PLVS

Real-time audio metering for listening closely. Free & open source.

What is PLVS?

PLVS (reads as "plus") is a read-only desktop companion for sound designers and mix engineers on Windows, macOS, and Linux. It keeps your audio's level, shape, and movement in view while you work — no DAW routing, no virtual cables, no plugin slots. PLVS does not process, route, or modify audio.

• Level Meter, Loudness, Stats, Spectrum, Spectrogram, Vectorscope, Stereo Map, and Waveform in one arrangeable workspace
• System output, a single application, or a physical input, captured natively
• Loudness following ITU-R BS.1770 / EBU R128, with your own Loudness Profiles and optional dialogue-gated readouts
• Multichannel from mono through 9.1.6
• Session history and snapshots, plus File Mode for analysing local audio files
• Dock mode, compact views, and custom themes
• Multiple workbenches for metering several Sources side by side, sharing one Library
• Sharesets Catalogue with curated Themes, Presets, and Loudness Profiles
• plvs-cli for diagnosing the installation and controlling the running app
• Private: audio stays on your device, with no telemetry by default

Read the User Guide, also published at plvs.soundoer.com/docs.

Download

Get the latest version from GitHub Releases or the website.

Platform	Package	Notes
Windows 10/11 (x64)	PLVS_<version>_x64-setup.exe	Installer
Windows 10/11 (x64)	PLVS-v<version>-x64-portable.zip	Portable — keep extracted files together
macOS (Apple Silicon)	PLVS-v<version>-aarch64.dmg	Requires macOS 14.2 or later
Ubuntu 24.04 (x86_64)	PLVS_<version>_amd64.deb	APT package with verified in-app updates

Windows builds are not code-signed yet; choose More info → Run anyway if SmartScreen warns. macOS builds are Developer ID signed and Apple-notarized for normal Gatekeeper verification. On Linux, Dock and single-application capture are not available. See Getting Started for details.

Documentation

• User Guide — how to use PLVS
• CLI Reference — plvs-cli commands and JSON contract
• CHANGELOG — what changed in each version
• Developer documentation — architecture, product boundaries, and decision records, for maintainers and agents

Development

git clone https://github.com/SounDoer/PLVS.git
cd PLVS
npm install
npm run desktop:dev    # start the dev app
npm run check          # the full gate before sending a change

Setup requirements, build and release commands, and conventions are in CONTRIBUTING.md. Contributions are welcome.

Acknowledgements

PLVS stands on the shoulders of excellent open-source work. In particular:

• Voice activity detection — dialogue-gated loudness can run on either of two selectable on-device VAD engines:
  • FireRedVAD (default) — bundled via the firered-vad crate (Apache-2.0 model; MIT or Apache-2.0 integration).
  • Silero VAD v6.2 — bundled via the voice_activity_detector crate (MIT).
• CPAL — cross-platform audio capture (Apache-2.0).
• RustFFT & RealFFT — the FFT engine behind the spectrum and spectrogram (MIT / Apache-2.0).
• Rubato — sample-rate conversion (MIT).
• Tauri — the desktop application framework (MIT / Apache-2.0).

Thanks to all the maintainers and contributors of these projects.

License

PLVS is available under the MIT License. Release packages also include third-party notices and the referenced complete license texts.