CAVA Configuration — README

Simple, sleek, and terminal-friendly CAVA (Console-based Audio Visualizer) configuration for a transparent Kitty/Alacritty/terminal setup on KDE/Wayland or X11.

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What this repo contains

• config — main CAVA config file you can drop into ~/.config/cava/config.
• README.md — this file (you are reading it).
• preview.png — (optional) screenshot used for the preview in this README. Add your own screenshot here.

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Preview

If you place a screenshot at ./preview.png, it will show up above. To take a screenshot:

• On Wayland (KDE): use Spectacle or grim/slurp workflows.
• On X11: use scrot or maim.

Example (X11):

# focus the terminal running cava and capture a selection or window
scrot -u preview.png
# or
maim -s preview.png

Example (Wayland with grim):

grim -g "$(slurp)" preview.png

Drop preview.png in this repo root and push to GitHub to show the preview.

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Features

• Smooth bars and adaptive decay tuned for music and system audio.
• Tunable sensitivity and smoothing so it looks good with both quiet and loud sources.
• Transparent-friendly output so it layers well over a blurred terminal background.
• Basic comments in the config to explain each option.

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Requirements

• cava (v0.6+ recommended)
• ALSA or PulseAudio or pipewire (the config reads whatever your system provides)
• A terminal that supports truecolor and transparency (Kitty, alacritty, or konsole with transparency)

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Installation

1. Create the config directory (if not present):

mkdir -p ~/.config/cava

2. Copy the config file into place:

cp config ~/.config/cava/config

3. Run cava with the config (default reads ~/.config/cava/config automatically):

# explicit path
cava -p ~/.config/cava/config

# or just
cava

If you use PipeWire/PulseAudio and cava fails to find input, you may need to configure a capture source. See Troubleshooting below.

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Key options explained (quick)

• sensitivity — how responsive the bars are to quiet sounds. Increase for more activity during quiet audio.
• framerate — smoothness of the visualizer (lower uses less CPU).
• bars / bands — number and look of vertical bars.
• method — FFT size and windowing method (affects accuracy vs performance).
• colors — the color palette used for the bars.
• background / foreground — used for terminals that support alternate palette; not all terminals obey these.

(Full comments live inside the config file.)

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Tips for a nice look

• Use a blurred terminal background (KWin blur or a compositor) so CAVA feels like it's floating.
• Match the terminal font and line height so bars align nicely with your terminal grid.
• If you want pixel-perfect transparency on Wayland, run your terminal as a native Wayland client (Kitty/Alacritty support this).

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Troubleshooting

• No audio input / "no device found": make sure your audio stack (PulseAudio/pipewire/ALSA) is running and that cava is allowed to capture a monitor or source. On Pulse/pipewire you may need to create a loopback sink or use parec as input.

• Bars too noisy / too quiet: tweak sensitivity and gain to taste.

• Bad performance: lower framerate and reduce bars/bands.

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Customization examples

• Increase smoothing for slow-moving visuals.
• Add more bands for a denser visual.
• Use gradient or custom colors arrays for a neon look.

(See commented examples inside config.)

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Credits

Built from community-tested settings with tweaks for transparency and KDE look.

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License

MIT — feel free to use and adapt. Drop a star if you like it.

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Contributing

Send a PR with your tweaks, a short note explaining what you changed, and a preview image placed as preview.png in the PR branch.