Live Spectrogram Player

Live Spectrogram Player is a Windows desktop audio player with a polished dark CustomTkinter interface, a custom spectrogram app icon, and a Spek-style live scrolling spectrogram. It can draw from the player samples, a live input, a speaker loopback device, or a physical 2.1 hardware return input.

Public build

Build a single-file Windows executable:

.\build_exe.ps1

Build a folder-based release instead:

.\build_exe.ps1 -OneDir

The executable is written to dist\LiveSpectrogramPlayer.exe for the single-file build, or dist\LiveSpectrogramPlayer\LiveSpectrogramPlayer.exe for the folder build.

Notes

• Start with Speaker loopback for post-processing checks. Many drivers expose the processed speaker stream there, and it avoids extra cabling.
• Sound card input and Speaker loopback can show different spectra because they can represent different points in the playback chain.
• If a sound card does not include its private hardware DSP effects in speaker loopback, route the physical processed outputs back into a line-level audio interface and select that interface as Hardware 2.1 return.
• Hardware 2.1 return expects a 3+ input interface. Map the front-left, front-right, and sub/LFE cables in the 2.1 return row, then use 2.1 L+R+Sub to draw the combined physical output.
• Use Live rate to leave live capture on the device default with Auto, or type/select a custom live capture rate such as 8 kHz, 22.05 kHz, 96 kHz, 192000, or 384 kHz.
• The spectrogram uses a Spek-like dark heatmap, a Nyquist default view, and a -120 dBFS to 0 dBFS colour legend with display calibration matched against Spek.
• Audio files are checked for supported extension, file size, channel count, sample rate, and estimated decoded memory before loading to avoid unsafe or accidental huge decodes.
• Audio loading validates and reads from the same open file handle, keeps only the playback channels in memory, and reads files in bounded blocks.
• Spectrogram rendering runs on a background worker with a smoothed live cadence to keep the interface responsive during live loopback capture.
• Spectrogram rendering and redraws pause during native window move/resize operations so dragging the app stays smooth.
• Live loopback/input capture drops visual spectrogram chunks during window dragging so audio capture does not fight the Windows move loop.
• Speaker loopback uses larger capture blocks than direct live input to reduce background recorder wakeups while preserving the live spectrogram.
• Speaker loopback reads use larger capture chunks and suppress repeated soundcard discontinuity warnings that can appear when running from a console.
• Use Reverse live when a live loopback or hardware return spectrogram-art image appears as a negative compared with the file view.
• Very high sample rate files are automatically resampled for playback to the selected output device rate using SOXR.
• Large files are loaded and prepared in background threads so the interface remains responsive.

Dependencies for source builds

python -m pip install -r requirements.txt pyinstaller