Customizing the Visuals

Advanced Mode

In advanced mode, AVTouchBar will allow you to customize the visuals in a few different ways. When customizing the visuals, you do not need to click “stop” and “start”. They will update automatically as you adjust the settings.

AVTouchBar Advanced Mode

FFT Value

FFT stands for Fast Fourier Transform, which is what allows us to read and process audio data. By using different FFT values, we can adjust how quickly the visuals are processed and shown, which will have varying effects on the efficiency and accuracy of the visuals.

FFT Value 4096: This will be the most efficient option and will lower the cpu usage. It will also produce more accurate visuals, but at the cost of a slower visual speed. If you are on a lower end Mac, you may want to choose this option.

FFT Value 2048: This option offers a balance between speed, accuracy of the visuals, and efficiency of the visuals. 

FFT Value 1024: This will produce the fastest visual response time. It is also much heavier on the cpu and the accuracy of the visuals will decrease. This is the “you can’t have your cake and eat it too” of audio visualization.

Frequency Range

AVTouchBar will allow you to set the starting and ending frequencies to use. The typical range a human can hear is between 20Hz and 20,000Hz, which is what the range of AVTouchBar is set to.

This could be beneficial to audio professionals wanting to look at the frequencies being used, or if the majority of songs you listen to are in a specific range you can adjust the visuals for that spectrum.

Bar Width

You can adjust the bar width to your liking between values of 2 – 6. AVTouchBar will automatically fill the remaining space with more or less bars required based on the bar width you selected. Please note, more bars you have, the heavier a load this will be on your computer. Conversely, a larger bar width with less bars will be easier on your computer.