I’ll start with the short video example I’ll be discussing:
This is an example of a visual effect that is reactive to an audio signal, in this case a kick drum with a basic 4-on-the-floor pattern (hitting on every quarter note beat in 4/4 time). One of the best tools available for making ultra fast low-to-no budget music videos is the ZGameEditor Visualizer plugin that ships with FL Studio. It’s based on the open source Z Game Editor that is sometimes used for rapid prototyping video games. By wrapping its plugin architecture around ZGE, possibilities are open to anyone with the right coding skills to create their own vfx algorithms that can be used inside FL Studio.
In this example, I’m using a royalty free video that holds decent aesthetic potential for no budget eye candy-to-music. It’s generally a good idea to trigger ZGE Visualizer off an audio file mixdown of the track you want to make sound-responsive, but it’s possible to load it into a mix loaded with instruments, plugins and various control information . In the midst of your full-blown project, just know that you need to keep an eye on general CPU load issues if your computer is running all your mix components and also processing visuals in real-time. ZGE Visualizer will use your computer’s GPU (dedicated graphics processing unit) so on a capable computer you should be ok, depending on the complexity of your project.
The decision on whether to run ZGE to respond to the mixed down track or embed it in your project will likely come down your overall design. If you want the visuals to respond to many parameters within your mix, then load it into your project. If you can make do with the final mixdown, create a new project with just the one audio track as your main clip.
Here’s the audio clip used in this example:
This clip does have a kick pattern embedded in it, but it might be a tad hard to use as an automation signal to control a visual effect given all the other sounds and their transients. Often you’ll want to create ‘ghost tracks’ in your mix that replicate the same audio signal that you want to use as your trigger signal, but which are disconnected from the master channel so that it produces no audible output. It’s this ghost track kick pattern that will be used to drive the visual effect.
To convert the ghost kick into a usable control signal, FL’s peak controller plugin — a mixer channel insert on the ghost track — is used.
In the ZGE Visualizer (which is usually instantiated as a master channel insert in the mixer), you can add up to 50 processors in series, which also follow a general background-to-foreground left-to-right layering logic. You add your image content in the Add Content tab and add your image processors in the Main tab. The third image below shows the many image processors that come bundled in the plugin. It’s worth mentioning that many nonlinear video editing applications don’t come as well-stocked with so many video effects! Each of these is a kind of plugin-within-a-plugin (fx modules within the ZGE Visualizer plugin).
As any FL user will know, the way you connect a parameter to a controller is to right-click on its knob or other associated UI element and just select Link to Controller.
Because we’ve created the peak controller, it will show up as an available controller as an option to select. Peak controller also has an LFO but we’re not using it in this example, since the strong kick peaks are working fine for our needs.
FL Studio is great in typically allowing you to see your automation visualized in real-time. Many plugins by other developers don’t actually show the parameters animating to their automation, but this is a great feature for making sure your signal routing is going as intended. You then would want to go back to your controller parameters (in this case, Fruity peak controller) and adjust those parameters to get the effect to render more precisely to your satisfaction.
To export the video with its associated effects and music, just hit the Export Video button and make some output format decisions.
It will usually not be immediately apparent what effect modulations to use, since this requires some experimentation. Start playing with the effects and linking them to various audio and automation parameters. Here the choice is pretty straightforward — since the image’s visual hierarchy produces a strong ‘read’ of horizontality (the hands on the handle bar), modulating the image’s width parameter to the beat works just great!
The point to emphasize here is that aesthetic judgement comes into play which is somewhat outside the plugin domain. The logic of the image will resonate with some effects much more than others, so follow those fruitful correspondences (no pun intended on FL’s fruity moniker : ) .
Making Vertical Videos for Social Media in Davinci Resolve
How to Set Up a Home Green Screen Studio for Video Production
How to Get 100 Free OpenFX Video Filters
Using Audacity for Video Glitch Effects
Double Exposure Effects in Davinci Resolve à la True Detective Opening Titles
Mirror Effects in Davinci Resolve à la Dark Opening Titles
