Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Aug 5, 2026

Xwax

xwax is an open-source vinyl emulation software. It was initially developed in 2006 as proprietary software. In May 2007 xwax was licensed under the GPL-2.0-only, making it the first open source software of this kind.

Last revised
Aug 5, 2026
Read time
≈ 2 min
Length
393 w
Citations
15
Source
Wikipedia ↗
xwax
DeveloperMark Hills
Release2006 (2006)
Stable release
1.8 / August 18, 2021 (2021-08-18)
Written inC1
Operating systemLinux
LicenseGPL-2.0-only
Websitexwax: Digital Vinyl System for Linux

xwax is an open-source vinyl emulation software.234 It was initially developed in 2006 as proprietary software. In May 2007 xwax was licensed under the GPL-2.0-only,5 making it the first open source software of this kind.

Unlike the software supplied with some proprietary packages for vinyl emulation, xwax is hardware independent. Notably, it can be used with the audio device and timecode recordings supplied with the Scratch Live6 program, and older versions7 of the Traktor Scratch program,8 and the audio interface supplied with the original Final Scratch.9

The xwax source code is used to decode timecodes for vinyl control in Mixxx1011 and is also used in the PiDeck project on the Raspberry Pi.12

Features

  • Separated processes of the interface from the external decoder.
    • The benefit of this separation is that should a faulty track be loaded and crash the only thing affected is the decoder. The primary xwax interface will still be up and usable.
    • An external decoder also allows you to play what ever digital audio encoding you wish to use.
  • MIDI controller support
    • 1.2 was the first version to introduce midi controller support, allowing the user to manipulate cue points with the Dicer DJ controller from Novation 13
  • A fully scalable UI that makes xwax suitable for high resolution displays.14
  • A "software pre-amp" that allows you to use an un-amplified turntable output with xwax without a hardware preamplifier.14
References

References

  1. xwax development: Guidelines Archived 2012-12-19 at the Wayback Machine, Retrieved 2012-10-14.
  2. "xwax: Digital Vinyl on Linux". Retrieved 2008-01-02.
  3. "Skratchworx: And for Linux users..." Retrieved 2013-08-11.
  4. "Create Digital Music: xwax: Vinyl Scratching Emulation on Linux". 24 May 2007. Retrieved 2007-05-24.
  5. "xwax development". Archived from the original on 2007-10-09. Retrieved 2008-01-02.
  6. "Xwax - An open source DVS". Archived from the original on March 27, 2010.
  7. "xwax: Overview". Retrieved 2014-09-08.
  8. "xwax: Overview".
  9. Hills, Mark (2007-09-04). "ALSA and the Rane SL 1 interface". xwax-devel (Mailing list).
  10. Santoni, Albert (2007-08-22). "Vinyl Control and New Audio Core in Trunk". mixxx-devel (Mailing list).
  11. "Vinyl Control - MixxxWiki". Archived from the original on 2008-01-01. Retrieved 2008-01-02.
  12. "PiDeck: Standalone DVS Control On Raspberry Pi". 31 October 2016. Retrieved 2017-09-30.
  13. Hills, Mark. "xwax-devel mailing list: xwax 1.2 release". Retrieved 30 November 2012.
  14. Hills, Mark (2013-06-08). "xwax-devel mailing list: xwax 1.4 release". xwax-devel (Mailing list). Retrieved 2013-08-11.