LO 04 – Sound Art

Milkdrop is a visualizing plugin created by Google employee Ryan Geiss for Winamp, a media player for Windows systems. Milkdrop turns input audio such as songs or movies into abstract, constantly-changing psychedelic compositions. Since its release in 2001, Geiss has added extra features into the plugin, such as pixel shaders that allow for more complex and layered visualization presets.

Milkdrop takes the wavelength of an audio file playing in Winamp and analyzes it to create a visualization based on a preset, which is like a template for the program to convert the wavelength into a visual. Milkdrop uses a grid system on screen in which it calculates a pixel’s value based on a preset and interpolates the other pixels based on these values. In other words, it will calculate the values of about 32 x 24 evenly spaced points on the screen and averages the others based on the calculated values.

I was drawn to Milkdrop from how different it looked from other audio visualizers and how unlimited the potential for creating visualizations based in the program could be. I also found it interesting that Geiss’s skillset translated over to his work at Google, where he currently works on AI software for Pixel phones to help it take better photos.