Music & Audio · Open source

PitchVis

Felix Monninger

Real-time visualization of musical pitches from live audio

Download

Opens the official F-Droid page

PitchVis screenshot 1PitchVis screenshot 2PitchVis screenshot 3

About PitchVis

PitchVis listens to your microphone and turns the musical pitches it hears into a colorful, real-time visualization.

Under the hood it runs a Variable-Q Transform (VQT) over the live audio signal, which gives high frequency resolution in the low registers where music lives, then detects the prominent pitches and maps each one to a color. The result is an animated picture of the harmony, melody and tuning of whatever you play or sing. It is displayed in a spiral, 12 pitches per octave, one octave per spiral rotation.

Features:

* Real-time pitch analysis of live microphone input

* Variable-Q Transform tuned for musical signals (especially choir singing)

* Pitch-to-color mapping in a perceptual color space

* Several visual modes (Full, Zen, Performance, Galaxy)

* Tuning drift display in cents

* Runs fully offline

PitchVis is useful for musicians, singers, music students and anyone curious about the structure of the sounds around them. It works with any instrument or voice.

PitchVis works fully offline and never connects to the internet. It uses the microphone permission for normal operation; the notification and foreground-service permissions are used only by an optional advanced mode that analyzes audio played by the device itself — audio only, never screen content.

What's new in 1.30

New: PitchVis can now analyze the audio your phone is playing instead of the microphone. Turn on "System Audio" in the debug screen (tap the visualization to open it) and confirm Android's capture prompt. Audio only — no screen content is captured and nothing leaves the device. Playback has to be running already, since PitchVis stops when it goes to the background. Fixes: the screen lock no longer engages when a system dialog interrupts a touch, and the debug buttons no longer react while the s

How to install PitchVis

  1. Tap Download — the app's official page on F-Droid opens.
  2. Install it with the F-Droid app (recommended, for automatic updates), or use the download button on that page.
  3. If Android asks, allow the F-Droid app or your browser to install apps, then tap Install.
  4. Open PitchVis from your app drawer.

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