Sonare

A headless build of FxSound: the same audio engine, with no window, tray icon, hotkeys, dialogs or updater, controlled entirely through its command line. It exists so another program can drive FxSound's equalizer and effects as a separate helper process.

Sonare is an unofficial fork. It is not made or endorsed by FxSound LLC, and FxSound is a trademark of its owner. The original README is kept as README.fxsound.md.

What is different from FxSound

One commit on top of upstream commit d8e7a23d37ed5939c2a3090a1c1756c7f2500b17 (13 files changed, 1 added, about 180 lines). CHANGES.md has the full list.

• --headless is recognised before any window or tray icon is built, and stays on for the life of the process. A forwarded --headless also switches an already-running instance to headless.
• --quit closes a running instance through FxSound's normal shutdown path.
• Message dialogs, notifications, the updater launch and global hotkeys are skipped in headless mode.
• The graphical version-migration step is skipped, so it never deletes your preferences.

The audio engine, its effects and the driver interface are unchanged. Two files outside the app (dsp/DfxDspPrivate.cpp and audiopassthru/src/operatingSystem/operatingSystem.cpp) only skip pre-existing error message boxes in headless mode.

Using it

Start the first instance with --headless, then send commands with further runs of the same program:

FxSound.exe --headless
FxSound.exe --headless --num_bands=10 "--set_band_gain=0:3,1:-2"
FxSound.exe --headless "--set_effect=clarity:3,ambience:2,surround:1,dynamicboost:4,bass:5"
FxSound.exe --headless --master_gain=0 --volume_leveling=0
FxSound.exe --headless "--output=EXACT device name"
FxSound.exe --headless --power=1
FxSound.exe --headless --status      # writes %APPDATA%\FxSound\status.json
FxSound.exe --headless --quit

Effects take 0 to 10, band gains -12 to 12 dB, master gain -20 to 20 dB, volume leveling 0 to 4. FxSound's own option reference is docs/COMMAND_LINE_OPTIONS.md.

The virtual audio driver is not built from this repository: its source is not published by FxSound. The driver files under Installer/Drivers are upstream's, unmodified.

Building

See BUILD.md. Versions of everything this build depends on are pinned in SOURCE-PINS.md.

Licence

AGPL-3.0, the same as FxSound (LICENSE). Sonare is built with JUCE 6.1.6, whose open-source option is GPLv3; see NOTICE.md and JUCE-LICENSE.md. The complete corresponding source of a Sonare binary is this repository at the commit it was built from, together with JUCE and the resources repository at the versions in SOURCE-PINS.md.