I've been working on an free open-source macOS app for just that - https://nottawa.app Hoping to release in the next couple months!
The UI has been greatly improved since I took the original demo on the site, the real thing is MUCH better now. Same base idea - chain together shaders, videos, or webcams and then drive their parameters via an audio signal, BPM, oscillator, MIDI board, or manual sliders.
The beta link on the site isn't really worth trying yet - if you're interested in getting on the TestFlight just shoot me a message at joe@nottawa.app. Would love some HN feedback :)
The code isn’t anything to write home about, it’s in C++ leveraging OpenFrameworks and OpenGL. I’m an iOS and macOS dev, but after the initial release I’ll get started on porting to Windows and Linux. OF generally works well multi-platform so I’m hoping it won’t be too hairy.
I’m specifically targeting the non-technical artist/creator market, ideally with optional macOS App Store distribution. I’ve been involved in the live visuals scene in NYC a bit and something I commonly heard was that musicians and DJs wanted visual accompaniment which just works out of the box. TouchDesigner etc are incredibly powerful, but generally out of reach for non technical folks.
I’ve contracted a great artist from UpWork who’s been making presets which will be included. There should ideally be as little friction as possible for a user to go from first launch to live, audio-reactive visuals.
Hydra actually works well with music input! It grabs audio from the mic and `a.show()` will show you the frequency bins. Then any numerical parameter can be modulated by the intensity of a bin, for example:
Is it possible to grab from default audio output device instead of mic? Probably not as it's browser based. I suppose mic can be faked on OS level somehow.
I used to spend so much time messing around with MilkDrop in Winamp. You could grab existing visualizations and see what they were doing, and make your own edits. Thanks for the nostalgia hit!
The UI has been greatly improved since I took the original demo on the site, the real thing is MUCH better now. Same base idea - chain together shaders, videos, or webcams and then drive their parameters via an audio signal, BPM, oscillator, MIDI board, or manual sliders.
The beta link on the site isn't really worth trying yet - if you're interested in getting on the TestFlight just shoot me a message at joe@nottawa.app. Would love some HN feedback :)