PulseAmp

A free media player for Windows and Linux with YouTube and SoundCloud, MilkDrop visualizations and real Winamp skins.

Download installer PulseAmp-Setup.exe · everything included Portable zip No install: extract and run PulseAmp.exe MilkDrop presets 9,795 presets, for the portable zip Linux (AppImage) One file, everything included

Version 1.0.0 · Windows 10 / 11 (64-bit) and Linux (x86-64) · Free and open source (MIT)

On Linux, get the AppImage: make it executable (chmod +x PulseAmp-x86_64.AppImage) and run it. Needs a 2024-or-newer distro (e.g. Ubuntu 24.04, Fedora 40, Debian 13, Arch).

Listening to music on headphones, surrounded by neon sound waves

PulseAmp in fullscreen showing a MilkDrop visualization

Everything a music player should do

Plays your files, and whatever you find online, with visuals that react to the music.

YouTube & SoundCloud

Search and play from the Online tab, paste a link, or drag one in from your browser. YouTube plays with video up to 1080p.

MilkDrop visualizations

Winamp's legendary visualizer through projectM, with nearly 10,000 presets. Switch presets with [ and ], or right-click to choose from the list.

Winamp skins

Classic mode turns PulseAmp into a compact window in the shape of its skin. Load real Winamp .wsz skins, or design your own.

Neon arcade

Snake, Runner and Invaders in glowing neon, played to your music over the visualizer, or over a playing video so you can watch a movie while you play. Make your own levels with .pag game files.

Themes

Eight colour themes, from Winamp green to a light classic look, plus a live theme editor to make and save your own.

Waveform, BPM & resume

Seek on the track's waveform, see the live BPM, and pick up every file where you left off, or hit Start over to begin again.

Fullscreen & scaling

Double-click for fullscreen; the controls fade away. The interface scales with the window and looks sharp on high-DPI screens.

Skins, in any shape

Press Ctrl+M for Classic mode. PulseAmp ships with three skins of its own and plays classic Winamp skins too: thousands are free at skins.webamp.org.

The MidnightNeon skin: playlist with cover art, now playing card, neon visualizer and equalizer — MidnightNeon · a full player: playlist and library with cover art, favorites, visualizer and equalizer

The pill-shaped NeonCapsule skin with a MilkDrop visualization — NeonCapsule · make your own with a simple skin.json

A closer look

Searching YouTube in the Online tab with MilkDrop running — Search YouTube and SoundCloud while MilkDrop plays

The Vaporwave theme and the theme editor

The visualizer menu: modes, MilkDrop presets, automatic or manual preset changes — Right-click the visualizer to pick a mode or a MilkDrop preset

Invaders from the Games menu, played over the visualizer — The neon arcade: Snake, Runner and Invaders, played to your music

Get started

Install

Windows: run PulseAmp-Setup.exe, or extract the portable zip anywhere (for MilkDrop, also extract the presets zip into the PulseAmp folder). Linux: chmod +x the AppImage and run it.

Play something

Drag files, folders or links onto the window or the playlist, press O to open a file, or search the Online tab.

Make it yours

Right-click the visualizer to pick a visualizer or MilkDrop preset, Ctrl+M for skins, and View → Theme for colours.

Add presets & skins

Put MilkDrop .milk presets in %APPDATA%\PulseAmp\presets and Winamp .wsz skins (from skins.webamp.org) in %APPDATA%\PulseAmp\skins, or ~/.pulseamp on Linux. The visualizer's right-click menu and View → Skins open these folders for you.

PulseAmp isn't code-signed yet, so Windows may show "Windows protected your PC" the first time: choose More info → Run anyway. If YouTube or SoundCloud stop working, click Update yt-dlp in the Online tab.