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Music Visualizer Lab
Create a Visualizer

Free spectrum visualizer

Split a track into frequency bands and draw them. Eight spectrum styles, from standard bars to a segmented equalizer, a ridge shape and a receding tunnel.

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Spectrum styles

Same analysis underneath, eight different ways of drawing it.

  • Spectrum Bars

    Vertical frequency bars, the most recognisable music visualizer shape. Low frequencies on the left, high on the right.

  • Line Spectrum

    A smooth curve traced across the frequency range. Calmer than bars and good behind text.

  • Equalizer

    Bars divided into stacked segments, like the LED meters on a hi-fi.

  • Dot Spectrum

    Frequency bands drawn as columns of dots. Lighter on screen than solid bars.

  • Mountain Spectrum

    The spectrum drawn as a ridge line with layered slopes behind it, like a landscape.

  • Multi-band Spectrum

    Bass, mids and highs shown as three separate meters, which makes the mix easy to read at a glance.

  • Tunnel

    Frames receding towards a vanishing point, each one sized by a different frequency. Gives a sense of depth a flat spectrum cannot.

  • Chevron

    Nested arrows stacked outward from a point, each driven by its own frequency band.

How the analysis works

The track is transformed into frequency data many times a second. That raw output is a long list of evenly spaced frequency bins, which is not what you want to look at: the interval from 100 Hz to 200 Hz is one octave, and so is 5 kHz to 10 kHz, but the second one covers fifty times as many bins.

So the bins get regrouped into 256 bands spaced logarithmically between your minimum and maximum frequency. Each band takes the loudest bin inside it rather than the average, because averaging across a wide high frequency band flattens out exactly the transients that make the top end interesting to watch.

After that, per band sensitivity is applied for bass, mids and treble, then smoothing with separate attack and decay so bars rise quickly and fall back more slowly. That asymmetry is most of what makes a spectrum feel connected to the music rather than jittery.

Normalisation

With level normalisation on, the spectrum is continuously scaled against a running peak, so a quiet master still fills the frame. Turn it off if you want the visualizer to show the actual dynamics of the track, including the quiet parts staying quiet.

Tuning it for your track

Too flat and even. Lower the frequency range so the bars concentrate on the part of the spectrum with the most going on, and raise attack so transients register.

Too jumpy. Raise smoothing and lower decay. Decay is what controls how quickly a bar falls back after a hit, and a low value gives that heavy, settling motion.

Bass drowning everything. Lower bass sensitivity rather than raising the others, then adjust overall sensitivity to bring the level back up.

The audio spectrum generator page covers the frequency controls in more detail.

Questions

Why is all the movement on the left side?

That is what happens when frequency bands are spaced evenly in hertz, because most musical energy sits below 1 kHz and the top half of the range ends up almost empty. The bands here are spaced logarithmically instead, so each octave takes the same width on screen and the right hand side actually moves. If your spectrum still looks left heavy, lower the frequency range control to focus on the part of the spectrum your track uses.

How many bars should I use?

Between 32 and 64 reads clearly at 1080p and still shows detail. Above roughly 96 the bars get thinner than the gaps between them at typical widths and the shape turns into a texture, which can be the effect you want. Below 24 it reads as a meter rather than a spectrum.

What does the frequency range control actually do?

It sets how much of the analysed spectrum gets mapped onto the bars you can see. At 1 the bars cover everything up to your maximum frequency. Lower values zoom into the low end, which makes bass and low mids occupy more of the width. It is the fastest fix for a spectrum that looks flat on one side.

Can I show bass, mids and treble separately?

Yes. The multi band style draws three labelled meters instead of a full spectrum. It suits podcasts and spoken word, where a full spectrum does not have much to show.

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