MIDI & OSC Integration

Audio Visualizers has MIDI integration in Performer mode — MIDI Learn for every visualizer slider, toggle and button plus the Performer's own live controls, preset switching from Program Change, native APC Mini MK2 support with LED feedback, MIDI clock, and MIDI CC as a modulation source — plus an OSC bridge whose messages MIDI Learn maps the same way.

RequirementsCopy Anchor Link

Web MIDI availability differs by browser. Chrome and Edge work directly, Firefox uses a one-time permission add-on, and Safari does not support it. See Browser Support for the current requirements.

Connect your MIDI device, then grant MIDI permission when prompted.

Performer Settings — the MIDI HomeCopy Anchor Link

All MIDI and OSC configuration lives in the Performer Settings modal. Open it by clicking the MIDI status indicator in the Performer control bar (or the settings button next to it). The modal has four tabs: MIDI, OSC, AUDIO, and DISPLAY.

MIDI TabCopy Anchor Link

OSC TabCopy Anchor Link

AUDIO TabCopy Anchor Link

DISPLAY TabCopy Anchor Link

Performer display options, including the BPM Meter toggle that shows a compact metronome HUD in the top-left of the canvas.

How do I map a knob to a Performer control?Copy Anchor Link

Open Performer Settings → MIDI and click START MIDI LEARN. Settings closes and a MIDI LEARN bar appears at the top of the screen:

1. Open the visualizer's settings with the arrow toggle in the top-right. Every slider, toggle and button in it is outlined with a MIDI tag (expand a section to see its controls)
2. Click the control you want. The bar says Move a knob, press a pad or send an OSC message for that control
3. Turn a knob or fader, or press a pad or key. The bar names the new mapping, for example Mapped CC 21 ch 1 → NEON ORB · SPHERE SEPARATION
4. Click the next control and repeat, or click DONE (or press Esc) to finish

Controls without a slider of their own are buttons in the bar: OUTPUT LEVEL (fades the whole picture), BLACKOUT, NEXT PRESET, PREVIOUS PRESET, TAP TEMPO and PRESET 1 to PRESET 16 (the first sixteen presets in the PRESETS panel's order, so each pad of a controller can call its own preset). The Scene Sequencer's transport has its own M buttons — see Scene Sequencer.

A mapped control shows its knob, such as CC 21 CH 1, above it in the settings panel.

How mapped controls behaveCopy Anchor Link

• Knobs and faders sweep a slider across its full range. A toggle is on while the fader is past halfway and off below it; a button such as NEXT PRESET fires each time the fader passes halfway.
• Pads and keys flip a toggle (BLACKOUT on, then off) and press a button once per hit. On a slider, a pad sets the value while held and returns it to the minimum on release.
• No jumps. After you drag the slider on screen or change preset, a knob waits until it reaches the slider's value, then takes over. Right after you learn a knob, it takes over straight away.
• A mapping belongs to one visualizer. A knob mapped to a Neon Orb slider drives Neon Orb, whether or not its settings are open. While another visualizer is showing, that mapping waits and is marked INACTIVE in the list.
• A mapped pad does only its mapped job. An APC Mini MK2 pad you learn to a control stops launching a preset, and a side button stops triggering a scene; the other pads keep their built-in jobs. Program Change is never learned and always switches presets.
• Learning a knob that is already mapped moves it to the new control, and the bar says which mapping it replaced. Each control has one knob, and each knob drives one control.

Can I use my computer keyboard?Copy Anchor Link

Yes, in the Performer. Start MIDI Learn, click a control, then press a letter, number or symbol key, on its own or with Shift. The key then works like a pad: it presses a button, flips a switch, or holds a slider at its maximum while you hold the key. Learned keys show as KEY Q (or KEY SHIFT+Q) in the list.

Keys the app already uses can't be learned, and the learn bar says which shortcut owns the key (for example F, Performer fullscreen; , and ., previous and next preset; [ and ], previous and next visualizer; the number keys, which play FX looks). Esc, Tab, Enter, Space, the arrow keys, function keys and Ctrl, Cmd or Alt combinations are never learned. If a visualizer you switch to uses a key you learned, its own shortcut wins while it is showing. Typing in a text field never triggers a mapped key.

Can I trigger things with hand gestures?Copy Anchor Link

Yes, in the Performer, with your camera on (or a video of someone's hands) under SOURCE in the FX Rack. Start MIDI Learn, click a control, then hold a gesture up to the camera for a moment: OPEN PALM, FIST, THUMB UP, THUMB DOWN, POINTING UP, VICTORY (index and middle finger) or I LOVE YOU (thumb, index and pinky). The gesture then works like a pad: making it presses the control once, the way a MIDI pad or a key does, and lowering your hand releases it, so a gesture can fire an effect's HIT, recall a look, step to the next preset or flip a switch. Learned gestures show as GESTURE OPEN PALM in the list. Either hand makes a gesture, and both hands making the same one still press it once. The hand tracking runs only while a gesture is mapped or being learned.

Learned mappingsCopy Anchor Link

Control BeamTracer from TouchDesignerCopy Anchor Link

To control the Performer from TouchDesigner, send OSC from an OSC Out CHOP to an OSC bridge on the same computer, and connect that bridge in Performer Settings → OSC. There are two ways to use the messages. You can send the fixed /beamtracer/viz/… addresses below, which need no setup. Or you can use MIDI Learn to map any address your patch already sends. Either way you can drive the visualizer's camera (orbit, elevation, zoom, pan, field of view and auto-rotate), switch presets, tap the tempo and black out the output.

How do I set up the OSC Out CHOP?Copy Anchor Link

1. Start an OSC bridge on the computer that runs BeamTracer. The bridge receives OSC on a network port and passes it to the browser; see Which bridge to use.
2. In the Performer, open Performer Settings → OSC, enter the bridge's BRIDGE PORT (default 8765) and click CONNECT. The line under CONNECT reads Listening on ws://localhost:8765.
3. In TouchDesigner, add an OSC Out CHOP. Set Protocol to Messaging (UDP) and turn Active on.
4. Set Network Address to the computer running the OSC bridge (127.0.0.1 when it is the same computer) and Network Port to the UDP port the bridge receives OSC on.
5. Leave Data Format at its default, so each channel is sent as its own message addressed by the channel's name. Rename each channel to the full address it should reach, for example /beamtracer/viz/camera/orbit, with a Rename CHOP. Avoid Transpose By Name, which groups channels by their root name.
6. STATUS in the OSC tab counts the messages and shows the last address, so you can check that they arrive.

Which addresses can I send without learning?Copy Anchor Link

These addresses work as soon as the bridge is connected. The FX Rack has its own addresses under /beamtracer/viz/fx/, listed on its page. Camera values are in real units, so use a Math CHOP to range your 0–1 channels (for example, 0–1 to −180–180 for orbit). A button acts on a message with no value, or on a value that rises to 0.5 or more. To press a button again, send a value below 0.5 first; a TouchDesigner Pulse does this for you.

The camera addresses move the orbit camera, the one you can drag with the mouse. They work on visualizers that have one, such as Audio Earth. On a flat visualizer, or on one that flies its own camera path, they do nothing. The addresses under /beamtracer/laser/ control the laser tools, not the Performer; see OSC blackout.

How do I map my own addresses instead?Copy Anchor Link

1. In Performer Settings → OSC (or → MIDI), click START MIDI LEARN.
2. Click a control. The camera and Performer controls are buttons in the MIDI LEARN bar (CAMERA ORBIT, CAMERA ZOOM, NEXT PRESET …); visualizer controls are outlined in the visualizer's settings.
3. Move the channel in TouchDesigner. Only a channel that changes is learned, so the others can keep streaming. The bar confirms, for example Mapped OSC /td/cam/orbit[0] → Camera Orbit.
4. Click DONE.

A learned channel's range sets itself from what it sends: 0 to 1 spans the whole control. A Pulse CHOP mapped to NEXT PRESET steps one preset per pulse, and a channel held at 1 steps only once.

How do I stop the camera from jittering?Copy Anchor Link

How do I play Laser Show cues over OSC?Copy Anchor Link

Laser Show has its own fixed addresses for playing its cues and its console like a lighting desk. Turn on OSC CUES in its MIDI & OSC section, which is on by default.

Laser Show also plays from MIDI notes without learning: the base note plays cue 1 and each note above plays the next cue, while the note just below the base note flashes and the next two strobe and freeze while held.

APC Mini MK2 Deep IntegrationCopy Anchor Link

The Akai APC Mini MK2 is natively supported with automatic LED feedback — no manual mapping needed. Connect it via USB and the integration activates when the device is detected.

Pad Grid = Preset GridCopy Anchor Link

The 8×8 pad matrix mirrors the preset grid:

• Each pad lights in its preset's color; the active preset is bright white
• Pressing a pad launches that preset
• Pad order follows the preset panel's current sort and filters — reorder your presets and the pads follow (Presets)
• Variant cycling: pressing the pad of the currently active visualizer type steps through that visualizer's preset variants

Opening the PRESETS panel automatically switches the LEDs to the preset grid.

LED Display ModesCopy Anchor Link

When you're not using the pads as a preset grid, the LED matrix can double as a hardware meter. Pick a mode under LED DISPLAY MODE in the MIDI tab:

Side Buttons & FadersCopy Anchor Link

• The side-column buttons (MIDI notes 112–119) trigger the first 8 scenes in the Scene Sequencer
• The 9 faders send CC 48–55 (track faders) and CC 56 (master). They are unmapped by default — use START MIDI LEARN to bind them to any visualizer slider or to OUTPUT LEVEL

Program ChangeCopy Anchor Link

Any controller or DAW that sends MIDI Program Change can switch Performer presets. Program 0 selects the first tile in the PRESETS panel, program 1 the second, and so on. A program number past the last tile selects the last one.

The order is the panel's current order: the sort button (ORIGINAL, A-Z, Z-A or CUSTOM) and any mood pill, family pill, Favorites or My Presets pill, or search you have applied. Until you open the PRESETS panel, the order is the original preset order. This is the same order the APC Mini MK2 pads follow.

Pick which channel is listened to under Performer Settings → MIDI → PROGRAM CHANGE → Channel. OFF ignores Program Change completely. The Performer connects to MIDI when you open Performer Settings or start MIDI Learn, so open it once after loading the page.

Note MapCopy Anchor Link

NOTE MAP lets a sequencer, drum machine or keyboard cut between presets with notes, the way a clip track works on a hardware sequencer such as the OP-XY's MIDI track. Under Performer Settings → MIDI → NOTE MAP, pick a Channel (it starts OFF) and a First note. That note plays the first preset in the PRESETS panel's order and each note above it plays the next; the list beside it shows which note plays which preset for the first two octaves, with the current preset lit. Reordering the PRESETS panel renumbers the notes.

Sequence those notes on the beat and the presets cut with the music. A note you have learned to a control with MIDI Learn keeps doing that instead, and a note below the first note or past the last preset does nothing. For a pad per preset without a run of notes, learn pads to PRESET 1 to PRESET 16.

Showcase MappingCopy Anchor Link

Performer Settings → MIDI → SHOWCASE MAPPING loads one controller layout for the five looks made for a sequencer or drum machine (DATA HANDS, PINCH SWEEP, THERMAL BODY, SPARK DRUMS and KICK FLIP). Pick the Channel your sequencer sends on and press LOAD. It is laid out for an OP-XY's MIDI track, whose eight CCs can change on every step, and works with any controller:

The mapping is added to what you have already learned; a control you mapped to one of those notes or CCs on that channel moves to the showcase. The CCs set each value directly, so a step that changes a CC lands on that value at once. Each mapping then shows under LEARNED MAPPINGS, where you can remove it or learn something else in its place.

Other ControllersCopy Anchor Link

Any class-compliant MIDI controller works with MIDI Learn, Program Change and MIDI clock.

• Knobs and notes as modulation sources. Common controllers (mod wheel, volume, expression, sustain and a few more) also appear in the MIDI CC group of a slider's modulation source list, where a knob modulates a slider around its set value instead of setting it. Note velocity and Note pitch follow the last note you played, so a drum track's accents can make EMIT's sparks bigger and faster. See Modulation Matrix.
• Scene Sequencer transport. Play/Stop, Loop, Shuffle and BPM sync each have an M button; see Scene Sequencer.