Scope Presets
The 8 OSC-1 scope presets — phosphor color, bloom, afterglow, and what makes each unique.
OSC-1's eight scope presets simulate different real-world oscilloscope displays. Each one has a distinct phosphor color, bloom/glow behavior, and afterglow decay time.
Choosing a Preset
Click any preset in the Scope Presets section at the top of the right-hand Properties panel. The display updates immediately without interrupting the audio. The tuning sliders live in Beam Properties, Beam Physics, and Beam Bloom / Glow below the preset buttons.
The 8 Presets
Vector Display
A clean, high-contrast beam inspired by vector arcade displays. Use it when you want maximum clarity without a warm phosphor tint.
- Phosphor: Configurable (default: bright green)
- Afterglow: None
- Bloom: Moderate
- Separate shapes: Faint travel between discontinuous strokes is hidden automatically
Amber CRT
The warm amber display of vintage terminals, with long afterglow and rich glow. It is particularly effective with slow, evolving content.
- Phosphor: Amber (hue 42°)
- Afterglow: Long
- Bloom: High
- Separate shapes: Faint travel between discontinuous strokes is hidden automatically
Modern Digital
Clean digital oscilloscope look with a green-teal beam and moderate bloom. A good balance of warmth and crispness.
- Phosphor: Yellow-green teal
- Afterglow: Short
- Bloom: Moderate
Tektronix 465
The reference look for the oscilloscope music community. Classic P31 green phosphor with medium afterglow. The Tektronix 465 is the most-used hardware oscilloscope in oscilloscope music history — this preset replicates its distinctive appearance.
- Phosphor: P31 green
- Afterglow: Medium (classic phosphor persistence)
- Bloom: Moderate
HP 1740A
Hewlett-Packard's dual-trace classic with a blue-tinted green phosphor. A slightly cooler complement to the Tektronix. Known for crisp, bright display.
- Phosphor: Blue-tinted green
- Afterglow: Medium-short
- Bloom: Low-moderate
Hitachi V-650F
Long-persistence storage scope simulation — the highest afterglow of all presets. Creates a rich, painterly trail effect where signal paths linger for an extended time.
- Phosphor: Bright green
- Afterglow: Very long (highest of all presets)
- Bloom: High
Laser Sharp
Optimized for monitoring content intended for laser DAC output. Clean, thin beam with minimal bloom and high contrast — shows exactly what the laser path will look like on hardware.
- Phosphor: Adjustable (matches your laser color)
- Afterglow: Minimal
- Bloom: Tight, restrained halo
Use Laser Sharp when monitoring content for a real laser projector. Its beam stays crisp with minimal afterglow and a restrained display halo; the more atmospheric presets add stronger bloom and decay.
Basic Green
The simplest, most performance-friendly preset: a clean green beam with no bloom or afterglow. Use it if the more atmospheric presets run slowly on your hardware.
- Phosphor: Green
- Afterglow: None
- Bloom: Off
Customizing the Beam
Preset tuning happens in the sections below Scope Presets in the right Properties panel. Some controls appear only when they apply to the active preset.
Beam Properties
- Color presets — BASIC GREEN, AMBER, CYAN, ELECTRIC, MAGENTA, WHITE
- Hue — 0–360°, with an AUTO button that enables Rainbow mode (auto-cycling hue)
- Width — beam thickness, 1–6 px when available
- Gain / Intensity / Persistence — signal level, brightness, and trail length; the active preset determines which controls appear
- Scale — coordinate zoom, 0.25×–4× (Vector Display and Amber CRT; MIDI-mappable). On Amber CRT, zoom lives here — Gain controls beam brightness
- Idle Dot — ON/OFF (default ON): shows the parked electron-beam dot when the signal is silent, plus the leading beam-head dot on slow draws. When ON, three more controls appear:
- While Playing — ON/OFF (default OFF): off keeps the dot idle-only, so it never pops up during quiet passages mid-track; on also shows the dot during playback (the classic oscilloscope-music look)
- Dot Size — 0.4×–5×
- Dot Glow — 0–400%
Beam Physics
- Sharpness, Afterglow, Amber Shift, and Noise/Grain — each 0–100%
- 4x Upsampling — adds intermediate points for a smoother-looking trace; Interpolation chooses the shape between samples
- Auto Gain — OFF, RMS, PEAK, or HOLD
Interpolation modes
- DOTS — displays the sample points as individual dots.
- LIN — connects samples with straight lines for a clean, angular look.
- STEP — holds each value until the next sample, creating a staircase look.
- LANC (default) — draws the smoothest curves and most closely resembles a hardware scope.
The difference is easiest to see with 44.1/48 kHz audio. High-sample-rate oscilloscope music is already dense enough that the modes look more similar.
Beam Bloom / Glow
- ON/OFF — toggle bloom entirely
- Blur — bloom blur iterations, 1x–10x (higher = wider halo, more GPU load)
- Threshold — 0–1, luminance level where bloom starts
- Intensity — 0–2, bloom strength
Customizations are saved with your session, and the beam dot preferences (Idle Dot, While Playing, Dot Size, Dot Glow) follow your account when you're signed in — like your other synced settings, they come with you across devices. To keep a full look permanently, click SAVE CURRENT AS PRESET in the Scope Presets widget — saved user presets appear alongside the 8 factory presets.