Pix-Wave

Pix-Wave is a real-time terminal-based audio spectrum visualizer that turns music into a pixel-style frequency wave.

It captures live system audio on Linux, analyzes it using FFT, and renders a smooth, animated dot-matrix equalizer directly in the terminal using Textual + Rich.

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Features

• Live system audio capture (PipeWire / PulseAudio)
• FFT-based frequency analysis
• Logarithmic frequency band scaling
• Retro dot-matrix / pixel-style visualization
• Multiple color themes:
  • Fire
  • Ice
  • Traffic Lights
  • Neon
• Smooth decay and motion
• Headroom + soft peak handling
• Fully configurable via config.py
• Runs entirely inside the terminal

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Screenshots

🔥 Fire Theme

❄️ Ice Theme

🚦 Traffic Lights Theme

🌟 Neon Theme

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Configuration

All customization is done in config.py.

Change color theme

DEFAULT_THEME = "fire"   # fire | ice | traffic_lights | neon

DSP & visual tuning
```python
FFT_SIZE = 4096
LOW_FREQ = 300
HIGH_FREQ = 20000
GAIN = 0.35
DECAY = 0.85

No other files need editing.

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Running Pix-Wave

Setup (first time only)

./setup.sh

This will:

• Create a virtual environment
• Activate it
• Install all dependencies

Play some music

Pix-Wave listens to system audio, including:

• Spotify (app or web)
• YouTube / browser audio
• Any application producing sound

Run

./run.sh

Linux Audio Notes

• Designed specifically for Linux
• Uses PipeWire / PulseAudio
• Automatically detects:
  • Spotify
  • Browser audio (Chromium / Firefox)
  • Falls back to default system audio
• No manual audio routing required this doesn't work for other oses

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Dependencies

• Python 3.8+
• PyAudio
• NumPy
• Textual
• Rich

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