My first C++ project, rewritten in August 2026. It floats above every other window and reacts to whatever the system is playing (YouTube, Spotify, games), with no virtual audio cable.
miniaudio captures system audio through WASAPI loopback on its own thread. KissFFT turns each block into frequencies, which are grouped into logarithmically spaced bands so bass, mids and treble each get a fair share of the display. A beat detector compares bass energy against its own rolling average, so the visual pulses on hits, not just on loudness.
There are two modes: a circular "orb" drawn by a GLSL shader, and mirrored
bars. The window uses per-pixel transparency (UpdateLayeredWindow), so it
blends with the desktop behind it, and it is click-through while locked.
Global hotkeys move it, resize it, and switch modes. When the audio stops it
fades out and drops to 15 FPS. A PowerShell script builds a static
executable of about 5.5 MB and adds it to the user's PATH.