Hi everyone!

I am trying to find a good Foobar2000 theme for monitoring my DAW rendered mixes and masters. Ideally it would be setup for the most optimal highest sound quality, with a very basic, clean and minimal GUI. No fancy nothing. I only need the most basic important visualization monitoring aspects like start/stop, time, volume, playback seek bar, spectrum, VU meter etc and then just the text of song/file type metadata information.

I have tried several times to design it myself but for some reason I cant make the visualizations big in the GUI or drag elements around like I want. When I add stuff it goes where Foobar wants it to go, its so small its useless and I cant move it even with the toggle to do so enabled.

Everywhere I search I find so many themes with silly graphics and "cool" designs, which I dont need any of that. I just need one, like clinical almost, made for studios and producers to playback songs and check everything looks and sounds good. I think you guys know what I mean?

Im surprised there isnt a thread to share themes here on a music forum, so maybe this could help others too.

Thank you.

 

Hello @888, i am not a Foobar user, maybe these are useful:

foobar2000 TripleQ theme --> https://github.com/raphaelquast/foobar2000_TripleQ
Animus Theme (Performodule) --> https://performodule.com/2019/10/20/free-foobar2000-theme
Eole Theme (open‑source, classic pick)--> https://github.com/Ottodix/Eole-foobar-theme

 

Hi.
I can send you my theme. I think it is minimal and clean.
Cheers!

 

i had to do more editing to this but it was a good start! Thanks!

https://ibb.co/DHrj2dRL




I dont see the image I attached here, can you?

@Margaret I am going through the audio settings and there are a few things you might want to look at so Foobar doesnt process or change the original file quality. Such as ReplayGain Scanner - Downsample is switched on. And on Playback - Source Mode / Processing I changed those to "none".

Can anyone think of others to change so the audio is exactly as the original file render from DAW?

Does anyone know if there is way to extend the low freqs down all the way? it stops at 50 which is too high to see the sub content. I tried to extend the number of bands but still stops at 50

I cant resize the window for some reason, do you know how to unlock the window to do that?

 

Last edited: Oct 19, 2025

Spoiler: Source: ChatGPT KI

Hey there! I totally get what you're aiming for – a no-nonsense, minimalistic setup focused on functionality and sound quality, especially for monitoring mixes and masters. Unfortunately, you're right; many Foobar2000 themes out there are either too flashy or not practical for studio environments. But don't worry, I can offer some tips and point you in the right direction!

1. Minimal Theme Suggestions:

• "Dynamically" Theme: This one is clean, functional, and stripped down. It provides a good mix of basic elements like the spectrum analyzer, VU meters, and relevant metadata without the unnecessary frills. You can get a version of it on the Foobar2000 forums or various file sharing sites.
  
  
• "Euphoria" Theme: Another clean, simple design that focuses on functional elements. The GUI is mostly black with minimal distractions, but the layout is highly customizable. This might solve your problem of resizing or moving elements around.
  
  
• "Default UI" + Customization: If you haven't already, try starting with the Default UI, which is simple and highly customizable. You can remove almost everything except the player controls, metadata, and visualization elements, which is exactly what you're looking for. You just have to tinker with the settings to maximize everything's size.
  

2. Customization Tips:

• Make Elements Resizable: Since you're struggling with resizing and positioning elements, you might want to check the layout settings under File > Preferences > Display > Default User Interface and play around with the Panel Stack Splitter (PSS) or the "Now Playing" configuration. The PSS allows you to have elements in different "panels" that you can resize and adjust the layout to your needs. If you're working with visualization, you can scale things like the spectrum analyzer, VU meter, etc., within the interface.
  
  
• Panel Stack Splitter (PSS): This is your best friend for managing a custom layout. It allows you to break up your UI into panels that you can arrange and resize as you like. To make things larger, you can increase the panel size or adjust the grid settings.
  

To create a new panel:

• Right-click the UI and choose "Layout" > "Panel Stack Splitter" > "Create new panel."
  
  
• Then you can choose to add your desired visualizations (VU meter, Spectrum analyzer, etc.) by right-clicking inside the new panel and selecting "Add new component."
  

3. Things to Include:

• Basic Metadata Display: You can use the Title Formatting settings to make sure the song metadata is displayed in the most efficient way possible. Try using a clean layout, e.g., just track name, album, artist, sample rate, bit depth.
  
  
• Spectrum Analyzer + VU Meters: Both are key to monitoring sound quality in the studio. If you haven't tried it already, foo_vis_vumeter (the VU Meter plugin) is a great addition. You can find it on the Foobar2000 component page. For the spectrum, foo_vis_spectrum is another component you can add, offering a very clinical, "neutral" display of the frequency range.
  
  
• Playback Time + Volume Slider: These are straightforward but essential. You can make sure these elements are large and readable by tweaking the size in the UI settings.
  

4. Check Forums and Component Library:

• If you haven’t explored the Foobar2000 Components Repository, there are lots of themes, layouts, and plugins that could help you create the perfect setup. It's also a good place to find others who might have created similar minimal setups for studios.
  

If you're really deep into customization and want full control over the UI, foo_ui_hacks could help you tweak the behavior of UI elements even more finely, but it's a bit of a learning curve.

 

You need to right click -> open image in new tab
And then copy image link with ".jpg" at the end and paste into image url here.

Link:
https://i.ibb.co/cSYsnqrx/foobar-almost-perfect.jpg

Image:

 

Foobar doesn't change anything in audio you listen by default unless you switch on resample or DSP preferences
what do you mean by: Does anyone know if there is way to extend the low freqs down all the way?

Adding visualisaions is very easy if you don't need anything fancy, Foobar has two types of UI, Default one and Columns UI, those fancy ones are usually ColumnsUI.
Choose the Default one, first look through several presets layouts in Quick Appearance Setup. Choose one you like and go to edit mode (Shift+Ctrl+Insert) add anything you want.
You can also try different designs and layouts in a sandbox: go to View menu > Layout> Create Scratchbox; then copy and paste layout to your main window