Create a Sound Reacting 3D Waveform Animation without 3rd Party Plugins

Tutorial Details
  • Program: After Effects
  • Difficulty: Intermediate
  • Run Time: 42:43 min

Final Product What You'll Be Creating

Satya has done it again. He’s managed to re-wire and re-invent tools that we’ve had for a long time to create what would normally only be possible with third party plugins. For all of you that ask for tutorials that only use built-in plugins, this one is for you. Satya has even created a free preset so you don’t have to re-create the effect from scratch every time.

Satya also wrote an article on his blog comparing the techniques explained in this tutorial to Trapcode Soundkeys.


View Tutorial

RSS readers: click post title to view preview video at Aetuts+.

Instructions: Click ‘View Full-screen’ button (bottom right corner) to see this HD tutorial at maximum size. Click screen to pause, click again to play.

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

Download

Tutorial

Download

Spectrum Analysis CS4 Preset

Download

Spectrum Analysis CS3 Preset

Add Comment

Discussion 97 Comments

Comment Page 1 of 21 2
  1. hzsolt12 says:

    first:D
    It’s great!

  2. Bonus says:

    niceeee, keep going Satya.

  3. sjoerd says:

    Jep well done m8!!

  4. NINJTSO says:

    nice work really like it

  5. Richard says:

    looks damn nice!

  6. Aido says:

    smart cookie! well done mate!

  7. lzx917 says:

    like as form the plug !it is great

  8. Satya Meka says:
    Author

    I just did a small comparision with Trapcode Soundkeys so that you can understand the scalability of this method. Visit http://www.gutsblow.com/archive/5/audio-analysis-after-effects

  9. David Wood says:

    Very cool my friend, very cool.

  10. aditya says:

    keka ra all the best for your future projects keep going

  11. Ravi chandra says:

    Great Job

  12. mehmet akif says:

    very nice

  13. Steven_LS5 says:

    Really cool! Thanks a lot.

    Wich Track did you used for this tutorial ? Sounds pretty experimental…

  14. Tom says:

    sorry, but I have a problem! I´m useing After Effects CS3 – and if I drag the preset – AE say´s I should by a newer Version…
    Does it only work with CS4 ?

  15. Aaron says:

    Awesome tut, and thank you for the update to the preset. Definitely will use it :)

  16. Brandon says:

    the CS3 Spectrum Analyser link is broken, please fix!

  17. liam says:

    you’ve got a bright future!!

  18. Hi,
    Great Efforts Satya Meka i like that.
    thank you for this

  19. asif_rocx says:

    link for sound plz,
    & thanks a lot for tuts leave 100 years

  20. Nightfirecat says:

    Awesome tutorial, and great effect!

  21. Bie says:

    ONCE AGAIN!!! BEAUTIFUL WORK!!!

  22. Jim Hines says:

    Thank you so much for sharing this.

  23. Scott says:

    You can do this stuff with quarts composer, has anyone thought about a tutorial on that to do that?

  24. pablo says:

    Well done !!!!!
    I like your job.
    Thanks for sharing.
    Cheers from Uruguay.

  25. Davis says:

    Great tut…great site!!!…congratulations Satya…this have a huge potential…i `m so impress!!!

  26. rob says:

    Awesome work man. I would love to see more stuff from you.

  27. Diego SA says:

    It remembers me a lot of things!
    It rocks!

  28. Mike says:

    Amazing work Satya!!

  29. af says:

    sweet tutorial but you need to learn some short cut keys so you don’t have to click 4 million times

  30. Fybo says:

    can some one tell me the name of the sound sample pack that are use………..pls

  31. popo says:

    What expression did you use at final range values in null objects?

  32. Alex says:

    AMON TOBIN IS THE KING !!!!!!!!!!!!! Nice tut!!!

  33. Kiwi says:

    converting the spectrum thingy to key frames doesnt seem to work for me

    • Satya Meka says:
      Author

      Make sure you did everything right. You have to apply the preset to a null object and in the layer selector you should select the spectrum layer but not the audio layer. Also the spectrum should not be composited on the background nor pre-composed. Also, you might wanna adjust the amplitude and bands in the spectrum layer to get decent values. Let me know if you have further problems.

  34. jason says:

    does the spectrum analysis support windows?? mine doesnt work… it should mention that if it doesnt. silly.

  35. Awesome tutorial, and great effect! I like your all the work which posted in your site. And this one was special for me. Keep up the good work.

  36. Ash says:

    brilliant tutorial thank you very much

  37. hetal says:

    hi, nice tutorial. tried it but it gives the msg: function sampleImage is undefined Expression disabled. can u help out. i use ae 7. i need this effect for a music video.

  38. Jeevan says:

    Great tutorial, love the fact that it doesn’t include expensive third-party plug-ins that much. Wish to see a non-HD/lo-res version of the video tutorial for slower connections.

  39. stspro says:

    Very nice tuts but what is this the expression u used in the final range value slider

  40. Adam Everett says:

    Satya, I hadn’t ever gotten around to watching this one until now. Dude, you blew me away! This was truly well thought out and insightful! Awesome! I think I’m going to use your technique to generate a different effect if that’s cool with you. Very Well done!

  41. Laiho says:

    Geez……awesome stuff yo!!!!

  42. Laiho says:

    Hey can you please get the spectrum analysis preset for AE 7 as well!!!!!! plz plz plz plz …. :(!!!!!

  43. Csquared says:

    Is there a OSX version of the preset? Most helpful

  44. julie says:

    I cant get the spectrum analyzer! Im using cs4, downloaded the extra animation presets on adobe, but they wont open into after effects, says ‘unsuported filetype or extention’.

  45. alex says:

    wicked thanks, i love this type of stuff, because i make music, i always wants cheap easy ways to make exciting and new videos

    thanks

  46. daff says:

    how can you make song for this effects? witch program do you use?

  47. kiki says:

    Hi there,
    I use a French version of AE CS4 so the preset doesn’t work because it needs translation for “Layer”. How can I edit the preset and translate the word?
    thanks a lot

Comment Page 1 of 21 2

Add a Comment

To add a code snippet to your comment, please wrap your code like so: <pre name="code" class="html">YOUR CODE</pre>. You can replace the class name with "js," "css," "sql," or "php." If there are any "<" or ">" within your code, please search and replace them with: &lt; and &gt; respectively.