Client-side audio · Browser & PWA · No upload farm

chainDRiVE app icon

Coming soon

chainDRiVE

Effects-first transcoder with a real signal chain — not another Play Store junk converter.

Drop a folder of audio, dial LUFS and radio simulation, pick a codec like you mean it (AAC-LC / HE-AAC / xHE, LAME MP3, FLAC, Opus, AMR, specialty WAV), then batch-export a ZIP — entirely in the browser.

Open in browser — soon Read the Lab note

In development. Screenshots below are captured from the live chainDRiVE app — packaging and public beta still in progress.

Converters flood the store. Engineers starve.

Most “audio converter” apps are format laundry: one slider, muddy defaults, and zero respect for loudness, psychoacoustics, or batch workflow.

What junk converters do

Ship A→B and call it done

  • Hide codec profiles behind “High / Medium / Low”
  • Re-encode everything through a mystery pipeline
  • Crumble on folders — or charge for “batch unlock”
  • Phone-home uploads dressed up as “cloud convert”

What chainDRiVE does

Treat conversion as the last stage

  • Visible signal chain — LUFS → FX → brick-wall → encode
  • Real codec knobs — HE-AAC profiles, LAME psycho sets, Opus apps
  • Strong batch — queue many files → one (cDRV batch).zip
  • On-device — OfflineAudioContext + workers; your media stays local

Inside the workbench

Media queue, effects, codec drawer, chain map, CHAiNAMP preview, job log, batch ZIP — swipe the rail.

Media queue with multiple files ready to process
Media queue — drop & batch
FM radio simulator with advanced artifact toggles
Effects — FM radio sim
LUFS normalize target control
Effects — LUFS normalize
Reorderable signal chain flowchart
Chain — signal path
AAC output settings with LC and HE profiles
Output — AAC LC / HE
Batch complete job log with Save ZIP
Batch complete — ZIP
CHAiNAMP preview player after encode
CHAiNAMP preview

The chain, not the black box

Every stage is intentional. Loudness first, creative FX in the middle, encode last.

  1. 1

    Decode → trim → rate

    Load common containers (MP3, M4A/AAC, FLAC, WAV, Opus/Ogg, AMR, AIFF, CAF…). Resample and channel-map before any FX.

  2. 2

    LUFS normalize

    K-weighted integrated loudness with a target you set (broadcast-style −24…−6 LUFS range) and peak safety — not a dumb “normalize to 0 dBFS.”

  3. 3

    Reorderable FX

    Compressor, Signal Strength makeup, AM/FM radio simulator (hum, multipath, sferics, pilot…), Ear Protect shelf — drag the order, persist it.

  4. 4

    Brick-wall → encode → ZIP

    Limiter closes the chain, then the encoder you actually chose. Multi-file jobs land in one (cDRV batch).zip.

Codec depth that belongs in a lab

If the UI only offers “High quality MP3,” it is not a transcoder — it is a toy.

AAC family

AAC-LC, HE-AAC v1 (SBR), HE-AAC v2 (SBR+PS), experimental xHE-AAC — ADTS .aac and/or MPEG-4 .m4a, with native WebCodecs and software fallback where needed.

MP3 via LAME

CBR/VBR, HQ toggle, psychoacoustic profiles (speech / music / wide / MS-only…), narrow stereo width — knobs for people who hear the difference.

Lossless & voice

FLAC; Opus (Audio / VoIP / Low Delay + complexity); AMR-NB/WB; WAV PCM 16/24/32f plus IMA/MS ADPCM and G.711 A-law / μ-law.

Rates & channels

Sample rates from telephony up through 48 kHz; mono / stereo / joint stereo where the codec allows; size estimates before you commit.

Capability probing

Formats appear when the device can actually encode them — no fake “Supported” badges for codecs the browser cannot ship.

Privacy by architecture

CSP locks the app to itself. Processing uses local OfflineAudioContext and workers — your stems are not a SaaS upload.

Radio simulation from the same lab as KAOS-FM

Terrestrial AM/FM failure modes as audio-graph events — selective fading, multipath, mains hash, tool RFI — then print the result to a file.

AM character

Hum, buzz, hiss, heterodynes, crackle/pops, sferics, selective fading, carrier flutter — seeded so rooms don’t all sound identical.

FM character

Quieting hiss, multipath, rasp, power-tool RFI, stereo separation, ceiling whistle, stereo pilot, program flutter — plus Signal Strength makeup.

Field dump: Faking AM & FM in Web Audio.

Batch that respects operators

Queue a folder, set one chain + one encode profile, run once — get a ZIP, not twelve mystery downloads.

Multi-file queue

Drag-drop, select, process all. Same loudness and FX recipe across the set.

Cancelable jobs

Terminal-style process log so you can see decode → LUFS → FX → encode, and abort mid-run.

One ZIP out

(cDRV batch).zip packaging for the whole run — built for people who convert libraries, not single clips.

Where it will ship

Browser-first PWA from Dialer's Apps — same studio as Global Chaos CB Radio and KAOS-FM.

Coming soon

Desktop browser

Full workbench layout for Chrome and friends — the serious encode station.

Coming soon

Mobile browser / PWA

Phone-first chrome with the same chain and codec depth — installable when we open the gate.

In development

Store packaging

Play packaging follows once the public web build is locked. This page updates when beta opens.

Stay tuned

We’re finishing the public shell. When the beta opens, the button above turns into a real link.

Public beta — soon Read the Lab note Back to Chaos CB