EQ* - Unlimited bands, fully customizable (Filter Type, Frequency, Gain, Bandwidth)
• Spectrum analyzer*
• AutoEQ Integration*
• Reverb* - Spatial audio enhancement
• Volume Mixer* - Apply different volume levels per each application

*Not Open Sourced

Roadmap

Idea is to become the ultimate Audio toolbox for macOS (some features might not be open sourced)

• Input Audio Source - Apply effects to any device: guitar, microphone etc.
• Virtual Output - Export the Adjusted audio to any application
• Custom UI - Fully customize the look and feel of eqMac by changing the User Interface Colors, Feature visibility and arrangement.
• Hotkeys - Control eqMac with Keyboard Shortcuts
• Recorder - save any audio playback (System, Input device, File)
• Remote control from your phone
• Separate L/R Channel EQ - Fix hearing impairements
• API - Control all aspects of eqMac through a WebSocket API. Works with any programming language that supports WebSockets.
• File playback and rendering - Apply effects to audio files and instantly render them
• and more...

Vote on the Features you want to see sooner

User support

This project is heavily reliant on the whole community helping each other out. If you have an issue with eqMac please go through Issues to see if it's already being discussed, if not create a new one. Also you can join our Discord, I'm there all the time and I like to chat with people.

Technology

eqMac was built using these technologies:

• Driver - System Audio loopback/passthrough device based on Apple's Null Audio Server Driver Plug-in example. One of the first Examples of a macOS System Capture drivers written in Swift. The driver grabs the system audio stream and sends it to the input channels (similar to BlackHole). eqMac can grab this stream, process it and send to the appropriate audio device. The driver runs in User space instead of Kernel like the previous drivers (i.e SoundFlower), which means it's much more secure and stable.
• App - Native backend to the whole app. Responsible for audio processing, filesystem access, window management, API and general lifecycle of eqMac. Written in Swift and uses Apple's more modern AVAudioEngine API, unlike the previous version that used a deprecated AUGraph API.
• UI - Web based user interface that is hosted remotely and thus allows for over the air updates & bug fixes. Built with Angular + TypeScript and is cached for offline availability.

Contribution

At the moment eqMac is going through a major rewrite and it's hard to coordinate the development of big features. But bug fixes, performance optimizations and refactoring PR's are welcomed! Please create an issue on GitHub (please check if your issue is already being discussed) or join our Discord to discuss. Once a piece of work has been agreed - fork, build, debug, fix, merge and create a Pull Request to get your work merged in :) Check the documentation below to understand how to start eqMac debug process from Xcode

Development

Fork the repository, then run these commands in Terminal.app:

git clone https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/eqMac.git
cd eqMac/

Native app + driver

Prerequisites

1. Download Xcode
2. Install CocoaPods by sudo gem install cocoapods

Building and running the App

1. Go into the native/app directory from root of the repo by: cd native/
2. Install Cocoapod dependencies: pod install
3. Open the Xcode workspace: open eqMac.xcworkspace
4. Launch eqMac in debug mode by running the App - Debug Scheme:

Web User Interface

You don't need to run the UI code locally to debug just the Swift side of the app, unless you want to debug the UI code :) If you want to run the web based User Interface locally then you need to follow these steps to make that happen:

Prerequisites

Install Node.js LTS version preferrably using NVM

Install Yarn v1 globally: npm i -g yarn (this is needed because the project uses Yarn Workspaces)

Building and running the Web UI

1. Run yarn from the root directory of the Monorepo
2. Go into the ui/ directory by cd ui/
3. Start local development server with yarn start

Credits

@nodeful - Creator and Developer of eqMac

Apple Inc. - For open sourcing this HAL Driver Example

@titanicbobo - For the Big Sur icon design

Max Heim - For his research and work on creating the first Swift based Audio Server Plug-in Driver - Pancake