smallcircles

x

Waveform Explorer

This tool converts sound into visual art by analyzing an audio file and rendering it as stacked waveform lines.

Inspired by Joy Division’s iconic Unknown Pleasures album art by Peter Saville that utilized the minimalist plot of radio waves from CP 1919, the first pulsar ever discovered. This was published in the Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Astronomy on page 111, which you can look through on the internet Archive, the illustrations are amazing, I highly recommend checking it out!

The links below load wavetables into the app (provided by Keith at wavetables.lol, thanks!), tiny audio samples used instead of traditional oscillators by synthesizers such as the Waldorf PPG, used by New Order and many others.

You can, of course, upload any sound you like. Short punchy sounds work best. If you’re on mobile, you can upload directly from your mic… that was a happy surprise!

Tweak the parameters to explore different visual interpretations of the same sound and export your creation as SVG or PNG.

You can also upload your own color palette, in the form of a json object of html hex colors. Download an example.

Have fun!

Wavetables:

Notes:

• The Spectral Bands mode takes a while to render
• Sometimes, when loading a palette or changing a color, you have to trigger a redraw by switching styles