snd2img

You want to publish a music to YouTube, but you don't have a video clip? snd2img is a simple and free application that creates a "dummy" video from any audio or music file.

Here's an example:

To most people, this is just something that looks like a colorful, animated loudspeaker membrane (sort of...). However, looking carefully, you'll notice that:

• Beats (percussions) result in flashes;
• Concentric circles correspond to notes of the octave: the higher the note, the farther from the center;
• Colors correspond to coarse frequency: red for bass, green for medium, blue for treble;
• Relative brightness corresponds to relative loudness;
• Snow-like dots correspond to atonal (noise) components like cymbal crashes, fricatives, wind, etc.

Compared to most other "audio visualizer" tools, snd2img creates the video entirely and purely based on the audio content. It does not use existing images or videos.

Screenshot

Downloads

Version 0.9.3 (beta):

• snd2img-0.9.3.msi snd2img installer for Windows (64-bit)
• snd2img-0.9.3.7z snd2img Java executable (jar) for Linux. This version requires:
  • A Java Runtime Environment, version 17 or greater. To install (Debian-based systems): sudo apt install openjdk-17-jre
  • The FFmpeg tool. To install (Debian-based systems): sudo apt install ffmpeg
  To launch the application (Linux): java -jar snd2img.jar. It can also be used as a command-line. Type java -jar snd2img.jar -h for more.

Warning

This is a beta version. Most parameters (quality, encodings, fps ...) are hard-coded. The created video (.mkv format) is accepted by YouTube and can be played by most of the recent video players.

License

snd2img is Freeware:

• The source code is proprietary and hence not available;
• The application is free of charge;
• The binary is licensed under the CC BY-ND license;
• Except for the bundled 'ffmpeg.exe' (Windows version), which is LGPL.

Science

Behind the scene, snd2img uses:

• A DC-remover and an Auto Gain Control to preprocess the audio;
• A processor similar to the STN Equalizer (from the Pitchtech plugin collection) to separate Sines, Transients and Noise components from the audio;
• An FFT to analyze the notes and frequencies;
• Java ImageIO to generate individual video frames;
• FFmpeg to create a video from the frames and the original audio file.

About

I did this tool for my own purpose and I'm sharing it. I'm not sure it is useful for anybody. If you like it or use it, tell me at . If there is sufficient interest, I may release an update with one or more of:

• Settings for video FPS, format, quality, etc.
• Support for sampling rate other than 44.1 and 48 kHz.
• A Mac and / or 32-bit versions.
• Settings for the rendered features: beats, notes, noise, etc.
• Better noise (atonal) separation.
• Stereo option (that renders two sets of concentric circles).

PitchTech Home Page