Pulsewave User Manual

1. Getting started

1. Open Pulsewave. The animated intro plays.
2. Press Tap to start, or press Enter.
3. Press Add music and choose one or more songs, or drag audio files onto the window.
4. Playback starts on its own. Use the controls under the visuals.

Supported formats: MP3, M4A/AAC, WAV, OGG, OPUS and FLAC. FLAC depends on your browser or device. Your music stays on your device. Nothing is uploaded.

Tip: name files Artist - Title.mp3 and Pulsewave shows the artist and title separately.

2. Installing

Windows

1. Download Pulsewave-Setup.exe from the download page.
2. Run it. If Windows SmartScreen appears, click More info → Run anyway. The app is not code-signed yet.
3. Choose a folder and finish. Pulsewave appears in the Start menu and on the desktop.

macOS

1. Download Pulsewave.dmg. Pick the Apple Silicon (arm64) version for M1/M2/M3/M4 Macs, or the Intel (x64) version.
2. Open it and drag Pulsewave into Applications.
3. The first time, right-click the app → Open → Open. macOS asks once because the app is not notarized yet.

iPhone / iPad

1. Open pulsewave.ryanbarnal.com in Safari.
2. Tap the Share button and then Add to Home Screen.

Android

1. Open pulsewave.ryanbarnal.com in Chrome.
2. Tap ⋮ and then Install app (or Add to Home screen).

3. Playing music

Playlist tab: tap a song to play it. Press ✕ to remove a song and Clear to empty the list. You can also control playback from your keyboard's media keys, your phone's lock screen or Bluetooth headphones.

4. Visual effects

Pick an effect with the buttons at the top left of the visuals:

• Bars: classic spectrum analyzer bars
• Wave: glowing oscilloscope waveform
• Radial: circular spectrum that spins and pulses
• Galaxy: starfield that speeds up with the energy of the music
• Tunnel: rotating hexagon tunnel that reacts to the beat

The colored dots at the top right switch the color theme: Neon, Sunset, Forest, Ocean or Candy. Every effect flashes on the beat. Double-click the visuals, or press F, for full screen. Pulsewave remembers your choices.

5. Equalizer

Open the Equalizer tab. It has 10 bands: 32 Hz, 64, 125, 250, 500, 1k, 2k, 4k, 8k and 16 kHz. Each band goes from −12 to +12 dB.

• Presets: Flat, Bass Boost, Treble Boost, Rock, Pop, Jazz, Classical, Electronic, Hip-Hop, Vocal, Acoustic and Late Night
• Custom: drag any slider and the preset changes to Custom
• EQ on: switches the equalizer on or off, so you can compare
• Bass boost: adds up to +12 dB of deep bass
• Balance: shifts the sound left or right
• Reset: sets everything back to Flat

If the sound distorts, lower the volume or reduce the boosted bands.

6. Lyrics

Lyrics scroll over the visual effects, karaoke style. The current line glows. Press 🎤 Lyrics or L to show or hide them.

Pulsewave looks for lyrics in this order:

1. Lyrics you saved for that song in the Lyrics tab.
2. A .lrc file with the same name as the song, for example Artist - Title.mp3 + Artist - Title.lrc. Add both files together. You can also add the .lrc file later, or press Load .lrc.
3. Lyrics stored inside the song file. Many MP3s carry them.
4. Online search in the free LRCLIB lyrics database. This sends the song's title, artist and length to lrclib.net. Turn it off with Find lyrics online automatically.

Synced or not synced

Synced lyrics (.lrc, with times like [01:23.45]) move exactly with the singer. Plain lyrics have no times, so Pulsewave scrolls them evenly through the song.

Lyrics tab

• Paste your own: type or paste lyrics into the box and press Save lyrics. Plain text or LRC both work.
• Search online: looks the song up again.
• Forget saved: removes your saved copy.
• Timing −0.5 s / +0.5 s: nudges the lyrics if they are early or late. Pulsewave remembers this for each song.
• Text size: makes the lyrics bigger or smaller.

Tip: in full-screen mode (F) the lyrics get bigger, which is good for karaoke on a TV.

7. Keyboard shortcuts

8. FAQ & troubleshooting