This summer I spent a considerable amount of energy learning new things in Processing/video editing in general. I started working on music visualizations, because it meant I could play around with ffts, particle systems, opengl, etc., and I’d have a nice soundtrack to go along with it.

Here’s what I came up with:

I saw these guys on the cover of The Coast and then checked out their myspace. Their style seemed “whacky” enough to match a fairly simple animation to their music.

The animation was very easy to program, the tricky part, I found, was adding the music and lyrics. Working on this video was learning what not to do: don’t time your lyrics based on frame rates, don’t use a fixed frame capture when your frame rate varies, try not to generate 7 gig files for a 2 minute song, and make sure you have all the codecs. I finally got it synced and uploaded about two months later.

After learning all the vital techniques from the roomdoom video, I pulled this one of largely without hitch. I think it’s my favourite, because it’s all physics.

A facebook friend pointed me to Mitchell Hunter. I was interested in doing some really reactive music visualizations, and although Hunter wasn’t my usual choice in music, I chose his music because he had a really good recording, was giving his music out for free, had the lyrics readily available on his site, and had a well-defined visual style. I made this video in less than 24 hours, well, plus a day because I recorded the audio with the wrong settings the first time.

I have a few other ideas for music visuals in the back of my mind now, although I haven’t quite found the right song for them yet. It’s going to take me some time to realize them, because I’m back to studying physics for the term. The next few things I release will be science visualizations.