Audio-Reactive Visuals in TouchDesigner

In this tutorial, we explore how to drive your visuals in TouchDesigner that normally use time with audio analysis/beat detection.
Link to Patreon for source file: / tblankensmith
Link to Double Feedback component: drive.google.com/file/d/1KQmP...
Markus Heckmann's tutorial on feedback techniques: • Feedback Techniques (E...
If you're interested in other techniques on making things audio-reactive, Bileam has a great tutorial on this: • Make Anything Audio Re...
0:00 Overview
0:22 Audio Analysis
4:53 Creating a Component
6:43 Setting Up Noise TOPs
9:22 Driving Animations with Audio
11:10 Blending Between TOPs with Audio
12:14 Fixing up our Audio Analysis
13:24 Animating Color with Audio
15:22 How to use Displace TOP
16:52 Bonus Water Color Effect Overview
17:53 Water Color Setup
21:03 Transition Between Water Color & Original Visuals
One recommendation I have in hindsight is instead of copying the expression in the transform of the Noise TOPs around is to place that expression into a Constant CHOP, attach a Null to the constant and pass a reference from that Null in your components. This will let you modify that expression in 1 place instead of having to go into each component and modify it.
Music by 20syl
Track: One or Won
• One or Won

[@IndorilTheGreat]

I'll echo what everyone else is saying - this is incredibly helpful! Exactly what I was looking for in terms of a tutorial. Thank you so much!

[@vinniep237]

this is awesome 🙏 legit best td tutorial ive come across. would love more of these!

[@JArbiter1332]

to add to what others have said, this is one of the best audio reactive TD tutorials i have seen. after watching this i feel like i have the tools/ideas to apply this to a number of patches. many thanks really excited for more tutorials if you're going to make them!

[@hekuli]

Exactly what I was looking for! Building a simple audio-reactive project with a clear practical goal and good explanations along the way. Bravo and thank you.

[@rumur]

underrated channel for sure, im gonna peep all of your videos, thank you for your time!

[@cheetahlion79]

Wow Torin! I really like how you explained this. Very clear and concise. AND useful for what I'm doing. I spent a ton of money on LZX and other hardware video synths and spent for a few years trying to use it. Basically created colorful circles and diamonds. This took like 30 mins and was able to experiment with the configuration to make stuff cooler than what I could do with all my hardware. I hope you continue to produce tutorials! Thank you.

[@postdaigo]

Man, you are really awesome! Thank you so much for this. Looking forward for new tutorials!

[@MikeBCG]

A lot of helpful tidbits in here, thank you!!

[@nbione]

thanks for sharing!! you made every concept easy to get

[@dzikrirahmat2416]

thank you for making this tutorial, very helpful and easy to understand even for beginner

[@Diabetictwink]

Yoooo this is one of the best TouchDesigner tutorials I’ve seen. Thank you for taking the time to explain WHY certain operators do what they do. I feel like so many tutorials show how to do things but don’t take time to explain. Please make more, I learned a lot just from this video!! Thank you!

[@blankensmithing]

Thanks, that means a lot! I’m really excited to start putting out more tutorials soon

[@erasmuskid]

i was thinking about the same thing

[@mymoviedream]

Thank you so much for the great tutorial!!!

[@kassethaavik1508]

Thank you!! Having so much fun implementing this right now into my first little TD project...!!

[@blankensmithing]

😄glad you're enjoying it

[@scottiefox2525]

Gold quality tutorial and setup!

[@blankensmithing]

Thanks Scottie!

[@sorijin]

Great work, subbed!

[@therob3672]

Very nice work

[@VinitNPatil]

Thank you very much! Appreciate it!

[@adnanetouzani8235]

keep posting ♥

[@joni_boi_]

Thanks a lot mate! this help out a lot to start with touchdesigner (:

[@bitface11]

very good thank you!

[@ivoryvignettes]

You're a legend

[@christianedwards5477]

Hey the tutorial was so so useful, It helped me a lot! I have a problem with the double_feedback though, when I use your component and attach the correct noise components nothing shows up on the null attached to the double feedback and I'm very confused by it. any help would be greatly appreciated! Fantastic work!

[@tansusayiner]

Thanks

[@toniomaicon8451]

Hi Torin, this is such a great video. Could you help me with something I am stuck on? it has to do at around 10:10 of the vid, where you dragged the kicksnare count onto the translate, mine connects but it doesn't show the supposed animation of the noise from the audio. Could you share how should I move forward? Thank you!

[@tanguypaschal6657]

Dope

[@schwups10]

Thank you for the great tutorial! 😄 I wanted to insert my own sound file into the project but the audio analysis is not detecting kick, snare and rhythm nor the lows, mids and highs. Every channel is frozen although my sound is playing. Also, my sound is not music, but a voice recording. Maybe it has something to do with that, as there aren't any beats? 🤔

[@blankensmithing]

Make sure you're on the latest version of TouchDesigner. The new audio analysis component from the pallette has toggles to turn on and off the lows mids and highs. Make sure to turn them on in the parameters 😄

[@schwups10]

@@blankensmithing It worked, now it's detecting, thank you! 😊Since I want to visualize speech recordings there are mainly mids and highs to detect and less kicks. I was wondering if there's also a possibility to translate both mids and highs grouped to the noise? 🧐

[@blankensmithing]

@@schwups10 Yeah check out this tutorial. I go over a new technique that I think give better results for audio-reactivity and will work great in your case. kzbin.info/www/bejne/p4O3g32wntaigM0

[@schwups10]

@@blankensmithing Thank you! I'll check it out

[@ItsWesSmithYo]

Nice one…any idea how to work in music time signature, IE, “beats”. I see the option in timeline. Would be super cool if you could just make your TD creation to music signature. You wouldn’t need any music at all if you were just making generic content. You could just create, with music in mind but no actual restrictions. All visual apps I’ve seen use the waveform. Integrating Ableton Live with TD Ableton looks promising, as well as some tools like T3X2R for ableton, but they can’t match TD…anyway just curious if anything native. Any input greatly appreciated. 🖤😎🙌🐇

[@lunaboruchowicz767]

Hey! This tutorial was very helpful! Is there a way I can control the colors of the visuals? Maybe use only a spectrum of colors?

[@blankensmithing]

Hey, glad you're enjoying it! Yeah, you can multiply the output with another TOP that has a different color. You could also pass it through a lookup TOP and connect a ramp to the 2nd parameter of the lookup TOP to vary the color.

[@Aristogeiton367]

I want to do an audio visual performance in real time with Ableton's session view, how would you link an audio file directly from Ableton? (instead of the audio file already being in TouchDesigner). Or is the only way for me to do that, would be to use an envelope follower in ableton and then map that to midi for me to be able to link it in touch designer?

[@blankensmithing]

Bileam has a nice tutorial on picking up internal audio in TouchDesigner using an app called VB-Cabel: kzbin.info/www/bejne/foOZgKdprJukitE You can have Ableton output audio to VB-Cable and you can pick it up as an Audio Device in CHOP in TD. If you can't hear the audio then connect it to an audio device out CHOP and select where you want the audio played

[@vacantimaginarium683]

Completely novice question for you, once finished, how do you export it as a video clip? I tried exporting using the export movie selection from the file menu and when I export, it is merely a blank video with no sound or video playing. Thank you for any insight.

[@blankensmithing]

You can put down a Movie File out TOP at the end of your network and turn on recording. If you want audio in your video you'll need to drag your Audio Device In CHOP, or Audio File in Chop onto the "Audio CHOP" section of the Movie File Out. Bileam goes over it here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/lWLVaX6Cj7yNaJI

[@ricabucher695]

hey! i am completely new to touchdeisgner, so i might have a weird problem. in my audio detection only the lows are moving. Do you need a pro version to have all the other things detected ? Thanks! And nice tutorial :)

[@vantablacknl]

I have pro and only lows are moving too

[@Kevin-wg2cd]

You need to go into the audio analysis and toggle the kick and snare detection to "on".

[@blankensmithing]

I think this was a bug with the Audio Analysis Component. It should be fixed in the newest TD version. If not you can toggle the component into an Active mode by pression the + mark in the bottom right, then on the component click on the beat kick and snare detection and they should have a white circle next to them when they're turned on. Hope this helps

[@StuartFingerhut]

@@Kevin-wg2cd thanks

[@henrytuttle4256]

What version of touch designer do you suggest someone making visuals for mostly music? thanks!

[@blankensmithing]

get the latest version :)

[@christianchatman9299]

I’m following steps carefully. Any reason why audio analysis would not detect kick and snare at all? I have kick and snare active turned on in audio analysis and I’ve adjusted threshold in both directions without any result although it will detect low mid and high

[@blankensmithing]

Hi Christian, can you try using a different song? The default one that TD provides with their Audio File In CHOP has very distinct kick and snare, so hopefully you should see it working

[@Hasgul1]

9:48 why do we pass it to the z component? can we pass it to x or y? does it matter

[@blankensmithing]

You could pass it to the x, or y if you'd like. I'll make the noise look like it's moving in that direction, which could be cool if that's the aesthetic you're going for

[@gtomx7762]

Hi, I'm new to touch designer and I seem to be missing most of the Timeline features. My Timeline is not displaying the Timeline Settings, FPS, Frame Field, TimeCode or Beats. These areas where they should be found are blank and I have no idea how to get them? Is there some obvious setting I've missed cause I've tried everything with no success at getting it back to normal???

[@blankensmithing]

Hey I'd recommend reinstalling TouchDesigner. The timeline should always be there

[@gtomx7762]

@@blankensmithing yes I’ve tried multiple times but it still installs without it. Thanks for the help though :)

[@blankensmithing]

@@gtomx7762 I would post a bug to forums.derivative.ca and include a screenshot, the version of TD and info about what type of computer you're using eg graphics card, processor and Operating system version. They're very responsive and should be able to help

[@smt_]

my kick and snare detection never seems to go off despite trying a wide mixture of songs and a mixture of settings

[@smt_]

what's super weird is i can go into the audio analysis node and manually turn them on and they both function fine lmao, maybe a weird bug in the latest version? just my new install messed up? god knows

[@markbennett4316]

Did you figure it out? Click on your audio analyser and under "controls" in the window that's popped up, make sure you have "Kick Active" "Snare Active" and others turned to "ON". I had the same misunderstanding of it when I started out.

[@lgardner8190]

could you share this project?

[@blankensmithing]

I share all my project files in my Patreon

[@Robbfy]

I can't connect the noise nodes to the switch node... Someone who can help me?

[@Robbfy]

My bad, used CHOP instead of TOP

[@blankensmithing]

Glad you got it working 😄

[@Robbfy]

@@blankensmithing haha :p tnx for your tutorial! :)

[@adarsharyan942]

8:23 how to make a duplicate ??

[@adarsharyan942]

yes yes I got it ctrl+c and v wow i did a whole lot of brainstorming over this haha my stupid brain

[@adarsharyan942]

and thank Torin you made it so easy , initially it seems so technical but after watching this it become kinda understandable, thanks much bro

[@blankensmithing]

@@adarsharyan942 Hey! I'm glad you got it working

[@adarsharyan942]

@@blankensmithing yes thanks, but can u please make one video on exporting projects in touchdesigner its so COMPLICATED!!

[@blankensmithing]

​@@adarsharyan942 Are you hoping to see a tutorial on exporting videos, or on how to run your project in "Performance mode" full screen like you would for an installation?