What the audio settings actually do
FFT size, smoothing, frequency range. Three sliders that change how a visualizer responds to sound, usually explained in signal-processing terms that do not tell you which way to drag them. Here is what each one actually changes, and what to set for music versus speech.
Where the numbers come from
A visualizer does not see your audio as a waveform. It sees a spectrum — how much energy sits at each frequency, recalculated many times a second. Bass lands at one end, treble at the other, and each bar or point on screen is one slice of that range.
The conversion from "sound" to "spectrum" is a Fourier transform, and the three settings below control how it is done and how the result is smoothed.
FFT size
How many frequency slices the spectrum is divided into — 512 up to 8192.
The trade-off is frequency detail against time detail, and it is a genuine trade-off rather than a quality setting. A large FFT examines a longer stretch of audio, so it can distinguish nearby frequencies precisely — but it reacts more slowly, because each result describes a longer window of time. A small FFT reacts instantly and tells you much less about pitch.
| Size | Feels like | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| 512 | Twitchy, punchy, coarse | Percussive music where hits matter more than pitch |
| 1024 | Responsive | Dance, electronic, anything beat-led |
| 2048 | Balanced — the default | Most music |
| 4096 | Detailed, slightly laggy | Orchestral, ambient, sustained material |
| 8192 | Very detailed, visibly behind | Rarely the right answer |
If the visualizer feels like it is reacting a beat late, the FFT size is too high. If it looks like static noise with no shape, it is too low.
Smoothing
How much each frame is averaged with the one before it — 0 to 0.99.
At 0, every frame is computed fresh, and the result flickers violently because real audio fluctuates far faster than the eye wants to track. At 0.95 the display glides, but transients are smeared into a slow swell and a kick drum stops reading as a hit.
- 0.6–0.7 — snappy. Bars visibly punch on each beat. Good for electronic and hip-hop.
- 0.8 — the default. Movement without jitter.
- 0.85–0.92 — flowing. Suits ambient, acoustic, and speech, where sharp movement looks twitchy.
Smoothing is the single most effective setting for changing how a visualizer feels without changing how it looks. If something seems frantic or lifeless, start here.
Frequency range
How much of the spectrum gets displayed, from the bottom up — 0 to 100%.
This one matters more than people expect, because of a fact about music: almost all the energy is in the lower half. The top of the spectrum is cymbals, air and sibilance, and it is quiet. Display the full range and a large part of your visualizer is near-silent most of the time — on styles without a minimum bar height, that reads as a visualizer that only works on the left.
- 50–60% — mostly bass and mids. Punchy, every bar active, but it ignores brightness entirely.
- 70% — the default. Keeps the active range, trims the dead air.
- 90–100% — the whole spectrum. Technically complete, visually lopsided.
Speech is not music. A voice occupies a narrow band — roughly 100Hz to 4kHz — with none of the bass a kick drum provides and little of the sparkle of a cymbal. For podcast clips: frequency range around 50–60%, smoothing 0.85, and a raised height multiplier, because speech is quiet and a waveform that barely moves looks like a broken player.
Settings that aren't audio settings
Two more sliders change the response and are easy to confuse with the above:
- Height multiplier — pure display scaling. It does not change what is being measured, only how tall the result is drawn. Raise it for quiet material.
- Beat reactive — an envelope follower on the lowest frequency bins that scales the whole visualizer on bass hits. It is the one setting that makes a visualizer look like it is dancing rather than metering. Subtle amounts read as intentional; large amounts read as a bouncing logo.
Starting points
| Material | FFT | Smoothing | Range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Electronic / hip-hop | 1024 | 0.7 | 60% |
| Rock / pop | 2048 | 0.8 | 70% |
| Acoustic / ambient | 4096 | 0.88 | 75% |
| Speech / podcast | 2048 | 0.85 | 55% |
Treat these as a place to start rather than a prescription — the right settings are the ones that look right against your particular track, and two minutes of dragging beats any table.
Try the settings →