Aptune

Aptune is a cli tool for MacOS that ducks system volume while you speak.

Features

• On speech onset, volume ramps down to current * configured multiplier.
• After silence hold, volume ramps back to the pre-duck baseline.
• On exit (Ctrl+C), Aptune restores baseline volume.

Usage

• --down-to <0...1> (default 0.25)
• --attack-ms <int> (default 80)
• --release-ms <int> (default 600)
• --hold-ms <int> (default 250)
• --log-level info|debug (default info)
• --speech-threshold <0...1> (default 0.7)
• -h, --help, help
• -v, --version, version

Commands

• aptune use-built-in-mic
  Temporarily keep the built-in microphone active while sending output to another device.
• aptune install-plugin built-in-mic
  Install the optional built-in microphone Spotlight shortcut.

Optional macOS audio routing helper and Spotlight launcher: if you want Aptune to keep using your Mac's built-in microphone while playback stays on AirPods or another Bluetooth device, see docs/audio-routing-helper.md.

Install

Nix flake

nix profile install github:yyovil/aptune#aptune

You can also run it without installing:

nix run github:yyovil/aptune#aptune -- --version

This flake is macOS-only because Aptune depends on Apple audio, Core ML, and AppleScript APIs.

Homebrew tap

Install Aptune from the tap:

brew tap yyovil/aptune https://github.com/yyovil/aptune
brew install aptune

Optional Spotlight launcher:

aptune install-plugin built-in-mic

Shell Completion

Aptune currently ships zsh completions.

If you install Aptune with the Nix flake or the Homebrew tap above, the completion file is installed automatically. Start a new zsh session or run:

exec zsh

If you install Aptune from a release tarball, copy share/zsh/site-functions/_aptune into a directory on your fpath, then reload completions:

autoload -Uz compinit
compinit -i