Audio Input
Select an audio device and drive audio-reactive effects
Audio Input
Open from Edit > Inputs > Audio. The dialog is non-modal and stays open while you keep working. It controls whether Spectralite captures audio, which device it captures from, and shows whether capture is active.
Controls
Audio input enabled: turns audio capture on and off. Until this is on, audio-reactive nodes and the Audio Spectrum panel receive nothing.
Audio Device: dropdown of detected input devices. Pick Default to use the system default, or a named device to force a specific source. The list only appears when audio input is enabled.
If no devices are listed while audio is enabled, the OS is not exposing any input device to Spectralite. Check system permissions (Settings > Privacy > Microphone on macOS; Sound settings on Windows).
Status
When audio is capturing, the dialog shows an active indicator. If the dialog reports an error, the OS refused or dropped the stream. Reopening the dialog after fixing the OS-level permission usually recovers.
How the audio is used
Captured audio is analyzed every frame and shared across the app:
- The Audio Spectrum panel draws it as a live frequency display.
- Audio-reactive input nodes (Audio Level, Audio Bands, Audio Spectrum, Audio Peak, Audio Waveform, and their Decay variants) sample the same data for use in effects.
The Decay variants of each node hold peaks and fall off smoothly, which reads better on lighting than the raw signal.
Related
- Audio Spectrum Panel
- Input Nodes: audio-reactive nodes live here.
- Sending Audio to Lights