You probably don’t need to say that every person who has visited a disco, night club or concert show at least once knows what color music makes a unique impression. The constant change of lighting and colors only enhances the already crazy effect of euphoria from a thundering sound. But few people thought that color music on a computer monitor is also possible.
What is color music?
Without going into the technical details of the electrical circuits of the color music installations and the LED or searchlight components that are installed in them, we will dwell on the main thing.
And most importantly, what? The main thing is that the color change does not occur in a chaotic mode, but strictly in time with the music track. This effect is achieved by applying various filters (low, medium and high frequency). Everything is quite simple here, in the simplest version, for example, LEDs of the same color are connected to each filter. When the filter is triggered, this or that color lights up.
Using music players
Now let's see what color music is for a computer on a monitor. In computer terminology, it is called the visualizer or visual images.
It should be noted that many modern audio and video players have at their disposal such an effect. If we talk about the built-in tools of Windows, there is nothing easier than to use the "native" effect of visualization in a standard player Windows Media Player. Here, as expected, there are many topics of specialized areas.
No less popular, which use color music on a computer monitor, are the most powerful players such as WinAmp, AIMP, AVS Media Player and many others. The inclusion of the visualization effect, as a rule, is done using the “native” menu or one of the special buttons placed on the main panel.
If we compare these players, WinAmp and AIMP when the visualization mode is on, when color music is used on the monitor, they do not consume a significant amount of system resources, unlike the same AVS player. But (it is recognized by all) in terms of effects he has no equal. Here you can find not only a lot of interesting topics and combinations, but also a very high resolution of the generated effects themselves. As already clear, to use it on low-power machines simply does not make sense.
Connection of additional plugins
With all the wealth of their own funds, such players have limited capabilities. To make the color music on the monitor richer and more diverse, you can use the installation and connection of a huge number of additional plug-ins (add-ons). For example, for the same WinAmp player, they were created not even hundreds, but tens of thousands. In general, they are being developed by all and sundry.
Among the most popular and most interesting programs of this kind, plugins like Prometeus or LPT, which have very impressive functionality, can be noted.
Let us now approach the question from a slightly different perspective. If someone doesn’t like the color music on the monitor, you can use comic action programs. For example, a small program LedSwitcher, which is connected as a plug-in to players such as WinAmp. But instead of playing the color scheme on the computer monitor screen, the effect is achieved by flashing the softkey LEDs (Num Lock, Scroll Lock and Caps Lock). Naturally, the plugin only works if a standard PCI keyboard is used. On laptops without a keyboard backlight, this option for using the plugin will not work.
DIY screen for color music
In principle, many enthusiasts are not satisfied with the standard means of players or plug-ins, and they prefer their own creative search. What to use in this case?
The color music on the monitor can be created using the most powerful video processing utility called Adobe After Effects. Of course, the main priority is video processing or recording, but if you dig around, you can find many interesting tools for creating color effects.
In this case, the final image can combine two-dimensional and three-dimensional elements, thereby enhancing the effect of presence. In addition to everything else, you can insert into the effect you create whatever your heart desires, say, the same video fragments, photos, text, and much more.
Total
Of course, only brief information is given here about everything related to the use or creation of color music effects on computer monitors. Naturally, today, programs that create visualization effects can be found not so much, but a lot.
However, the choice always remains with the user. We should also pay attention to Russian developments, which can sometimes be attributed to some retro style. For example, who does not know such a toy as a kaleidoscope? The Kaleidoscope program of the same name or the almost identical Kaleidophone application allow you to recreate such an effect and use it as a virtual color music installation. In general, the field of activity is quite wide.