7 ms·

Butterchurn – A WebGL Implementation of the Milkdrop Visualizer

123 points by podiki 6y ago

podiki 6y ago
Does anyone know of any other music visualizers that are on the level of Milkdrop? I've never seen anything nearly as enchanting as Milkdrop, and with such a range of visual styles in the presets. As I mentioned in the current Webamp thread [0], I've spent many a good hour with Milkdrop and some good music. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26811696 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26811696
- 01100011 6y ago
  Milkdrop was amazing for its time. I used it to do visuals at concerts and music festivals in the mid-00's. It was especially awesome because you could drive it with a microphone input so you could jam and get real time visualizations that synced with what you were playing.
  - nuclearsugar 6y ago
    You might enjoy this VJ friendly version of Milkdrop. http://nestimmersion.ca/nestdrop.html http://nestimmersion.ca/nestdrop.html Also a huge library of curated and organized presets (with previews). https://thefulldomeblog.com/2020/02/21/nestdrop-presets-collection-cream-of-the-crop/ https://thefulldomeblog.com/2020/02/21/nestdrop-presets-coll...
- cosmotic 6y ago
  g-force and whitecap are nice https://www.soundspectrum.com https://www.soundspectrum.com
- colordrops 6y ago
  Not really a visualizer as it's not in real time to music, but it makes amazing visuals: https://electricsheep.org/ https://electricsheep.org/
- beatrobot 6y ago
  projectM https://github.com/projectM-visualizer/projectm#readme https://github.com/projectM-visualizer/projectm#readme
  - podiki 6y ago
    Been a long time since I tried out projectM, looking to get that Milkdrop goodness back (and not on Windows). And just saw they have a VR mode.....that could be very very cool (and disorienting, in a good way?), can't wait to try that!
  - drewlander 6y ago
    +1 for ProjectM. Excellent, even works great on FreeBSD!
captbaritone 6y ago
Hey! I run webamp.org which uses Butterchurn. It's not yet mentioned in the Butterchrun readme, but we recently built compiler that compiles the visualizer preset code to Webassembly in your browser and got a 73% improvement in rendering performance. Blog post here: https://jordaneldredge.com/blog/speeding-up-winamps-music-visualizer-with-webassembly/ https://jordaneldredge.com/blog/speeding-up-winamps-music-vi...
- leetrout 6y ago
  This sentence in your post By that metric rendering with the new Wasm version is ~72.6 faster than the JavaScript approach. Seems like it should says “72.6 times” or “72.6 percent”
  - captbaritone 6y ago
    Ah, thanks for catching. It’s 72.6%. I’ll update.
  - artifact_44 6y ago
    73% improvement reads like "almost twice as fast", to me. 100% faster would be twice as fast.
- Frost1x 6y ago
  This was a fun trip down memory lane, lots of nostalgic good-feels. I wasn't aware of either effort and this brought back the sense of an era of computing I once loved. It reminds me how transparent (perhaps moving towards ubiquitous computing) certain applications are becoming. I couldn't tell you how many times when listening to background music and working, I'd occasionally switchover to appreciate my current Winamp skin and even take a small break staring off into Milkdrop and then shift back to work. Now, I rarely take time to even look at my music application, it's just a means to an end--really a different era of computing where modern software just doesn't seem to give the same sense of personalization or character. Thank you for your work!
- modeless 6y ago
  That's super cool! Interesting that WASM provides a way to sandbox untrusted code. Did you consider sandboxing JS with iframes as an alternative?
dvt 6y ago
This is awesome! Will try to add it to the next release of https://github.com/dvx/lofi https://github.com/dvx/lofi
- podiki 6y ago
  Cool project, will have to check it out! Though, such a thing will just lower my chances of getting work done at the computer ;-)
somishere 6y ago
ermagerrd .. this takes me back
thih9 6y ago
Didn’t work on safari mobile, unfortunately. I see a message about lack of WebGL 2 or WebAudio support. I’m being directed to a legacy version [1], which currently seems missing. [1]: https://legacy.butterchurnviz.com/ https://legacy.butterchurnviz.com/

123 points by podiki 6y ago

Does anyone know of any other music visualizers that are on the level of Milkdrop? I've never seen anything nearly as enchanting as Milkdrop, and with such a range of visual styles in the presets. As I mentioned in the current Webamp thread [0], I've spent many a good hour with Milkdrop and some good music. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26811696 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26811696

01100011 6y ago
Milkdrop was amazing for its time. I used it to do visuals at concerts and music festivals in the mid-00's. It was especially awesome because you could drive it with a microphone input so you could jam and get real time visualizations that synced with what you were playing.
- nuclearsugar 6y ago
  You might enjoy this VJ friendly version of Milkdrop. http://nestimmersion.ca/nestdrop.html http://nestimmersion.ca/nestdrop.html Also a huge library of curated and organized presets (with previews). https://thefulldomeblog.com/2020/02/21/nestdrop-presets-collection-cream-of-the-crop/ https://thefulldomeblog.com/2020/02/21/nestdrop-presets-coll...
cosmotic 6y ago
g-force and whitecap are nice https://www.soundspectrum.com https://www.soundspectrum.com
colordrops 6y ago
Not really a visualizer as it's not in real time to music, but it makes amazing visuals: https://electricsheep.org/ https://electricsheep.org/
beatrobot 6y ago
projectM https://github.com/projectM-visualizer/projectm#readme https://github.com/projectM-visualizer/projectm#readme
- podiki 6y ago
  Been a long time since I tried out projectM, looking to get that Milkdrop goodness back (and not on Windows). And just saw they have a VR mode.....that could be very very cool (and disorienting, in a good way?), can't wait to try that!
- drewlander 6y ago
  +1 for ProjectM. Excellent, even works great on FreeBSD!

captbaritone 6y ago

Hey! I run webamp.org which uses Butterchurn. It's not yet mentioned in the Butterchrun readme, but we recently built compiler that compiles the visualizer preset code to Webassembly in your browser and got a 73% improvement in rendering performance. Blog post here: https://jordaneldredge.com/blog/speeding-up-winamps-music-visualizer-with-webassembly/ https://jordaneldredge.com/blog/speeding-up-winamps-music-vi...

leetrout 6y ago
This sentence in your post By that metric rendering with the new Wasm version is ~72.6 faster than the JavaScript approach. Seems like it should says “72.6 times” or “72.6 percent”
- captbaritone 6y ago
  Ah, thanks for catching. It’s 72.6%. I’ll update.
- artifact_44 6y ago
  73% improvement reads like "almost twice as fast", to me. 100% faster would be twice as fast.
Frost1x 6y ago
This was a fun trip down memory lane, lots of nostalgic good-feels. I wasn't aware of either effort and this brought back the sense of an era of computing I once loved. It reminds me how transparent (perhaps moving towards ubiquitous computing) certain applications are becoming. I couldn't tell you how many times when listening to background music and working, I'd occasionally switchover to appreciate my current Winamp skin and even take a small break staring off into Milkdrop and then shift back to work. Now, I rarely take time to even look at my music application, it's just a means to an end--really a different era of computing where modern software just doesn't seem to give the same sense of personalization or character. Thank you for your work!
modeless 6y ago
That's super cool! Interesting that WASM provides a way to sandbox untrusted code. Did you consider sandboxing JS with iframes as an alternative?

dvt 6y ago

This is awesome! Will try to add it to the next release of https://github.com/dvx/lofi https://github.com/dvx/lofi

podiki 6y ago
Cool project, will have to check it out! Though, such a thing will just lower my chances of getting work done at the computer ;-)

somishere 6y ago

ermagerrd .. this takes me back

thih9 6y ago

Didn’t work on safari mobile, unfortunately. I see a message about lack of WebGL 2 or WebAudio support. I’m being directed to a legacy version [1], which currently seems missing. [1]: https://legacy.butterchurnviz.com/ https://legacy.butterchurnviz.com/