Privacy policy

NowDSP (website and apps) · last updated 16 October 2026

In short: NowDSP does not collect, store or share any personal data. Your audio is processed on your own device and never leaves it, unless you send it to another device yourself (see Multi-device). There is no account, no advertising and no tracking; the website counts visits and clicks anonymously, on our own server (see below). Only if you use Play like do the text you type there and the instrument you pick go to our server and to an AI service, to set up your rig; and only if you share an app's workspace do its controls pass through our server to the devices that join (never your sound). While the browser version plays, it tells our server so, to count its free hour, under a random number, not who you are.

Who we are

NowDSP is made by Den Ouden Consultancy, Utrecht, the Netherlands. For any question about privacy, write to support@realtimeaudio.app.

Your audio

NowDSP needs your microphone (or the input your instrument is plugged into) to apply effects to it. The sound is processed live, on your device, and played back to you. It is never recorded, stored or sent anywhere: not to us, not to anyone else. The browser or your phone asks for your permission before NowDSP can use the microphone, and you can withdraw it at any time in its settings.

What is saved on your device

Your workspace (your rigs with their names and colours, their effects and slider positions) is saved in your own browser's storage (or the app's own storage), so it is there next time. A device that joins an app's share (see below) also keeps the name you gave it there, to suggest it next time. The browser version also keeps a random number and how much of its free hour it has played, and, once you unlock it with the app's code, the unlock (a random number too). The Raspberry Pi and Linux app keeps your licence key in its own folder on your computer (any of the apps keeps one you give it there, too). While the browser shares its workspace, it keeps that share (its random key and code, and which devices you let in) so a reload carries on with it; Stop sharing deletes it. If you save or share it as a file, that file goes where you choose; NowDSP sends it nowhere by itself. They stay on your device; we can't see them. Clearing your browser's site data, or uninstalling the app, deletes them.

What reaches the internet

• Loading the website. Like any website, your browser requests the page from our server, which sees your IP address to send it. The server may keep short technical logs (IP address, time, the file requested) for security and to fix problems; we use them for nothing else and don't share them.
• Counting visits. On the website (never in the apps), each page tells our own server that it was viewed: which page (without anything after the address, so no share or unlock code), the site or campaign you came from, and, when you click a link or a button, which one. We keep only totals per day, such as how many people opened the app today. To count each visitor once a day, the server briefly combines your IP address and browser with a random value that changes every day; that is held in memory only and never stored. No cookie is set for this, nothing is sent to anyone else, and nothing in the totals leads back to you.
• Fonts. The page loads its typefaces from Google Fonts, so your browser contacts Google's servers, which see your IP address. See Google's privacy policy. Without an internet connection NowDSP uses your system's fonts and works the same.
• The apps (Android, iOS, Windows) contain the page and run a small server only on your own device, reachable only from that device. They send nothing about you or your use anywhere, except what you share yourself (see Multi-device, below). Buying an app happens in the store you buy it from, under that store's privacy policy; we receive no personal details from it beyond what the store's sales reports contain.

Multi-device

In the apps and in the browser, Share lets a phone, tablet or another computer show and control your workspace in its browser. While you share, the app (or the browser) keeps a connection to our server, which gives it a random code: the code is in the QR code and the link the app shows. A device that opens that link connects to our server, which passes messages between it and the app: your workspace (rigs, effects, their formulas and settings), what is changed, started and stopped, the level meters and what the scope and spectrum show (a picture of the sound, not the sound). Sound never passes through our server. A device that joined in its browser sends no sound at all; its inputs can be used only from the NowDSP app. When the device that joined is a NowDSP app itself and you choose one of its inputs, that app sends the sound straight to the sharing app over your local network, encrypted. The sharing app makes the key, which reaches the other app through our server like the controls (passed on, never kept). To find a way straight there across networks, our server tells each of the two apps the other's internet address. Where there is no way straight there, no sound is sent, and the app says so. The devices that joined also tell the sharing app the names of their inputs and outputs, so they can be picked there. Before a device gets any of it, the app asks you whether to let it in, by the name the device gave itself when it opened the link (its kind, for example "iPhone", read from its browser, until someone types another); it stays let in until you stop sharing.

• Our server passes these messages on as they come and keeps none of them. The share and its code end when you stop sharing, or an hour after the app went away. Like the website, it sees the IP addresses of the app and the devices, to connect them; to keep it from being flooded it counts, for one minute, how many connections each address opens, and then forgets it.
• Without an internet connection the app uses your own local network instead (your Wi-Fi or your phone's hotspot): its small server is then also reachable there, behind a random address shown only to you, until you stop sharing, and nothing goes over the internet.

The free hour and the browser unlock

The browser version plays an hour every 12 hours. To count it, the page tells our server, every 30 seconds while it plays, the random number it keeps in your browser (see above). Our server keeps, per number, when its 12 hours began and how much was played, and forgets it 12 hours after its last 12 hours ended. So that a private window can't start the hour over and over, it also counts the hour of numbers new in the last 12 hours per IP address, which it keeps only as a scrambled code (a salted hash), and forgets after 12 hours. Nothing else is sent: not your sound, not your rigs.

• Unlocking a browser. Unlock browser, in the app, first shows our server that NowDSP was bought: with your licence key, or with the store's own signed confirmation (Google Play's licensing answer, Apple's app transaction, or a Microsoft Store key, which our server checks with Microsoft). These carry an identifier of the purchase that the store makes for NowDSP alone, not your name or e-mail. Our server checks it and keeps only a scrambled code of it (a salted hash), so that one purchase unlocks one browser at a time, and gives a code. Typed into a browser within 5 minutes, the code unlocks that browser: our server keeps which unlock (a random number) belongs to which purchase, and forgets the code.

Play like

Play like sets up a rig from a song, an artist or a sound you type, for the instrument you pick. Only that text and the instrument are sent: to our server, which passes them on, with NowDSP's list of effects, to the AI service we use (Google's Gemini API or Anthropic's Claude API), and sends the answer back to you. Your sound and your rig are not sent.

• Our server keeps each question with its answer, so the same question is answered at once next time; it keeps nothing that says who asked. To share the free quota fairly it counts, for one hour, how often each IP address asks, and then forgets it.
• Google processes the text under the Gemini API terms. Because we use the Gemini API from the EU, Google's terms for paid services apply: it does not use the text to improve its products. See Google's privacy policy.
• Anthropic, when we use Claude, processes the text under its commercial terms: it does not use the text to train its models. See Anthropic's privacy policy.

Cookies and children

NowDSP sets no cookies. It collects no data from anyone, including children.

Your rights

Because we hold no personal data about you, there is nothing to access, correct or delete. If you think otherwise, contact us at the address above, or the Dutch data protection authority, the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens.

Changes

If this policy changes, the new version appears on this page with a new date.