Oscilloscope Music

Oscilloscope music is a genre where audio signals encode vector graphics — the left channel drives X and the right channel drives Y, just like a real oscilloscope in XY mode. Artists like Jerobeam Fenderson and Hansi Raber (the duo behind oscilloscopemusic.com) compose audio that produces intricate visual patterns when displayed this way.

BeamTracer can turn these recordings into Animation Studio layers and ILDA Format 5 animations. The generated layer preserves the decoded XY coordinates in source order. Physical playback depends on your player, point rate, and scanner limits; it is not guaranteed to match a hardware oscilloscope or the original audio timing.

Quick Start

XY Point Rate and Frame Rate

After loading a track, XY Point Rate shows its decoded rate in points/sec. This is a readout, not an adjustable scanner speed, and the browser's decoded rate can differ from the original file's rate.

Choose 30 FPS or 60 FPS under Frame Rate. This groups the same samples into fewer or more frames without adding XY detail or reducing the point rate. Keep Animation Studio's Playback Frame Rate matched to the generated layer if an error prompts you to change it.

Waveform Trim Widget

The visual trim widget lets you select a specific segment of the audio:

• Drag handles — set in/out points on the waveform display
• Region drag — move the entire selection by dragging the middle
• Preview playback — audition your selection before export
• Layer duration — Add to Canvas creates a layer for the selected segment

Timeline and Layer Controls

Click Add to Canvas to place the selected segment on the timeline. You can position, resize, and rotate the layer. Keep its time range separate from other visible layers when exporting them together; overlapping XY and vector layers, or multiple XY layers, produce an error.

Exact XY layers do not accept keyframes, motion paths, effects, or audio reactions. Remove unsupported modifiers when prompted. Other vector layers retain their usual animation controls.

Preview and Export

ILDA does not contain the audio. Added output points and player settings can change timing, so starting the file with the same track does not guarantee synchronization. Inspect the export in ILDA Viewer and verify playback with your intended equipment.

Continuous XY hardware output is currently unavailable in Animation Studio; vector layers can still stream normally. This limitation is separate from the Scope app's output workflow.

Best Practices

Start with a short selection and inspect its point rate and scanner load. Higher decoded sample rates create more points to play; a clear screen preview alone does not establish that a scanner can follow the recording. See Understanding PPS before choosing playback settings.

Further Reading