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wwmm/easyeffects

9,466HTMLAudience · generalComplexity · 2/5LicenseSetup · easy

TLDR

A Linux desktop app that applies real-time audio effects, equalizer, compressor, noise reduction, reverb, and 20+ more, to your entire system's sound input and output, powered by PipeWire.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((repo))
    Effects
      Compressor
      Equalizer
      Noise reduction
      Reverb
    Install
      Flatpak recommended
      Distro packages
    Audio system
      PipeWire required
      System-wide scope
    Use cases
      Mic cleanup
      Speaker tuning
      Gaming audio
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Code map

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Things people build with this

USE CASE 1

Remove background noise from your microphone system-wide during video calls on Linux

USE CASE 2

Apply an equalizer to improve the sound from laptop speakers without changing any per-app settings

USE CASE 3

Add reverb or pitch-shifting effects to any audio playing on your Linux desktop

Tech stack

PipeWireFlatpakGTK

Getting it running

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 30min

Do not set Easy Effects virtual devices as the system default audio input or output, keep hardware devices as the default or audio routing breaks.

Free to use, modify, and distribute, but any modified versions must also be released under the same GPL v3 license.

In plain English

Easy Effects is a Linux desktop application that lets you apply audio processing to any sound playing through your system. Think of it as a real-time audio mixing board that works at the operating system level, affecting everything coming out of your speakers or microphone rather than just one specific app. It works with PipeWire, which is the modern audio system used in most current Linux distributions. The effects you can apply include a compressor (which evens out loud and quiet sounds), an equalizer (which adjusts bass, treble, and other frequency ranges), a limiter (which prevents audio from going above a certain volume), noise reduction, reverb, a pitch shifter, and around two dozen others. You can stack multiple effects in any order you choose, rearranging them with up and down arrows in the interface. Some effects, like the deep noise remover and the autotune, depend on external plugin packages being installed separately. The application was previously called PulseEffects when it used an older audio system. It has since been rebuilt to work with PipeWire directly, and the interface was also moved from one graphical toolkit to another (Qt and KDE Kirigami). This means older presets from the PulseEffects era need to be converted before they will work, and the wiki includes instructions for doing that. Installation is available through most Linux distribution package managers, or through Flatpak from Flathub. The Flatpak version is the easiest option if your system does not already have all the required audio plugin packages, because it bundles everything together. The README includes an important note: do not set the Easy Effects virtual audio devices as your default input or output in your system settings, as the application is designed expecting your actual hardware to stay as the default. Help pages are built into the application itself and also available on the project website. The project is licensed under the GNU General Public License version 3.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
I use Easy Effects on Linux and want to set up noise reduction on my microphone for video calls. Walk me through the effect chain to configure in the app.
Prompt 2
I installed Easy Effects via Flatpak and now my audio sounds odd. What is the most common misconfiguration to check first?
Prompt 3
How do I create and save an Easy Effects preset so I can quickly switch between a gaming audio profile and a podcast recording profile?
Prompt 4
What is the difference between the compressor and the limiter in Easy Effects, and when should I use each one?
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