Ross ROSS = Recommend OSS · open-source software intelligence for agents

alexbw/novocaine

Painless high-performance audio on iOS and Mac OS X observed · 2026-08-28

github.com/alexbw/novocaine · homepage · Objective-C · MIT (permissive) observed · 2026-08-28

Health v2 · maintenance only

32/100

  • Activity 0
  • Release rhythm 35
  • Longevity 100

Flags: no_releases

How is this computed?

round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10) — computed 2026-09-03. Adoption (stars, forks) is never an input.

  • gap_med: n/a
  • age_days: 5266
  • days_rel: n/a
  • days_push: 2835
  • n_releases_24m: 0

Full methodology

Adoption not part of the score

2232 stars · 270 forks observed · 2026-08-28

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-30, confidence not recorded

Novocaine is an Objective-C/C++ library that wraps Apple's low-level Audio Units API to make high-performance real-time audio input and output on iOS and Mac OS X simple. It provides easy block-based callbacks for reading microphone audio and writing playback audio with minimal code.

Use cases

  • capture microphone audio in real time on iOS
  • play back generated audio with low latency on Mac
  • build an audio analyzer or oscilloscope app
  • route audio input to output for pass-through monitoring
  • avoid writing raw Core Audio Audio Unit code

When to choose

  • you need low-latency real-time audio on iOS or macOS without wrestling with Audio Units
  • you want a simple block-based API for mic input and speaker output
  • you're building audio analysis tools like RTAs or oscilloscopes in Objective-C

When to avoid

  • you need cross-platform audio beyond Apple platforms
  • you're using Swift exclusively and don't want Objective-C++ interop
  • you need actively maintained software - the last release was in 2018
  • you need high-level features like codecs, file playback, or effects chains

Facets

library · maturity maintenance

audio-processing sdk mobile-development developer-tools cpp core-audio audio-units objective-c real-time-audio microphone playback audio ios macos

1 source

Member repositories

RepositoryRoleHealth v2
alexbw/novocainemain32

For agents

markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="alexbw/novocaine")

Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00 · Report a problem