Splitwave

Splitwave is a node-based audio router for macOS, Linux, and Windows. Wire microphones, system audio, per-app capture, and WAV files into a visual graph, run them through a chain of effects — EQ, compression, reverb, limiting, and more, plus your own CLAP, VST3 and AU plugins — then send the result to speakers or record it in WAV, FLAC, AIFF, MP3, Opus, or AAC.

Installation

macOS

Download the latest .dmg from Releases, open it, and drag Splitwave to Applications.

macOS will block the app on first launch ("cannot verify developer") because the binary is not notarized. To allow it, run once in Terminal:

xattr -cr /Applications/Splitwave.app

Then open Splitwave normally.

After each update, Screen Recording permission resets (macOS revokes it when the binary changes and the app is unsigned). To re-grant it: open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Screen Recording, click − to remove Splitwave, then click + and add it back.

Linux

Requires a PipeWire-based audio session (default on most current distros). Download the build for your system from Releases:

• AppImage — chmod +x Splitwave_*.AppImage && ./Splitwave_*.AppImage
• .deb (Debian/Ubuntu) — sudo apt install ./Splitwave_*.deb
• .rpm (Fedora/RHEL/openSUSE) — sudo rpm -i Splitwave-*.rpm

Windows

Requires Windows 10 version 2004 or newer (for per-app capture) and the WebView2 runtime (preinstalled on current Windows 10/11). Download the .exe installer from Releases and run it.

Virtual audio devices are not available on Windows.

Platform support

Feature	macOS	Linux	Windows
Mic / speaker device I/O	✅	✅	✅
System audio capture	✅ ScreenCaptureKit	✅ PipeWire	✅ WASAPI loopback
Per-app audio capture	✅ ScreenCaptureKit	✅ PipeWire	✅ Process Loopback (Win10 2004+)
App icons in the picker	✅	✅	✅
Device volume control	✅	✅	✅
Recording: WAV / FLAC / AIFF / MP3 / Opus	✅	✅	✅
Recording: AAC (M4A)	✅	❌	❌
Virtual audio devices	✅ AudioServerPlugin	✅ PipeWire null-sinks	❌ (no user-mode driver model)
Effects, metering, file playback	✅	✅	✅
CLAP plugins	✅	✅	✅
VST3 plugins	✅	✅ X11	✅
Audio Unit plugins	✅	❌	❌

Features

• Inputs: microphones, system audio, per-application audio, WAV files, virtual device loopback
• Outputs: physical speakers/interfaces, file recording in WAV (16/24-bit PCM + 32-float), FLAC, AIFF, Opus, MP3, AAC (M4A), virtual devices
• Effects: Gain, Mute, Channel Balance, Saturator, 10-band Graphic EQ, Brick-wall Limiter with look-ahead, Compressor (with sidechain), Noise Gate (with sidechain), Noise Suppressor, De-esser, Declick, Stereo Delay, Algorithmic Reverb (Freeverb), Level Meter, EBU R128 LUFS Meter, Waveform and Spectrum analyzers
• Plugins: host your own CLAP and VST3 plugins (all platforms) and Audio Unit plugins (macOS) as effect nodes, with the native editor embedded in the app, parameters editable in the node, and plugin state saved with the pipeline. On Linux, plugin editors need an X11 session (XWayland works); VST3 defines no Wayland embedding
• Presets & templates: shared effect presets with factory defaults, plus ready-made pipeline templates in the create flow
• Virtual devices: create named virtual audio devices that appear system-wide. Use them to capture loopback audio from any app or to feed processed audio into apps that accept a microphone input (DAWs, Discord, etc.)

System and per-app capture use ScreenCaptureKit on macOS, PipeWire on Linux, and WASAPI loopback / the Process Loopback API on Windows. Virtual devices are AudioServerPlugin drivers on macOS and PipeWire null-sinks on Linux; Windows has no user-mode virtual-device model, so they are unavailable there.

Stack

• Frontend: Svelte, Tauri, @xyflow/svelte
• Engine: Rust -- rtrb (SPSC ring buffers), rubato (resampling), hound (WAV), flac-codec, opus, mp3lame-encoder, ebur128
• macOS: cpal device I/O; custom Swift static library for ScreenCaptureKit, compiled by build.rs via swiftc; CoreAudio HAL FFI for device enumeration; libASPL-based AudioServerPlugin for the virtual device driver
• Linux: pipewire for device I/O, system/app capture, and virtual null-sinks; freedesktop-desktop-entry / freedesktop-icons for app icons
• Windows: cpal (WASAPI) device I/O; the windows crate for WASAPI loopback + Process Loopback capture, IAudioEndpointVolume, audio-session enumeration, and exe icon extraction (png for encoding)

Development

See DEVELOPMENT.md for prerequisites, setup, useful commands, and project layout.

License

Splitwave is licensed under MIT.
Third-party component notices (LGPL, MPL-2.0, etc.) are in NOTICE.

Support

If you find this app useful, consider supporting it:

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