XWiv

XWiv is a small program for visualising sound in various ways using Xlib.
It uses the Open Sound System (OSS) as a playback backend.
Tested on FreeBSD and Linux (See linux details)

Compilation

The only build dependency is Xlib. Use make to build the executable.

Usage

XWiv can be invoked as follows:

xwiv [-r rate -f format -c channels] [-v volume] -m method <file>

If the file is -, XWiv reads from the standard input.

The method specifies the visualisation method to be used; the currently supported methods are:

• wave Draw the raw chunk as a wave
• bars Draw the absolute values of the raw chunk as a series of bars ranging from top to bottom.
• bars2 Similar to wave, except drawn as a series of bars

If the -r, -f and -c options are specified, XWiv treats the input as a raw PCM stream, otherwise it should be RIFF WAVE (.wav).

• The rate is an integer specifying the sampling rate.
• The format specifies the sample format; the currently supported formats are:
  • s16le (Signed 16 bit little endian).
• The channels value is an integer specifying the number of interleaved channels.
• The optional volume is an integer (0-100) specifying the playback volume.

Examples

Play the file ~/music/track.wav visualised as a wave

xwiv -m wave ~/music/track.wav

Visualise default microphone input using FFmpeg (OSS) as wave made up of bars

ffmpeg -f oss -channels 2 -sample_rate 48000 -i /dev/dsp -f s16le - | xwiv -r 48000 -f s16le -c 2 -v 0 -m bars2 -

Linux

If you're lucky, you'll be able to run XWiv on Linux without any issues using aoss, the ALSA OSS binary compatibility layer (package alsa-oss). You can do so by just prefixing the XWiv command with aoss, e.g. aoss xwiv -m wave ~/music/track.wav. XWiv wasn't made wth Linux in mind, but there is an effort to keep it at least somewhat functional, even though some features might be missing.