01 / CARTOGRAPHY
Gateway Forge
A guided-meditation assembly system and journal that keeps the published map beside what was actually found—without forcing them into one answer.
Independent software workshop
Voices, signals & strange maps.
I build local-first tools that put the interesting machinery on the outside—so it can be measured, questioned, and changed.
Five public projects
The workbench
Each project has its own repository and field notes. The apps stay local; the measurements, trade-offs, and failures are left visible.
02 / SPEECH
Voice Forge
A text-to-speech instrument with the synthesiser’s timing controls exposed and measured instead of hidden behind one generic speed slider.
03 / FACE
Protoke
proto + karaoke. A karaoke and narration renderer fronted by a protogen visor face — two eyes and a mouth drawn as vector outlines and burned in by the same libass pass that draws the lyrics, so there is no image sequence to composite.
◤‿◥ visor^w^ happy▶_◀ sharp
¬‿¬ smugo_o wide-_- sleepy
owo curious^o^ delighted^_^ content
¬‿¬ smugo_o wide-_- sleepy
owo curious^o^ delighted^_^ content
04 / DELIVERY
Media Preflight
Check a finished file against where it is going — YouTube, ACX, EBU R 128, or a standard of your own — and get the exact timestamps of what is wrong. Then, optionally, a corrected copy that is measured again from scratch before it claims to be fixed. The original is never touched.
✓ -23.1 LUFS✓ -1.4 dBTP⚠ 2.1 s black
✕ 48 kHz✓ h264⚠ drift 0.4 s
✓ fast start✕ mono✓ no clipping
✕ 48 kHz✓ h264⚠ drift 0.4 s
✓ fast start✕ mono✓ no clipping
05 / FIELD TOOLS
tools-core
The useful pieces that fell out of the larger work: audio forensics, corpus preparation, Piper workflows, and Qwen3-TTS truth probes.
tools-core/
├── audio-analysis/
├── gateway-authoring/
├── piper-workflows/
└── tts-research/
├── audio-analysis/
├── gateway-authoring/
├── piper-workflows/
└── tts-research/
tools-core
Open the toolbox
These are working instruments, not a framework. Take the one that answers your question, give it explicit paths, and keep the generated material out of Git.
git clone https://github.com/snepssen/tools-core.git && cd tools-core
Beat analyser
Find persistent stereo tone pairs, calculate their differential, and separate likely entrainment signals from drifting content.
python3 audio-analysis/analyse-beat.py track.flac --jsonCorpus aligner
Use authored text as truth, ASR only for timing, and quiet gaps for safe cuts—then preserve a manifest of every decision.
python3 audio-analysis/align-corpus.py read.wav words.json script.md outputPiper workflows
Train, resume, export, render, and A/B checkpoints while retaining fixes for checkpoint loading, dynamic shapes, and telemetry.
bash piper-workflows/check-in.sh RUN CONFIG OUTTruth probes
Dump real MLX tensors, tokenizer slices, and speaking pace so a native port can be compared stage by stage instead of trusted by ear.
python3 tts-research/qwen3-tokenizer-truth.py --gateway-root PATHLibrary helpers
Index evidence, convert measured signals into playable profiles, verify corpus labels, and safely preview provisional briefings.
python3 gateway-authoring/seed-briefings.py PATH --dry-runSmall live specimens
Try the ideas
Two deliberately tiny sketches from the larger projects. Nothing is uploaded and nothing follows you away from this page.
Two tones, one perceived beat
Pick a differential, put on headphones, then start the quiet signal. The left and right channels differ by the selected amount.
ready · carrier 100 Hz · differential 4.0 Hz
Headphones required to perceive the differential. Starts very quietly, stops automatically after 30 seconds, and stops when the page is hidden.
A lyric line is a clock
Play the timing sketch. The words are fixed; only their measured windows decide what is active.
Build a little signal,
then give it room to breathe.
then give it room to breathe.
00:00.000 / 00:05.200
The face is a subtitle track
No image sequence and no video layer: two eyes and a mouth, drawn from a dozen numbers and burned in by the same libass that draws the lyrics. These are Protoke's own frames, played back.
64 frames · 3 shapes · one loop
A recurring method
How I build
The subjects change. The rules underneath them have stayed remarkably consistent.
Keep it local
Personal voice, private journals, and unfinished material stay on the machine unless there is a clear reason for them to leave.
Measure the claim
A waveform, duration, tensor, or failing check is more useful than “sounds about right.” Unknown stays a named state.
Show the mechanism
Good tools expose the meaningful controls and preserve the source material, instead of hiding both behind a convenient button.
The wider workshop
Five tools, one local-first practice.
Move between guided-meditation authoring, measured speech, lyric video, delivery validation, and the small field tools that support all of them.
01 / JOURNEYSmacOS · Windows · Linux
Gateway Forge
Assemble guided sessions and keep published maps beside what was actually found.
Explore Gateway Forge →02 / SPEECHmacOS · Windows · Linux
Voice Forge
A transparent Piper workbench for timing, pronunciation, and honest audio export.
Explore Voice Forge →03 / VIDEOmacOS · Windows · Linux
Protoke
Karaoke and narration video with a vector visor face that mouths every word.
Explore Protoke →04 / DELIVERYmacOS · Windows · Linux
Media Preflight
Check a finished file against where it is going, and correct it without touching the original.
Explore Media Preflight →05 / FIELD TOOLSPython · shell
tools-core
Small utilities for audio inspection, corpus work, authoring, and repeatable checks.
Open the toolbox →Contact
Questions, odd measurements, useful disagreements.
Bug reports belong in the project that produced them. For everything else, email or Telegram reaches me directly.