Explore the sound.
Shape the spectacle.

01 / Why it exists

A demo you can perform.

MLT Visual Lab translates the energy of the demoscene into a live composition interface. Its purpose is to explore procedural graphics, expose the relationship between sound and motion, and make audiovisual performances directly in a browser. It can be a music visualizer, a creative playground, a stage backdrop, a procedural-effects study or a real-time video generator.

This edition is an interactive compositor, not a fixed 256-scene film. You choose the scene. The visual families can be switched independently, parameter values can be changed live, and selected controls can evolve automatically on musical beat intervals. A saved state or a launch URL can bring you back to a chosen setup.

02 / First performance

From launch to recording.

1. Launch the demo. Keep presentation.html and index.html in the same folder. Procedural content and generated music need no external assets. A browser may require one interaction before audible playback.
2. Compose the scene. Pick a background, a 2D layer and a 3D volume. Use the enable boxes to include only the families you want; add a material, an animation and a screen treatment.
3. Shape it. Expand a family’s settings. Adjust the four knobs, reassign their parameter dropdowns, choose a preset, or open all physical controls.
4. Choose sound. Use the generated drum & bass, load a track, enter an audio URL, select a module, or enable microphone analysis with permission.
5. Follow the beat. Use automatic BPM or a manual value. Select target families and knob lanes, enable Beat Randomization and choose an interval and scope.
6. Save or capture. Export a visual state, copy a launch link, or open Video Capture and start a real-time recording.

The left menu disappears after ten idle seconds in automatic mode. Move the pointer, use the menu button or press M to bring it back. Audio and visual pause controls are independent.

03 / The visual instrument

Build a scene in layers.

The procedural renderer combines separate passes. Backgrounds define the environment; foreground layers add symbols, effects or measurements; procedural 3D volumes use depth, lighting and object-space material coordinates. Transitions accompany changes on their supported procedural paths. Screen treatments add a final visual character.

Special modes worth exploring

• Webcam View: live video with Off, Bright Regions, Dark Regions and Motion blob tracking; exposure, tint, threshold, minimum area, trail, outline, mirror and tracking controls. Camera permission is required.
• Spectral Feedback: GPU history with persistence, warp, waveform gain, color phase, feedback zoom/spin, symmetry, trace width and hue drift. Inspired by feedback visualizers; it is not a MilkDrop preset interpreter.
• Mandelbulb Viewer: spherical-power fractal controls, camera azimuth/elevation/distance, palette, precision and Julia blend plus X/Y/Z.
• ASCII Video Mode: sixteen character sets: Standard, Blocks, Dots, Binary, Donut, Photo, Bars, Shade, Braille, Stars, Circles, Hex, Wire, Digits, Letters and Dense.
• Audio displays: a real stereo Phase Meter, triggered Audio Scope and 24-band Spectrum View; Pattern Follow displays the loaded module’s score and playback row.
• Omega Race: an embedded vector-style arcade scene with automatic demonstration when windowed and keyboard play when fullscreen. W / ↑ thrust; A / ← and D / → turn; Space fire; Ctrl or Left Shift shield. Includes score, waves and lives.

04 / Complete effect & control catalog

All 128 choices. Every physical control.

Each family contains sixteen named choices, addressed by hexadecimal IDs 0–F. The catalog below lists all 786 physical control names. Most effects have six: four effect-specific controls plus Time Rate and Audio Gain. Spectral Feedback, Webcam View and Mandelbulb Viewer each have twelve. Four controls at a time can be assigned to the visible knobs.

128 choices across 8 families

05 / Ergonomics

Compact controls. Deep access.

Sixteen preset profiles per effect

Default, Subtle, Wide, Dense, Slow, Fast, Soft, Hard, Dark, Bright, Warm, Cold, Audio Lift, Deep Motion, Controlled and Extreme. Manual edits are represented as Custom.

Keep the screen for the visuals

The English left-hand settings panel is responsive and scrollable. It has labelled controls, visible keyboard focus, slider roles and status announcements. Its automatic mode hides it after ten idle seconds, including when the last control still has focus. Pointer activity, interaction, M or the menu button restores it. M does not interrupt text editing or dropdown use; Escape hides the menu unless it is forced visible. Launch options can keep it shown, keep it hidden, or change/disable the idle delay.

Fullscreen, independent visual pause, High/Medium/Low quality, UI frame limits of 24/30/60/120 FPS and Copy Launch Link are available in Performance & Display. Hidden tabs suspend visual rendering unless recording is active. Loading uses a progress display; on-demand shader preparation temporarily shows “MLT is heating up...” and retains the last valid frame.

06 / Audio sources & signal processing

Music is the control signal.

Choose generated music, an ordinary audio file, a CORS-enabled audio URL, microphone analysis or a tracker/MIDI module. The audio analysis tap sits before audible output gain: muting the speakers does not silence the analysis or the recording feed. Microphone input is never monitored through the speakers.

Analysis specification

These measurements drive visuals; they are not calibrated studio meters or a mastering chain. This standalone interface does not provide an equalizer, limiter, convolution rack, sample editor, audio conversion or standalone audio-file export.

07 / Tracker & MIDI playback

The score becomes the scenery.

The embedded Rexporter JavaScript preview player reads XM, IT, S3M, MOD and MID/MIDI. It parses score events and samples, mixes stereo PCM in JavaScript and feeds a 2048-frame ScriptProcessorNode into the shared audio path. It does not require a remote playback service or an external sound bank.

Load Module, Play, Pause and Stop controls expose the source’s status. Pattern Follow reads the actual playback position; MIDI is converted into a quantized sixteen-channel row display. Generated and module/MIDI tempos are supplied directly to musical automation, including tempo changes.

MIDI playback handles notes, velocity, pitch bend, volume, expression, pan, all-notes-off and tempo events with a simple harmonic synthesizer. It does not reproduce General MIDI program-change instruments through a sound bank.

08 / Tempo & beat automation

Make changes at musical moments.

Automatic BPM uses exact source tempo for generated music and tracker/MIDI playback. Ordinary tracks and microphone signals are estimated from rhythmic content. A manual value from 55 to 240 BPM, including decimals, can replace automatic detection.

09 / Your media, your setup

Import, position, restore, share.

Nine screen positions

Input and geometry guards

These are application guards, not complete browser-memory guarantees. Decoded media, GPU resources and browser buffering use additional memory.

10 / Video export

Capture the performance, not the panel.

Open Video Capture, select settings and click Start Recording. Stop and save, or wait for the auto-stop time. The output contains the final canvas and analyzed audio, including current transitions and beat-scheduled changes. Launch arguments configure recording defaults but never start recording by themselves.

In-memory capture stops near 240 MiB with a nominal 16 MiB reserve. Direct-to-disk capture writes chunks sequentially; its queue pauses at 32 MiB pending, resumes at 8 MiB and stops preventively at 64 MiB. Received chunks are retained rather than silently discarded. Browser chunk sizes are not guaranteed, so these are practical guards, not absolute memory ceilings.

Encoding is real time. Actual frame delivery depends on hardware, browser, codecs and the selected effects. Remote media needs suitable CORS access. Temporary capture tracks, audio taps and resolution changes are released/restored afterward; starting a new capture releases the previous recording’s resources.

11 / Startup & PowerShell-style help

Launch a repeatable setup.

The demo accepts URL query parameters and hash-based command arguments. On Windows, launch-mlt.ps1 also accepts actual local source, state and asset paths, then serves only the page and explicitly selected files on loopback. It uses built-in PowerShell/.NET; Node.js or a separately installed web server is not required.

index.html?bg=hyper-starfield&vol=metablob-morph&ani=orbit&ui=auto
index.html#--bg vaporwave-road --vol mlt-3d-letters --mat fresnel-chrome
index.html?help

.\launch-mlt.ps1 --audio "D:\Music\track.flac" --play --bpm auto --beat-random --beat-every 16 --beat-targets bg,vol --beat-params "bg=1,3;vol=2,4"
.\launch-mlt.ps1 --module "D:\Modules\song.xm" --bg pattern-follow --lay spectrum-view --only bg,lay
.\launch-mlt.ps1 --state ".\show.json" --asset-3d ".\logo.obj" --position-3d center-right
.\launch-mlt.ps1 --help

The launcher supports byte ranges for streaming and has no directory browsing. Keep its PowerShell window open; Ctrl+C stops it. --port changes its loopback port. Relative URL-based startup assets normally need HTTP; selecting files in the interface also works. The launch button on this page uses the relative URL index.html.

Help commands

help, catalog bg, params bg C, positions, config / args, clear and exit. run, start or launch validates options and reloads the same page with them. It cannot execute Windows commands.

Complete startup option reference

Effect selections accept hexadecimal 0–F, a stable name slug or off. Families: bg, lay, lt, vol, vt, mat, ani, scr. Knob lanes are human-numbered 1–4. Values can use bytes or percentages where documented.

Precedence and repeatability

Query arguments are read first; hash arguments override repeated scalar values. State is imported first; seeded random selection precedes explicit effect choices. Explicit presets, bindings, knobs and physical parameter values apply afterward; physical --params wins over knob values. Explicit asset URLs replace imported assets. --only wins over enable/disable. The final repeated scalar value wins. Unspecified imported settings are preserved.

Use --random for one-time startup effect selection. Use --beat-random for repeated musical scheduling. In --beat-params, bg=none or JSON {"bg":[]} clears a category’s lanes; repeated specifications update categories, with the last entry per category winning. Quote semicolon-containing values in PowerShell. URLs may enter browser history and logs: never put secrets in launch arguments.

12 / Rendering, requirements & practical limits

Small package. Adaptive workload.

Local by design

Picker-loaded files are processed in the browser; the demo does not upload them to a playback or rendering service. This presentation embeds its screenshots, CSS and script. Neither page requires externally hosted fonts or imagery. Network requests occur when you choose remote source URLs or open external references.

Stability update · 16 October 2026

This maintenance edition incorporates the current Maxxlorr Tracker Visual Lab safeguards around graphics-context setup, shader preloading and renderer teardown. It also preserves the upstream explanatory source comments. The runtime feature set is unchanged: the existing visual catalog, standalone audio sources, controls, musical automation and recording options remain available.

Distribution checklist

Ship presentation.html and index.html together with the GNU GPL version 3 license text and the matching complete corresponding source package. The readable index.src.html is provided for inspection and modification. Keep copyright, license and no-warranty notices intact, and identify any later modifications with their relevant dates. When redistributing the minified application, make its matching editable sources and build instructions available under the GPL. Include any explicitly referenced assets/state files separately; JSON state can embed visual assets but not source audio. The optional Windows launcher requires its matching launcher files and served demo filename; it is not required to open index.html directly.

13 / Author, credits & references

Maxime LORRAI / MLT.

Created and programmed by Maxime LORRAI (aka KurtZ/lapiNIC), for MLT. The standalone Visual Lab is adapted from Maxxlorr Tracker’s Visual Lab engine and integrates the Rexporter JavaScript preview player. The procedural audio buffers and screenshots shown here are produced by this standalone edition.

Imported music, modules, videos, meshes and other user assets remain the property of their respective creators. Obtain the necessary rights before redistributing them or publishing recorded performances. Referenced projects are acknowledged for documentation or inspiration; no endorsement is implied. Product names belong to their respective owners.