Waveline

A Wave Link-style audio mixer for Linux, for any microphone.

Waveline gives you what streaming mixers give you on Windows — named channels, a separate Stream mix and Monitor mix, per-application routing, noise suppression, EQ and dynamics — built directly on PipeWire, with no proprietary software and no device lock-in.

None of that is device-specific. What is device-specific — a kernel quirk, a WirePlumber workaround, a vendor USB protocol — lives in a profile under devices/, and only the profiles matching hardware you actually have plugged in get installed.

Licensed GPL-2.0-or-later. See LICENSE.

Install

Requirements

• A PipeWire-based desktop (PipeWire + WirePlumber)
• Qt 6.4+, CMake 3.21+, a C++20 compiler
• librnnoise, libpipewire-0.3
• Kernel headers matching the running kernel (only for the DKMS part)

Supported distro families: Arch, Fedora / RHEL, Debian / Ubuntu. The installer pulls its own build dependencies on those.

Not supported: atomic / image-based distros (Silverblue, Kinoite, Bazzite, SteamOS, openSUSE MicroOS). DKMS there needs rpm-ostree layering or a systemd sysext, and the installer would not do the right thing.

Quick start

git clone https://github.com/Nakildias/waveline.git
cd waveline
sudo ./install.sh

Then open the mixer:

waveline-mixer

The daemon (wavelined) is enabled and started at the end of the run, so the mixer works straight afterwards with nothing else to type.

What the installer does

Steps 2–6 are pure userspace and work on any kernel. Step 1 needs matching kernel headers; if that is not possible the installer says so and still installs everything else.

Step 6 is the slow one: it downloads a Rust crate graph and compiles it — a few minutes and ~1 GB of scratch space, removed afterwards.

Options

sudo ./install.sh --app-only    # rebuild + install waveline-mixer only
sudo ./install.sh --help

Uninstall

sudo ./uninstall.sh

Removes the DKMS module, every profile's drop-ins and udev rules, the binaries and the services, then reloads the audio stack. Build dependencies are deliberately left alone. It refuses to unload the patched module unless a stock snd-usb-audio is available to replace it, so you cannot end up with no USB audio driver at all.

Features

Mixing and routing

• Named channels — System, Voice, Music, Browser, Game, SFX — renameable, each with its own level, mute and effects.
• Dual mixes. A Stream mix (a virtual recording device your streaming software captures) and a Monitor mix (what you hear), balanced independently per channel.
• Up to 5 Monitor mix outputs, each with its own destination, level and mute — headphones and speakers at once, at different volumes.
• Multiple input devices. Add, remove and rebuild capture devices live; channels follow.
• Per-application routing. Move any playing application onto a channel by hand, or let auto-routing place it by name (Discord → Voice, Spotify → Music).
• Sound sharing. Send an application's audio into the microphone stream, so the people you're talking to hear it — with its own independent level.
• MIDI input with a FluidSynth instrument backend.

Processing

• Noise suppression — DeepFilterNet (default when available) or RNNoise, switchable at runtime, with a strength control.
• Per-channel and per-device effects: low-cut filter, three-band EQ, de-esser.
• Dynamics: noise gate, compressor with ratio and auto makeup gain, and a limiter with an adjustable ceiling.
• Ducking — pull other channels down when you speak or when another channel is playing audio.
• LUFS limiter / ear protection — caps application loudness using a BS.1770-style meter, so a loud video does not remove your hearing.
• Creative FX: reverb, overdrive, delay.

Around the mixer

• Profiles. A profile is a whole mixer setup — levels, mutes, routing, effects. Save, rename, switch, import and export them. Switching a profile never rewires the graph.
• Web Companion. A built-in server serves a small PWA to any phone or tablet on your network; use it as a second control surface. The page is compiled into the daemon, so it cannot go missing.
• Instrument tuner. Tune from any audio or MIDI input, auto or manual string mode, selectable concert pitch — without disturbing your mixer setup.
• Hardware controls for microphones that expose them over a vendor USB protocol (Elgato Wave:3: Clipguard, direct-monitor blend, headphone jack).
• Daemon/GUI split. wavelined owns the PipeWire graph and the noise filter; the GUI is a pure D-Bus client. Closing the window leaves routing and noise suppression running.
• Update check in the About window.

Hardware profiles in-tree

Anything not listed still works through the generic profile — the mixer itself is not device-specific.

Contributing

Issues and pull requests: https://github.com/Nakildias/waveline.

Everything is SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0-or-later; keep the header on new files. Contributions are accepted under that licence.

Adding a new device

devices/README.md is the full guide — read it first. devices/ is the only place new hardware support belongs. Profiles are discovered automatically, so a normal new mic, mixer or capture card needs no installer edits.

The short version:

1. Identify the hardware with it plugged in — lsusb, lspci -nn, pw-cli ls Node, wpctl status, cat /proc/asound/cards. Never invent USB/PCI IDs, ALSA node names, or quirks.
2. Create the profile tree: bash mkdir -p devices/<brand>/<category>/<id> cp devices/generic/device.conf devices/<brand>/<category>/<id>/device.conf <category> is microphones, capture-cards or mixers. PROFILE_ID must equal the directory name.
3. Fill in device.conf — PROFILE_ID, PROFILE_LABEL, BRAND, USB_IDS / PCI_IDS, ALSA_NODE_MATCH. Leave the optional keys empty. Add the capture node prefix and display brand to app/src/engine/masterbus.h so strips are named correctly.
4. Add WirePlumber / PipeWire / udev / kernel drop-ins only with evidence that they are needed. Never copy another device's workarounds onto hardware that does not need them.
5. Smoke-test discovery with scripts/lib/profiles.sh (profile_resolve, profile_present, profile_detect) — see the guide.
6. Test on real hardware. "Config looks right" is not support.

Two more documents are required reading before you post a profile:

• devices/TROUBLESHOOTING.md — evidence-driven guide for intermittent robotic / metallic / pitch-shifted capture audio.
• devices/VERIFY_BEFORE_POSTING.md — the human verification matrix: 20 daemon startups, 20 physical hotplugs per device, and 20 Rebuild actions per device, with ≥99% success in every category. A human must run this; an agent cannot sign it off.

Using an AI agent to add your device

Paste this into Claude / Cursor with the device plugged in:

Read devices/README.md, devices/TROUBLESHOOTING.md, and devices/VERIFY_BEFORE_POSTING.md in this repo end-to-end. Add Waveline support for my hardware: <full product name> (microphone / mixer / capture card). Follow the layout, fill device.conf correctly, add WirePlumber / udev / kernel bits only if evidence shows they are needed, run the agent testing checklist yourself, then walk me through the required human verification and wait for my results before calling it done.

Opening the PR

Include, in the description:

• Full product name and the vid:pid / [vid:pid] you found
• The output that proves detection (profile_detect, wpctl status)
• Which optional drop-ins you added and the evidence that made them necessary
• Your results from VERIFY_BEFORE_POSTING.md
• Any known gaps you are asking to have accepted

What not to do

• Do not create empty category folders "for later".
• Do not set HARDWARE_CONTROLS=1 without a real vendor protocol in the daemon.
• Do not change install.sh for a normal new profile — discovery is automatic.
• Do not commit secrets or machine-specific paths in device.conf.

Thanks, and third-party licences

Waveline stands on other people's work. A full, per-component inventory — including why each licence is compatible with GPL-2.0-or-later, and how each component reaches you — is in THIRD-PARTY.md. Verbatim licence texts are in LICENSES/.

The interface is modelled on Elgato's Wave Link. Waveline is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or derived from Elgato or Corsair; no Elgato code or assets are included, and product names are used only to identify hardware.

Nothing on this page is legal advice — it is a factual inventory so that you, or anyone packaging this, can comply without re-deriving it.