MuVis vs Refract

MuVis is an open-source macOS & iOS app for music visualization. It renders informative (and musically useful) graphical displays in real time from music files being played - or from the device's microphone. Real-time music visualization is an exciting endeavor - providing the user with dynamic visual and aural stimulation and edification. When the MuVis app first opens, the on-screen display should look somewhat like the first screenshot shown above and the computer's speakers should be playing music from a pre-loaded royalty-free music file. (Currently, the song file is "The Elevator Bossa Nova" from Bensound.com.) The on-screen display shows a real-time dynamic visual representation of the audio that you are hearing. The top and bottom toolbars contains buttons and sliders to allow you to control what you see. Triple-tap your screen to show/hide these toolbars. At the bottom left are two buttons labelled by left- and right-chevrons. Clicking the left one changes the display to the previous visualization, and clicking the right one changes the display to the next visualization - which allows you to cycle through the thirty-four visualizations currently provided by the app. Also, you can simply swipe left or right to change the visualization. Adjacent to these Visualization chevrons are two Option chevrons. When programming these visualization algorithms, there are numerous variations and options available to the developer. These buttons allow the user to select to see any of eight variations. The particular variation rendered is different for each visualization. Also, you can simply swipe up or down to change the option rendered. Adjacent to these Option chevrons is a “Pause” button. When clicked, it stops the music playback and freezes the visualization display. The button label changes to “Play” which, when clicked, causes the music playback and the visualization display to continue. The adjacent button has a "Microphone" icon. When pressed it stops playing the audio from the selected song file (and also stops it's visualization), and starts playing the live audio from the microphone (and starts it's visualization). The label then becomes a slashed microphone - which, when pressed, performs the reverse actions and changes the icon back to "Microphone". The next button has a "Music List" icon. It allows you to select whatever songs you want from your own iCloudDrive folder. Selecting a song causes that song to play - and the visualization to render its dynamic attributes. The adjacent button has a “Waveform” icon with a minus sign. When clicked, it passes the audio signal through a “spectral enhancer” filter which reduces the display of noise (usually percussive effects which smear spectral energy over a large frequency range), and enhances the display of spectral lines (usually the harmonics of musical notes). Finally, at the right end of the bottom toolbar are two buttons labelled UserG (for User Guide) and VisG (for Visualization Guide). Clicking either button activates a “Quick Look” popup window to display the app's documentation. The top toolbar contains two sliders - one controlling "Visualization Gain" and the other controlling "Visualization Treble Boost". As their names imply, sliding them adjusts the gain and slope of the visual data representation. The source code for this app is posted at www.github.com/Keith-43

TURN ANY TRACK INTO A VIDEO THAT MOVES WITH IT An audio visualizer and music video maker: beat-synced visualizers, your photos, text and effects, exported for Reels, Shorts, TikTok and YouTube. Refract is an audio-reactive video studio for your iPhone. Load a song and a real-time engine listens to its beat, bass and energy, then choreographs every layer to the music. No keyframes. No guesswork. No template that ignores your track. No account, no sign-in. Your music and your videos never leave your phone. YOUR MUSIC, FROM ANYWHERE Pick a song from Files, iCloud Drive or Voice Memos. Take the soundtrack straight from a video you shot, in Photos or Files, or from a direct link to an audio or video file. Refract checks the video first, keeps only its sound, and lets you hear it before you begin. Keep that sound as its own audio file in one tap. A VISUAL ENGINE THAT LISTENS • 8 GPU-accelerated visualizers — Linear Spectrum, Waveform, Ring, Polar Bars, Dual Wave, Pulse, Streaks and Dots • 20 studio effects — Glow, VHS, CRT Scanlines, Film Grain, RGB Shift, Oil Paint, Fisheye, Wave Warp, Swirl, Posterize, Edge Detect and more • 8 particle overlays for depth, atmosphere and motion • 6 auto-choreographed looks — Neon Pulse, VHS, Poster, Liquid, Handheld, Drift — each a finished edit in a single tap • A text tool with 8 typefaces and 4 ink styles, and type that pulses with the bass A REAL TIMELINE, NOT A TEMPLATE Every layer lives on a full multi-track timeline. Move it, retime it, restyle it, bind any parameter to the audio, and watch the preview follow at 60 fps. Trim a five-minute track to its strongest thirty seconds, add precise fades, and export exactly that. READY FOR EVERY PLATFORM One-tap presets for portrait, square, tall and widescreen — 9:16, 1:1, 4:5 and 16:9 — with resolution, frame rate and quality set for you. Or take full manual control, up to 4K at 60 fps, at any length. LIGHT OR DARK Refract follows your iPhone's appearance, or stays in the one you choose. PRIVATE BY DESIGN Analysis and rendering happen on your phone's GPU. Nothing is uploaded, so creating and exporting work anywhere — on a plane, in a studio, offline. Refract counts which features get used, anonymously and with no identifier of any kind, so we can see what to improve. Unlimited projects and exports, every aspect ratio, your own photos and the full timeline editor — free. Refract Pro unlocks the entire catalogue, 4K at 60 fps, unlimited length and watermark-free export. Everything you make keeps working and keeps exporting, whichever you're on. Made for musicians, producers, DJs, podcasters and labels who need a release-ready visual for every track. Privacy Policy: https://greg-wolny.github.io/refract/privacy.html Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/