Audio Terrain

Watch Audio Terrain live in the browser

A neon wireframe landscape scrolls towards the viewer under a black disc rimmed with light, in the style of 1980s synthwave artwork. Glowing lines trace ridges and valleys that rise into the distance, and their colours run from cyan through blue to violet.

Each new row of the landscape is a snapshot of the music. The spectrum is laid out from the middle outward: bass forms the centre, higher frequencies the outer slopes. The rows then move toward the viewer, so the terrain is a scrolling record of the last few seconds of sound, mixed with smooth Perlin noise hills.

What it reacts to

• Spectrum: sets the shape of each new row, bass in the middle and treble on the outer ridges
• Mids: raise the noise hills
• Treble: adds jagged ridges from the waveform
• Bass pulses: the black disc swells; mids and loudness brighten the halo around it
• Overall loudness: makes the lines brighter and more colourful; quiet passages turn grey

Tune

Color switches between a drifting palette and a static colour, Wave height scales the mountains, and Wave rate sets how many rows per second scroll in.

Music that suits it

Synthwave, house and other music with a strong bass line and bright highs builds tall central peaks with busy outer ridges.

How to play it

Install Deus, play music on Spotify, YouTube Music, Yandex Music or any other tab and click the Deus icon on that tab. Then pick Audio Terrain in the Canvas presets, or press ← → on the page until it comes up.