Getting Started with OSC-1

OSC-1 is ready the moment you open it — no setup required. This guide gets you from zero to playing oscilloscope music in under 2 minutes.

Prefer to watch? This walkthrough covers the same first session — one click of oscilloscope music, scope styling, and a 3D model traced live on the scope.

Step 1: Open OSC-1

Navigate to /scope. The oscilloscope display loads immediately, showing the default idle pattern.

Step 2: Pick a Track

Open Settings → Audio and use the Track Library dropdown. It contains a curated collection grouped into Test Tones, Demos, Shapes, and Oscilloscope Music — including tracks specifically made using stereo XY audio synthesis.

Select any track to load it.

Step 3: Press Play

Press Space or click the Play button. The XY display comes alive with Lissajous patterns driven by the audio.

What you're seeing: the left audio channel drives the X (horizontal) axis, the right channel drives the Y (vertical) axis. The resulting shape is a real-time Lissajous figure — the exact same visualization you'd see on a hardware oscilloscope.

Step 4: Try Different Scope Presets

In the Scope Presets widget at the top of the right-hand Properties panel, click through the 8 scope presets to change the display character:

• Tektronix 465 — classic green phosphor, the reference look
• Vector Display — clean, high-contrast razor-sharp lines
• Laser Sharp — optimized for laser DAC output monitoring
• Amber CRT — warm amber phosphor vintage aesthetic

Each preset changes the phosphor color, bloom intensity, afterglow decay, and beam width. See Scope Presets for the full breakdown.

Step 5: Try Beam Effects

In the Effects panel, enable one of the 15 XY beam effects — Rotate, Swirl, or Kaleidoscope are good starting points. Effects transform the geometry of the XY signal in real-time without affecting the underlying audio. See Beam Effects for all 15.

Tip: High-Resolution Audio

Tracks recorded at 96kHz or 192kHz produce noticeably sharper, more detailed Lissajous figures — the higher sample rate captures more of the high-frequency XY detail. The Current Source card in Settings → Audio shows the loaded file's rate. The bundled Oscilloscope Music tracks are 96kHz.

Volume, Mute, and Live Input

• Volume / Mute — the Current Source card in Settings → Audio has a master VOLUME slider (0–100%) and mute button (Ctrl+M also mutes).
• CHANGE → TAB / SYSTEM AUDIO → SHARE TAB AUDIO — visualizes browser music in Chrome or Edge with no audio driver.
• CHANGE → MICROPHONE → START LIVE INPUT — switches the source to your microphone or audio interface.
• BLEND INPUT — when a generator is active, mixes the live input on top of it, with a BLEND gain slider (0–100%).

Related

• How to make oscilloscope music — the illustrated version, from a first Lissajous figure to laser output
• OsciStudio vs osci-render vs OSC-1 — how OSC-1 compares with the desktop tools

Next Steps