bard

a desktop music player_

A music player for macOS, Windows, and Linux. Play your own library with bit-perfect quality. iOS and Android planned.

Download bard macOS · Windows · Linux

bard desktop application showing album library with sidebar navigation and player controls

~/why

Your music. Your terms.

bard is for people who care about how they listen and where their money goes.

Stop renting your music. Buy it from artists, keep it forever. No subscriptions, no licenses that expire, no catalog that disappears overnight.
Pay artists directly. When you buy from Bandcamp, artist websites, or independent stores, the people who made the music actually get paid — not fractions of a penny per stream.
Escape the algorithm. No autoplay rabbit holes, no engagement-optimized playlists. Discover music on your own terms — through friends, blogs, record stores, or just browsing your own collection.
No compromise on aesthetics. Owning your music shouldn't mean settling for a bare-bones player. bard is built to look and feel as good as anything from the streaming world.

~/now-playing

Immersive listening

Fullscreen Now Playing with ambient album art backgrounds, real-time audio visualizers, analog VU meters, and interactive waveform scrubbing. Idle mode fades the interface for a distraction-free experience.

Now Playing with blue ambient background, VU meters, and colorized waveform

Now Playing with album art, circular visualizer, and waveform display

Now Playing with warm ambient background and VU meters

Mirrored bars visualizer with playback controls and colorized waveform

Mirrored bars visualizer in idle focus mode

10 visualizers in total. More to come, along with ability to plugin your own.

~/tags

Organize your way

Tag your music however you want — by mood, era, vibe, or anything else. Explore your library through tag cloud, heatmap, and terrain views. Discover connections across your collection that no algorithm would find.