This is the shortest path from nothing to a picture that follows your music. You need Infinite and about ten minutes. No plugins or extra software.
1. Start from a template
Open the Library and download Moves with the music. It is a small patch where a shape grows with the sound. Open the file from File, Open in Infinite and press play.
A template is a normal patch, so everything in it can be changed.
2. Follow the cable
The patch has two halves, and the template labels them with comments on the canvas.
- The sound. A Random Note Generator plays an Analog synth into Audio Out.
- The picture. A Shape goes through a Bloom effect to the Output node.
What joins them is an Audio Analyze node. It listens to the sound and turns it into moving numbers: level, low, mid and high. Those numbers drive the shape's Size X and Size Y. Controls that are driven by the music show an orange dot.
That is the whole trick. Any number can move any control.
3. Change what moves
Try these one at a time:
- Switch the source of Size X from level to low or high. Low reacts to bass, high to the bright parts of the sound.
- Change the Depth of a driven control to make it move more or less.
- Raise the Intensity on Bloom for a stronger glow.
- Add an LFO and connect it to a colour control, so the picture drifts even when the music is quiet.
4. Bring your own sound
Replace the template's synth with a Sampler or an audio file, or load a VST3 or AU plugin and play it from your MIDI keyboard. The Audio Analyze node listens to whatever you connect to it.
5. Save and share
Patches are plain-text .inf files. Send the file to a friend and they get exactly your setup. If you make something you like, the Discord is a good place to post it.
Where to go next
- Read how sound and pictures share one graph.
- Learn to write your own effect with Field.
- Browse the other templates in the Library: Modulators, Synths, 3D and Compositing are good second stops.
Originally published at https://infinitedevices.org/blog/make-your-first-audio-reactive-visual.html. Infinite is a free, open-source DAW for visuals, music and code: infinitedevices.org.
