Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Lissajous Visualizer for iTunes

For years and years - I've been hoping for an iTunes visualizer or screensaver that displays either a Left/Right or Mid/Side Lissajous Waveform, with color. Seems so simple and yet - I can't find one.

What I don't like about so many of the visualizers are the phoniness and cyclic redundancy. I want a real waveform, where the stereo signals left channel = x-axis and right channel = y-axis or the stereo signals (left+right) channels = x-axis and (left-right) channels = y-axis. Throw in some relevant color somehow and Voila.

I think the colors need to be the reverse energy scale of the audio scale. That is, normally high pitch has high energy correlating with ultraviolet and low tones are lower frequencies correlating with infrared. But reverse that, as it feels right. It feels as if it takes less energy to hear high notes and more energy to feel low notes, so that is my thinking.

So the plug-in would need to analyze attack, sustain, delay, and reverberation along with frequencies. With different ADSR signals, display appropriate images within the standard Lissajous Waveform signal. The sounds of triangles tinging would be bright yellow, orange, and red stars. The sounds of brass would produce green, yellow, and orange doughnuts perhaps. and the bass sounds could be purple, blue, and green beach balls. It should have a whole variety of shapes for different ADSR envelopes.

I might even pay a few sheckles for a plug-in that could do this well without eating up all my CPU cycles.