Make One Epic Video With Multiple Visualizers
Hello everyone, today I’m gonna show you a few tips and tricks when creating music visualizers and how you can combine them into one epic video. If you're more of a visual learner check out the video below for a step-by-step video tutorial, otherwise, I hope you enjoy the read!
Anatomy of a Combo Visualizers
Videobolt visualizers can be as simple as putting an audio file into one of the templates. Or you can stack them together like a Russian doll so you get stuff like this:
Let's take a closer look at the video above. It’s actually three visualizers all layered into one and reacting to the same song.
Assembling a Combo Visualizer
All my visualizers will be reacting to the song High Octane by bensound.com, a website with royalty free music. The process is relatively simple, I start with a Thunder Beat 2 visualizer, then use that as a background for Circular Lightning and then put that as background for Skull Banger.
Making a Base Layer Visualizer
I'll start with the base layer visualizer - Thunder Beat 2 - which will provide a thundering background for the visualizers I layer on top.
The set up for Thunder Beat 2 is easiest:
- Click "Edit" to open Thunder Beat 2 in the editor.
- Click the music placeholder to upload the song.
- Disable the logo placeholder so it doesn’t crowd the screen when used as a background - click the Eye icon on the logo placeholder.
- Click Produce Video to render the preview - when done - click Remove Watermark to render the full video.
The rendering process happens in the cloud so I can just head back to the homepage to begin preparing the next layer, Circular Lightning.
Making the Second Layer - The First Combo
Circular Lightning is the next layer of my combo visualizer, and I will be using the video I made in the previous step as the background.
There's a few more steps this time, but don't fret:
- Open up Circular Lightning in the editor.
- No need to upload the song again, it’s been saved automatically in the Media Library, so just select it from there.
- Disable both text fields so they don’t double up in the final layered visualizer.
- Change the reactive circle color by going to Customization then adjust the “Electricity Color” option. I used gold (HEX: FFD700).
- Toggle on “Desaturate Background”, if it isn't by default.
- Set “Background Opacity” to 100% and “Background Blur” to 5%.
- Replace the background - click the background placeholder, choose My Videos and select the base layer visualizer (Thunder Beat 2 in this case).
- Render preview and remove watermark when the preview is complete.
NOTE: Opacity controls how transparent the background is, lower percentages mean it’s more transparent, in other words - less visible, which is why I want opacity set to 100% so the background visualizer shows up fully opaque. 5% blur will be just enough to help the foreground elements stand out more.
Making the Final Combo Visualizer
Hang in there, we're almost done! Just have to set up our foreground visualizer - Skull Banger - and place the visualizer we just finished making as it’s background.
Let's break it down:
- Open up Skull Banger in the editor.
- Fill the text fields with the song info.
- Go to Customization, set the "Particles Color" option to the same color as Circular Lightning (I used gold, so I put gold here as well).
- Change the beat frequency to make sure the visualizer reacts properly. For Skull Banger, the default is set to a range between 5 and 600 hertz. This wouldn’t work well with my song, so I’ll set it to the same frequency range the other visualizers are using, which is 100-200hz.
- Change “Background Tint” option to 0%, so there is no tint over the background visualizers. The blur is alright left at it's default value of 11%.
- Replace the background - click the background placeholder button, choose My Videos, and select the second layer visualizer (Circular Lightning in this case).
- Render preview and remove watermark when the preview is complete.
NOTE: The beat frequency setting affects which frequency range the visualizer will monitor and register as beats. Somewhere in the 20-200hz range is usually where the bass is found. I won’t get into the frequencies too much right now, but I’ll make a post in the future with a deep dive into choosing the proper frequencies for your visualizers.
Congrats! You Just Made a Combo Visualizer
All done! That’s all it takes to make a visualizer inside a visualizer inside a visualizer.
BONUS TIP: Any music visualizer template with a replaceable background could be used to make combo visualizers. In order to find all templates with a replaceable background, just search Videobolt for “video background” and you’ll see them all listed.
Hope you enjoyed the read, I personally can't wait to see you get creative with the technique I just showed you. Feel free shout out @videoboltnet if you share any videos on Twitter (or promote your YouTube vids).
Don't forget to follow this blog for further tips, tricks and other Videobolt news. Have a great day, see you soon!