Sound Visualization 🎧

Wellesley College, CAMS/MAS 218 Creative Media Manipulation
YEAR 2018

Overview

An exploration of how sound can shape visuals, this project transforms audio into dynamic, reactive visualization using Processing and the Minim Library. The system listens and responds in real time, translating sonic input into dynamic visual elements that shift based on volume intensity and frequency range.

Tools: Processing, Minim Library

What I Built

A real-time visualizer that reacts to live audio input
Visual attributes such as color transparency and element size adapt to the sound’s volume and intensity
Custom thresholds classify sound into low, mid, and high-volume ranges, triggering different visual behaviors

🎵 Demo Video: A visual rendering of “The Reason” by Chelsea Cutler, brought to life through code.

Ideas Behind

For this project, I explored how sound can be translated into visuals using Processing and the Minim library. Inspired by the idea of mapping pitch to color—assigning vibrant reds to high tones and deep blues to low—I shifted to working with volume data to create a responsive sound visualization.

It calculates real-time volume and animates visuals based on the input, producing five distinct modes:

Wavy lines responding to sound intensity
Circles in randomly generated colors layered on the waveform
Transparent red circles pulsing with the sound
Three reactive circles (Low, Medium, High) that fill as sound crosses volume thresholds
Volume-based rectangles drawn at the screen’s edge