A PipeWire mixer for Linux streamers, in the spirit of Elgato Wave Link. Send each application to a channel, then decide how loud every channel is in each mix: what you hear, what goes to the stream and what goes to the call are separate balances.
- A matrix mixer: channels are rows, mixes are columns, and each cell has its own fader and mute.
- Effects per channel: noise suppression, equaliser, de-esser and compressor built in, plus VST3 plug-ins and Thimeo's Stereo Tool.
- Meters on every channel, mix and cell.
- Stream Deck support through OpenDeck or StreamController, with keys and dials that look like the mixer.
- Discord calls split into one track per person, with Vesktop.
- Lives through PipeWire and WirePlumber restarts.
Each release has:
| Package | For |
|---|---|
.deb |
Debian 13, Ubuntu 25.04 and later |
.rpm |
Fedora 42 and later |
.AppImage |
Other distributions with glibc 2.41 or later. It carries GTK and libadwaita, and uses the system's PipeWire. |
All three need a GTK at least 4.18, a libadwaita at least 1.7 and PipeWire 1.2 or later, which is why older releases are not covered.
On any distribution, Pipedeck also comes as a Flatpak, from 2c2t's repository, and is kept up to date with your other Flatpaks:
flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists 2c2t https://flatpak.2c2t.dev/2c2t.flatpakrepo
flatpak install 2c2t dev._2c2t.PipedeckFrom its sandbox, Pipedeck cannot install StreamController's and Vesktop's plugins, which are installed from outside (see their READMEs), nor the KWin script that says which application is in front.
Requirements: PipeWire ≥ 1.2 (with headers), GTK ≥ 4.18, libadwaita ≥ 1.7, clang (for bindgen), pkg-config and Rust ≥ 1.92.
cargo build --release
./target/release/pipedeckRun this way, or from an AppImage, Pipedeck adds itself to the launcher,
with its icon, under ~/.local/share on its first start.
Channels (rows) are where sound comes from. A channel is either a virtual output, which any application can pick in its audio settings, or a capture device such as a microphone. You can attach applications to a channel: Pipedeck moves their audio there whenever they start playing.
Mixes (columns) are where sound goes. Each mix is an input device named after it: OBS, Discord or a browser list it with the microphones. A mix can also play to one or more output devices, each with its own level. There can be up to five mixes: Personal, Chat, Stream, Record and Aux.
Cells connect a channel to a mix. A cell exists only once you press +
on it, and it carries that pair's fader and mute.
The ear on a mix card says whether you hear that mix in your headphones. The button in the header bar chooses which device your headphones are, and moves every mix you listen to when you change it.
A channel's or a mix's level is the volume of its PipeWire node, so a volume applet or a media key moves the fader too. Cards can be reordered by dragging them by their grip, and a click on a card opens its settings.
Effects run on a channel, and every mix hears the result. A channel bound to a microphone runs them too. Mixes have no effects.
| Effect | What it does |
|---|---|
| Noise suppression | Removes fans, keyboards and hiss behind a voice (RNNoise, 10 ms of delay). |
| Equaliser | Five bands shaped for a voice, set by dragging them on a curve, with presets. |
| De-esser | Turns down harsh s and sh sounds. Learn from my voice sets it for you. |
| Compressor | Evens out loud and quiet moments. Learn from my voice sets it for you. |
Each effect can be switched off without removing it. Changing a setting is heard at once; adding or removing an effect stops the audio for a moment.
VST3 plug-ins are read from the usual folders and from VST3_PATH. The
Plug-ins page of the settings installs a .vst3 bundle, or a bare .so,
into ~/.vst3. Plug-in windows are not supported yet, so their parameters
stay at their defaults.
Stereo Tool is proprietary and not bundled: download it from
thimeo.com and import the
archive from the Plug-ins page. Only the builds for your machine are
kept, in ~/.local/share/pipedeck/stereotool/. Its own window opens from the
effect (X11 builds only), or load a preset exported from it. Without a
licence key it inserts speech and beeps into the audio. It adds 50 to 100 ms
of delay.
| Integration | What it does |
|---|---|
| OpenDeck plugin | Mutes, levels, the mix you hear, effects and more on keys and dials, with meters. Ready-made profiles for the Stream Deck, Stream Deck + and XL. |
| StreamController plugin | The same actions and the same look, for StreamController. |
| Vesktop plugin | Splits the Discord call into one sub-track per person, each with its own level and mute, remembered for the next call. |
All three are installed from Settings → Plug-ins. They talk to the
mixer through its control socket, $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/pipedeck/control.sock.
On KDE, Application in front lets a Stream Deck key send the application you are looking at to a channel.
- General: colour theme, start at login, keep running in the
notification area when the window is closed (
pipedeck --backgroundstarts it that way, Ctrl+Q quits), and drawing without the graphics card if text shows up damaged. - Audio: the quantum Pipedeck's nodes ask for, 512 frames by default. Raise it if you get xruns. Export writes the mixer to a file, to keep or to bring to another computer, without the Stereo Tool key; Import puts a mixer from such a file in place of yours. Devices the other computer lacks are picked again there.
- Plug-ins: VST3, Stereo Tool, Stream Deck and Discord.
The mixer is saved in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/pipedeck/config.toml, the window's
own settings in interface.toml next to it.
| Variable | Use |
|---|---|
RUST_LOG |
How much Pipedeck logs, e.g. RUST_LOG=pipedeck=debug,pipedeck_engine=debug for a bug report. |
PIPEDECK_STEREOTOOL |
Load Stereo Tool from somewhere else. |
VST3_PATH |
More folders to look for VST3 plug-ins in. |
Fixes and ideas are welcome. CONTRIBUTING.md says how to build, test and send a change, and CHANGELOG.md lists what each release brings.
Pipedeck is under the MIT License.
The interface icons are Material Symbols,
under the Apache License 2.0, in crates/pipedeck/icons.