GhostDeck

GhostDeck plays the music files you already own, on a Mac, without an account or an internet connection. The layout is the classic one from the late nineties: a main deck with LED time, spectrum and transport buttons, a ten band equalizer with presets, and a playlist. The three are separate windows that snap together like magnets and move as one, and you can pick a pixel scale from 1x to 4x to fit your screen.

Below the deck there is a 3D pane. The album cover becomes a jewel case that turns slowly while the track plays, floating over one of five low-poly worlds that react to the music: a synthwave grid, a moonlit forest with real reflections, dunes with a chrome skull, a rainy neon city, and a deep sea. Each world gives the deck its own colour scheme, and a hue slider lets you shift any of them.

Supported formats are MP3, AAC and M4A, FLAC, Apple Lossless, WAV, AIFF, CAF and AC3. Playlists load and save as M3U. Drop files or folders on any window to add them. Embedded artwork, or a cover image next to the track, is used for the case.

The app is written in Swift and Metal with its own renderer, no game engine or web view. Almost all textures and worlds are generated on the Mac when it starts, so the app is about 12 MB. It runs in the macOS sandbox, only sees the folders you open, and has no analytics or network access. Media keys and the Now Playing widget work as usual.

One time purchase on the Mac App Store, all worlds included, no subscription and no in-app purchases. Requires macOS 14 or later, Apple silicon or Intel.