Nuclear, where how to listen to free music on computer (no, you are not the product)
In the family of software that allows you to listen to music for free from streaming services like YouTube, we knew Spotube. Nuclear enriches the family tree of open access music with software still under development (version 0.6.4) but fully functional.
Nuclear, a simple interface entirely in French © Screenshot / Les Numériques
Nuclear is available for Windows, macOS and Linux and is easily downloaded from the software website. Note that with the latest versions of macOS (Sequoia), it is becoming increasingly difficult to install open source software that does not come from Apple's app store. For greater “ease”, it is then recommended to install homebrew (the alternative software manager)then run the command: brew install –cask nuclear
Note that Nuclear's source code is available and the software won't even ask you to create an account.
From YouTube
Once the software is “launched”, you find yourself in front of a fairly standard interface for an audio player. All you have to do is enter the name of the groups and songs in the search bar for the software to list the results. Nuclear works with three information flows:
- metadata: They are used to find artists and songs and you can choose between several platforms. During our installation, Spotify is selected by default, but you can opt for Audius, Discogs, Musicbrainz or Bandamp.
- audio streams: by default, Nuclear uses YouTube, but here too, you can change to Bandcamp, Invidious or even SoundCloud.
- lyrics: Nuclear also allows you to display the lyrics of the songs played and for this, it uses Simple Lyrics or AZ Lyrics
The Smashing Pumpkins, definitely better than Prince… © Screenshot / Les Numériques
Additionally, it is entirely possible to feed Nuclear with your own audio files from the local library. The software offers different popular playlists from Spotify and you can also play with an equalizer to personalize the audio rendering.
Nuclear also retrieves song lyrics. © Screenshot / Les Numériques
Nuclear is therefore full of promise, but is it really legal? At first glance, it seems that Nuclear is operating in a somewhat gray area. By using the YouTube audio stream available to everyone, the software does not appear to infringe on any jurisdictions. It does not host audio files and is a nice stream aggregator.
It is possible to modify the audio rendering curve with an equalizer. © Screenshot / Les Numériques
No Android or iOS version
As you will have noted, Nuclear only works on computers and there are no plans to produce a version for smartphone OS. The Google or Apple application stores would not accept such software and the developers believe that installing an APK (application file) is not very mainstream.
