Benben

Benben is a fast and efficient command line audio player and audio converter for Linux and other Unix-like systems with an oldschool-inspired interface. It supports multiple formats, and is especially suited to people who organize their music in folders, and for those who prefer to use terminals instead of GUIs.

Starting with v0.7.0, it is written almost entirely in the Common Lisp programming language.

See “Notable Features” below for more information.

• Official Homepage and Source Repository
• Releases, downloads, and AppImages for x86-64 Linux
• Official Matrix channel

Example videos

• Partition 36 - Overdrive (Opus)
• ZUN - 亡き王女の為のセプテット (Septette for a Dead Princess) (MP3)
• Partition 36 - Searching for My Identity (Ogg Vorbis)
• Skaven - Ice Frontier (Remix by Necros) (Module/S3M)
• SoulCalibur - Wings of Faith (Sophitia) (VGM - Namco C352)
• Partition 36 - The Mainframe (FLAC)
• Warcraft 2 - Human 2 (General MIDI)

The Partition 36 videos are songs written by me. If you want to find more of my stuff, check out my Bandcamp page.

Supported Formats

• VGM
  • Uncompressed (.vgm)
  • GZip compressed (.vgz)
  • ZStandard compressed (.vgzst)
  • BZip2 compressed (.vgb)
• MPEG-1
  • MPEG-1 Layer III (.mp3)
  • MPEG-1 Layer II (.mp1)
  • MPEG-1 Layer I (.mp1)
• Ogg Vorbis
• Opus
• FLAC
• General MIDI (.mid)
• MUS (.mus)
• All module formats supported by libxmp
• Commodore 64 SID (.sid)
• RIFF WAVE (.wav)
• QOA, the Quite OK Audio format
• XQAF, the Extended Quite OK Audio Format
• WavPack
• Sun Au (.au)

Notable Features

• ALSA, libout123, and libao backends.
• High-performance playback.
• Fast, multi-threaded UI via S-Lang.
• Multiple files can be specified and they will play one after the other.
• Song and playlist looping.
• Output audio over TCP.
• Support for XSPF and JSPF playlists.
• High quality resampling.
• A powerful Configuration file support, including support for per-song configurations.
• Rendering (converting) multiple files in parallel to WAV or Au, with support for multiple bit depths and sample rates, and both integer and floating point.
• Optional effects:
  • Soft clipping with configurable oversampling.
  • Parametric EQ with an arbitrary number of bands.
  • Stereo enhancement effect.
  • Reverb with selectable type and preset.
  • DC offset filter.
• Customizable VU meter.
• Keyboard control support.
• ReplayGain/RVA support.
• Controllable remotely over a dedicated socket.
• ListenBrainz support.