Arch Linux

hpmachining

Member

From: Michigan

Registered: 2016-11-23

Posts: 42

Website

AnalogVUMeter

Hi everyone,

I’ve been working on a small desktop application and wanted to share it with the community. AnalogVUMeter is a stereo VU meter that aims to replicate the look and behavior of classic needle‑style hardware meters.

Highlights
- Stereo analog VU meters with classic RMS/VU ballistics 
- Runtime‑loadable custom meter skins
- Skins from this site can be imported: Analog Meter Click on a picture and download the zip file.
- Works on Linux (PulseAudio/PipeWire) and macOS (CoreAudio)

GitHub: https://github.com/hpmachining/AnalogVUMeter

A PKGBUILD is included in the repository.
If you try it out, I’d love feedback. Contributions and suggestions are welcome.

Thanks!
Short video demo: https://youtu.be/LRUJMxq5PPo

Default Skin (built in)

Imported Skin: McIntosh 1.zip

Last edited by hpmachining (2026-02-08 22:32:02)

Lone_Wolf

Administrator

From: Netherlands, Europe

Registered: 2005-10-04

Posts: 14,733

Re: AnalogVUMeter

Looking nice although I won't try it (I try to stay away from pulseaudio/pipewire as far as possible).

pkgconf is provided by base-devel which is a requirement for building aur packages.
base-devel also includes make, gcc and other stuff needed for building, I suggest you remove pkgconf from deps and add a note that users need to have base-devel installed.

Archlinux prefers other default build flags then cmake, check https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/CMake_ … guidelines .

It's also very nice to see upstream advising makepkg & pacman -U for building instead of some helper.

---

Disliking systemd intensely, but not satisfied with alternatives so focusing on taming systemd.

clean chroot building not flexible enough ?
Try clean chroot manager by graysky

hpmachining

Member

From: Michigan

Registered: 2016-11-23

Posts: 42

Website

Re: AnalogVUMeter

Thank you for the feedback, @Lone_Wolf. I think I have addressed the issues you raised. I pushed a new commit you can check out if you want.

Looking nice although I won't try it (I try to stay away from pulseaudio/pipewire as far as possible).

Pardon my ignorance, but I wasn't aware that these are not liked by some. Are there other alternatives for monitoring the system output? I admit that I don't know much about the sound stack. I found a similar old windows application and wanted one for linux for my own enjoyment and this worked for my system. Another guy did the macOS port, I know less than nothing about that  

BTW, the application will build and run with just libpulse but it won't be able to monitor the output sound so the needle won't work. A message box should tell you as much. Not very useful, but if you wanted to see if it builds and runs you can without messing with your sound setup.

Lone_Wolf

Administrator

From: Netherlands, Europe

Registered: 2005-10-04

Posts: 14,733

Re: AnalogVUMeter

I am sticking to alsa because I have no use for the advantages pulse/pipewire bring with them.
Both also don't coexist with other sound systems unless those other systems use them as mandatory intermediary .
(To me that equals a intentional design flaw in their concept) .

Judging by forum posts that makes me part of a very small minority.

---

Disliking systemd intensely, but not satisfied with alternatives so focusing on taming systemd.

clean chroot building not flexible enough ?
Try clean chroot manager by graysky