garbl

Scramble audio into an unrecognizable mess. Unscramble it back.

Record directly in the browser or upload an mp3/wav (max 60 seconds). Garbl chops the audio into chunks and rearranges them — the result sounds like noise, but the original can be recovered by running it through again.

Live at garbl.net

• React frontend
• Node/Express backend
• ffmpeg for audio processing
• pm2 + nginx on a VPS

# Install deps
npm install
cd client && npm install && cd ..

# Run backend (port 3009)
cd server && node index.js

# Run frontend with hot reload (port 3000, separate terminal)
cd client && npm start

The client proxies API calls to localhost:3009 automatically when running locally.

# On the server
git pull
npm install
cd client && nvm use 16 && npm install && npm run build && nvm use default
pm2 restart garbl

• Node.js (v16+ for client build, v20+ for server)
• ffmpeg (apt install ffmpeg)
• pm2 (npm install -g pm2)