Windows and Mac
See what you're hearing.
Made for everyone, deep enough for audio nerds. A real audio editor, a studio analyzer, and a 32-band equalizer are built in, and it paints every sound live on your graphics card with 202 visuals. Free for Windows and Mac.
Windows 10 and 11 · macOS 12 or later, Apple silicon · New versions posted here
The player
A small player. Windows that snap together.
A classic multi-window layout, rebuilt for today. The equalizer, queue, library, analyzer, artwork, and visuals each get their own window. Edges snap to each other and to the screen, and docked windows travel together when you drag.
202 visuals
Every frame is drawn live on your graphics card.
Each visual listens to the bass, mids, treble, and beat of what's playing. Physically lit scenes with real reflections, hundreds of thousands of particles per frame, endless fractals and kaleidoscopes, calm geometric and minimal pieces, and a classic spectrum and oscilloscope, blown up to fill the screen.
Auto mode lands on the downbeat
Lucent studies each sound ahead of time and changes visual at the start of a phrase, with morphs that melt, glow, fly, or fold one into the next.
Find one in seconds
Press V and start typing. Visuals sit in family folders with tags like Calm, Minimal, Neon, and Space. Sort by name, family, newest, or recently used, and star your favorites for Auto to stick to.
Up to 4K, with HDR
Render at 1080p, 1440p, or 4K supersampled down, from Low to Ultra detail with up to four times the particles. Highlights shine past white on HDR screens.
Record it to video
Save the song that's playing, drawn with any visual, as an MP4 in up to 4K at 60 fps. Every frame is drawn, none skipped.
MilkDrop and AVS presets built in
148 classic MilkDrop presets and 34 stock AVS presets come with Lucent. The .milk and .avs files you've kept for years import and play as Lucent visuals too, with AVS drawn sharper and lit by Lucent's glow.
Make your own visuals
Each visual is one HLSL shader. Drop yours in a folder and it shows up in the picker.
Audio editor
Edit, repair, and measure without leaving your player.
Right-click any sound and choose Open in editor. Cut it, clean it up, split it into stems, check its loudness, and master it with studio meters and a chain of your own VST3 effects. Every change has undo, and nothing is saved over the original until you say so.
Split into stems
Pull any song apart into vocals, drums, bass, and everything else with an AI model on your graphics card. Mute the vocals for karaoke, or save each stem as a file.
Plugin chains
An insert strip runs your VST3 effects top to bottom, live as it plays. Save a chain to use again, or bring one over from REAPER.
History
Every step you take is listed with its settings and the time. Click one to go straight back to it.
Move clips, find hits
Grab a clip with the Hand tool and slide it, and Tab to Transient jumps to the next drum hit or note, as in Pro Tools.
Room to work
Pinch to zoom on a touchpad or touch screen, and press F11 to give the editor or analyzer the whole screen.
Cut, copy, and paste
Joins crossfade so nothing clicks, Snap lands selections on zero crossings, and paste works between sounds and other apps.
Analyze
Peak, true peak, loudness, loudness range, DC offset, stereo correlation, and spectrum, plus a finder that jumps to every clipped spot.
Meters and views
A level meter with true peak and LUFS as you play or loop a section, and a spectrogram view in place of the waveform.
Repair
Take out 50 or 60 Hz hum, clicks and crackle, background noise, and DC offset.
EQ and dynamics
A 7-band parametric EQ, a compressor, and a true-peak limiter, all heard live, next to your own VST3 effects.
Tempo and pitch
Tempo from 50 to 200%, keeping the pitch or not, or the pitch alone in 0.1 semitone steps.
Channels and markers
Swap, invert, mix to mono, widen the stereo, or edit one side alone, and drop markers to jump between parts.
Analyzer
See the whole sound in detail.
A scrolling spectrogram heatmap of everything you play, with a waveform, a live spectrum, and a stereo spread scope. Press Y to open it, and point at the heatmap to read any frequency.
Spectrogram
The music as a heatmap, low notes at the bottom, colored by loudness.
Waveform
The signal scrolling underneath, in step with the heatmap.
Spectrum
Bars on the same frequency scale right now, with peak marks.
Stereo spread
How wide the mix is, with a bar for how alike the left and right sides are.
Holds still while the music is paused, so you can look closer. Docks with the other windows and follows your skin and theme.
Studio equalizer
Faders like a mixing desk, over the music's live spectrum.
- 4, 8, 16, 24, or 32 bands. Switching keeps your curve, and the new faders rise into place.
- See problem frequencies as peaks behind the response curve.
- 15 presets like Bass Boost, Vocal, Late Night, and Small Speakers, or save your own.
- Safe boosting. Lucent lowers the preamp a touch when you boost, so nothing distorts.
Skins and themes
Five skins. Eight themes. Any combination.
Skins decide the shape, type, and finish of every window. Themes decide the colors. Pick one here and this page changes with it.
Theme: Midnight · Skin: Lucent
Fullscreen with F11. Right-click for a seek bar, volume, and every graphics option.
For people who care how it sounds
Everything else you'd reach for.
Gapless and bit-perfect
Albums play straight through with no gap between tracks. Turn on exclusive mode, on Windows or a Mac, and each track reaches your DAC untouched, at its own format.
Library
Link a folder or drag music in, and every sound shows up, searchable as you type. Heart your favorites and make .m3u8 playlists right there.
Artwork window
The playing sound's cover, as big as you like, pinned on top if you want it.
Keyboard first
One key for every window and visual. Media keys work even when Lucent isn't in front, and the song shows in Windows' media controls or the Mac's Now Playing.
Tag editor
Titles, artists, lyrics, and cover art, saved to a checked copy first.
Bandcamp and Beatport
Downloads from either store file themselves into your library, and your Bandcamp collection can sync on its own (experimental).
Import from another player
Bring playlists, play counts, and ratings over from Apple Music, MusicBee, foobar2000, Plex, or YouTube Music.
Converter
Make MP3, FLAC, or WAV, stereo or mono, with tags and artwork carried across a whole batch.
Plays MP3 · FLAC · WAV · AAC/M4A · ALAC · WMA · OGG Vorbis · Opus · AIFF
Get Lucent.
Free, under the MIT license, for Windows and Mac.
- System
- Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit. macOS 12 or later, Apple silicon.
- Graphics
- Any Direct3D 11 GPU on Windows, or any Metal GPU on a Mac. A recent one gets you Ultra and 4K.
- Install
- Your account only on Windows, no admin rights. Into Applications on a Mac.
Download the installer
Grab
Lucent-win-Setup.exefor Windows, orLucent-mac-arm64.zipfor a Mac with Apple silicon, from the download buttons above.Run it
On Windows, Lucent installs for your account and adds Start menu and desktop shortcuts. On a Mac, it goes into Applications. Either way it opens with the player, equalizer, and visuals, playing a song to show them off.
Check back for new versions
For now, new versions are posted on this site. Download the newest installer and run it, and your settings, playlists, and visuals stay put.
About
Hi, I’m Josh!
I've worked in game audio for almost 20 years, and I'm best known for contributing to the Borderlands franchise. In my free time I make lots of music and build Lucent.
Lucent is the media player I always wanted: made for everyone, with plenty for audio pros too. Like the apps that inspired it, it's free.
I hope you enjoy using it as much as I enjoy making it. Questions, feedback, or just want to chat? Send me a note.