Chromophone: Music Visualizer

About

Chromophone turns whatever is playing in the room into a living psychedelic picture. Play, sing, or put a record on: the visuals follow the sound as it happens. Every frame is built from the sound arriving right now. Low frequencies swing the whole shape, mids and highs cut the detail, sharp hits snap the pattern into a new one, and the mood of the music slowly steers color and scale. When the room falls quiet, the picture fades to black. Nothing is prepared in advance and no video file is playing behind the screen. The picture is generated on the device from what it hears at that moment, so what you see belongs to that moment in the room. WHERE PEOPLE USE IT Watching sound become picture. Put the phone down while music plays and let the room draw itself. On stage. Mirror the screen to a projector or a TV and let the visuals run through the whole set; the screen stays awake while it plays. In a stream. Keep a live backdrop moving behind a set instead of a looping clip that ignores the music. While you play. Point it at an amp, a piano or your own voice and watch what you are playing take shape. TWO THINGS TO KNOW BEFORE YOU START It makes no sound of its own. It listens, and the music comes from wherever you already play it: your playing, your voice, or a speaker across the room. It takes the system audio input, so a line from an external interface arrives exactly as a microphone does. In a silent room the screen goes dark, because nothing is ever faked. It draws for the moment, not for later. There is no export and no rendering: this is a live picture while the music is happening, not a clip to publish afterwards. NOTHING LEAVES THE DEVICE The app contains no networking code at all. Audio is analyzed on the device, frame by frame, and is never recorded, never stored and never sent anywhere. Switch on Airplane Mode and everything still works exactly the same. FOR PEOPLE WHO SEE SOUND If you have ever wanted music to look like the way synesthetes describe it, or watched sand jump into patterns on a Chladni plate, this is that idea driven live by the room around you.