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Top 23 C++ Audio Projects
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srs
SRS is a simple, high-efficiency, real-time media server supporting RTMP, WebRTC, HLS, HTTP-FLV, HTTP-TS, SRT, MPEG-DASH, and GB28181.
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InfluxDB
InfluxDB – Built for High-Performance Time Series Workloads. InfluxDB 3 OSS is now GA. Transform, enrich, and act on time series data directly in the database. Automate critical tasks and eliminate the need to move data externally. Download now.
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BackgroundMusic
Background Music, a macOS audio utility: automatically pause your music, set individual apps' volumes and record system audio.
Project mention: BackgroundMusic: Set per-app sound volume on macOS | news.ycombinator.com | 2024-05-25 -
Project mention: So you want to compete with or replace open source | news.ycombinator.com | 2024-07-18
Title feels misleading - skip to the end:
> As for me, I still believe in open source, and even in the commercial potential of open source. It requires creativity and a clever business acumen to identify and exploit market opportunities within this collaborative framework. To win in open source you must embrace this collaboration and embrace the fact that you will share the commercial market for the software with other entities. If you’re up to that challenge, then let’s keep beating the open source drum together. If not, these new movements(source-available software) may be a home for you – but know that a lot of hard work still lies ahead of you in that path.
This article feels more like a critique of the new "source-available" trend in tech whereby existing OSS projects sell out and try to retroactively re-license themselves to be more closed-source friendly. I've been sort of aware of this phenomenon since there was a small upset when Muse Group bought Audacity, though it appears it is still GPL[1].
[1] https://github.com/audacity/audacity/blob/master/LICENSE.txt
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Project mention: Ask HN: Tools or frameworks to build music theory games | news.ycombinator.com | 2024-11-27
It's not really a framework, but I've been having a lot of fun live coding music in Sonic Pi: https://sonic-pi.net/
It has built-in functions for chords and scales and is pretty easy to make catchy loops.
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You see, for the past several years I have used many programming languages and many more game frameworks and libraries. Programming languages like Java, C#, C++, and even, sadly, JavaScript (I know...). Game frameworks like LWJGL, SDL2, Raylib, MonoGame, SFML, and many more. Essentially, I have seen it all. Out of all of them, I think SDL2 was closer to what I was looking for, though, Raylib was the one I used the most at the beginning. And the reason I liked SDL more was because it was more"lower-level" than Raylib or SFML. Additionally, it had that C-style of programming that I have always been fond of. However, despite that, I decided to go against any of these libraries.
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OpenFrameworks
openFrameworks is a community-developed cross platform toolkit for creative coding in C++.
Project mention: Ask HN: Who Are Your Favorite Photography and Generative Coding Artists? | news.ycombinator.com | 2025-02-26 -
JUCE
JUCE is an open-source cross-platform C++ application framework for desktop and mobile applications, including VST, VST3, AU, AUv3, LV2 and AAX audio plug-ins.
The amount of high performance, production grade, massively tested libraries written in C++ is unbeatable. I will be honest here, it's easier to improve C++ security by implementing a compiler that produces safer C++ (like Typescript to Javascript) than rewriting everything in any other language (Rust, Zig, Odin, whatever).
I mean, could you estimate the cost ($ and time) it would take to rewrite the best audio framework in any other language? (https://juce.com/).
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SaaSHub
SaaSHub - Software Alternatives and Reviews. SaaSHub helps you find the best software and product alternatives
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Project mention: Mumble: An AI app with hands-free journaling and mood detection | news.ycombinator.com | 2024-10-30
Kind of a bad name given the existence of https://www.mumble.info/
Which is a large OSS voice server
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You could connect airplay to snapcast[0] then use an embedded snapcast player, like mine[1], I do this on an ESP32 with 320KiB of SRAM
[0]: https://github.com/badaix/snapcast
[1]: https://github.com/davidventura/esp-snapcast
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Project mention: Wicked Engine replaced Bullet with Jolt physics, immediate performance gains | news.ycombinator.com | 2024-06-24
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supercollider
An audio server, programming language, and IDE for sound synthesis and algorithmic composition.
Project mention: SuperCollider: A synthesis and algorithmic composition platform | news.ycombinator.com | 2024-12-09 -
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> I don't have a physical controller
There are a lot of really cheap USB based controllers - I've got an old USB 1.1 based controllers for 35€ and it's working perfectly fine - it's only midi - you can dump the hex values using midi tools in Linux when you turn the nobs. Mixxx has a really long list of supported devices: https://github.com/mixxxdj/mixxx/wiki/Hardware-Compatibility
You need another soundcard for headphones, there also exist lots of cheap old USB soundcards for that.
Then it's up to you to practice. I'm also struggling to get better but it's really all you need to DJ.
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essentia
C++ library for audio and music analysis, description and synthesis, including Python bindings
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I recently wend through the process of selecting a MP3 player software for my Linux laptop and after testing many settled on the Strawberry player. It is actually very good: https://www.strawberrymusicplayer.org/
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Project mention: Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (February 2025) | news.ycombinator.com | 2025-02-23
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There is also Cardinal, a GPL fork that you can run as a plugin directly in your DAW of choice (I believe you need the paid VCV Rack to do that):
https://github.com/DISTRHO/Cardinal
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SaaSHub
SaaSHub - Software Alternatives and Reviews. SaaSHub helps you find the best software and product alternatives
NOTE:
The open source projects on this list are ordered by number of github stars.
The number of mentions indicates repo mentiontions in the last 12 Months or
since we started tracking (Dec 2020).
C++ Audio discussion
C++ Audio related posts
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The Art of DJing: Avalon Emerson
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DJ With Apple Music launches to enable subscribers to mix their own sets
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Show HN: AudioNimbus – Steam Audio's immersive spatial audio, now in Rust
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IEMidi by Interactive Echoes
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New Year, New Game Engine - Nikola Engine Devlog 0
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Using JBL Charge 5 with USB Audio on macOS and Regaining Volume Control
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OpenDAW – a new holistic exploration of music creation inside the browser
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A note from our sponsor - InfluxDB
www.influxdata.com | 14 May 2025
Index
What are some of the best open-source Audio projects in C++? This list will help you:
| # | Project | Stars |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | srs | 26,899 |
| 2 | BackgroundMusic | 17,295 |
| 3 | audacity | 13,584 |
| 4 | Sonic Pi | 11,102 |
| 5 | SFML | 10,897 |
| 6 | OpenFrameworks | 10,138 |
| 7 | JUCE | 7,148 |
| 8 | Mumble | 6,884 |
| 9 | Snapcast | 6,649 |
| 10 | WickedEngine | 6,220 |
| 11 | supercollider | 5,791 |
| 12 | pedalboard | 5,497 |
| 13 | mixxx | 5,386 |
| 14 | ardour | 4,212 |
| 15 | oboe | 3,830 |
| 16 | DistroAV | 3,629 |
| 17 | essentia | 3,059 |
| 18 | strawberry | 3,024 |
| 19 | faust | 2,727 |
| 20 | OTTO | 2,656 |
| 21 | Cardinal | 2,508 |
| 22 | zrythm | 2,464 |
| 23 | mpd | 2,332 |
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InfluxDB 3 OSS is now GA. Transform, enrich, and act on time series data directly in the database. Automate critical tasks and eliminate the need to move data externally. Download now.
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