Imaginando have released VS 2, available for only €99.00, increasing to €129.00, with an upgrade available for €39.00, increasing to €49.00 for existing VS desktop owners. There’s no information regarding an iOS port.
What’s new in VS 2:
- User Interface – The UI has been redesigned to feel instantly familiar, taking cues from the workflows of popular media-editing software. The Layer Properties panel consolidates everything you need in one place — from MIDI and audio input to color settings, blend modes, the modulation matrix, text properties, and video triggering/loop options — making adjustments faster and more intuitive. At the bottom, you’ll find the Mixer, Player, and other control panels, while the Modulation Sources are neatly tucked into the corner, giving you a clear overview of all active elements simultaneously.
- Preset Playlist – You can now create a playlist of presets that play back in sequence, each for a defined duration. Smooth transitions are supported with fade-in and fade-out.
- Since every playlist slot is interactive and MIDI-mappable, you can also trigger presets manually, either with MIDI messages or directly with your mouse.
- This gives you effortless control to prepare a live set or a looping visual installation, with flexibility over preset transitions.
- Audio Visualizers & Oscilloscope – Shaders can now receive audio waveform and spectrum data directly, opening the door to a range of detailed visualizers. A variety of these is available in the new Visualizers category of the Material Browser, giving you instant access to new creative tools. You’ll also find the new Oscilloscope material, emulating classic hardware oscilloscopes and their peculiar approach to audio visualization.
- Live Input – Layers can now receive Syphon and Spout input, making it easy to connect VS 2 with a wide range of other media applications in real time. This opens up possibilities for mixing workflows across different tools. In addition, layers can take in live video directly from your connected camera devices, letting you capture performances, blend real-world footage into your visuals, and add reactive elements to your streams.
- Text Material – After many requests from you, we’ve added the ability to insert text into your visual creations.
- VS 2.0 introduces a brand-new Text material, which transforms your layer into a text generator. You can create a pool of texts with customizable properties such as font, size, alignment, and more.
- With just a single layer, you can cycle through multiple texts — great for live messages and lyrics. And since it works like any other material, you can modulate its parameters to bring your words to life with rhythmic movement.
- Render Output Material – You can now route your visual output back into your layers, turning simple visual elements into mad fractals and endless recursive effects.
- When paired with blend modes and precise control of layer position, scale, and rotation, this feature opens up a very unique range of possibilities, among them flowing trail effects, dynamic flickering patterns, and visuals that almost seem alive.
- Improved MIDI Mapping Manager – We’ve improved VS’s MIDI mapping capabilities, adding more flexibility and customization to your mappings. In addition to channel and message, you can now define the range of the mapping message, and the resolution, letting you use your 14-bit MIDI controllers with VS.
- With the new link feature, you can use even a small controller to manage material parameters across all layers, as the mapped parameter will control the currently selected layer. Combined with the ability to MIDI map layer selection, this makes for a powerful setup. Perfect for live performances.
- Media Manager – You can now easily see which media is being used by each layer, along with its location. With a right-click, you can open the containing folder for quick access to the file, making it very easy to manage your directories and find assets. If any media is missing, the new relink function lets you easily replace it with its updated location.
- Up to 4K Output – You can now export videos in resolutions up to 4K, giving your projects all the crisp detail they may need. Both landscape and portrait formats are supported, so preparing visuals for social media platforms or mobile displays is much easier.
Creating audio-reactive visuals has traditionally been a complex and intimidating process, often requiring deep technical knowledge and navigating software designed with steep learning curves. For many musicians and creators, this complexity becomes a barrier to exploring the visual side of performance.
VS – Visual Synthesizer offers a refreshing solution by making the creation of music-driven visuals accessible, intuitive, and creatively inspiring. Its compact yet powerful feature set is purposefully designed with a musician’s mindset, adopting familiar concepts from audio workflows to ease the transition into the visual realm.
By streamlining how MIDI and audio triggers are assigned to control visual parameters and movement, VS removes the technical friction, empowering users to focus on creativity and expression rather than setup and configuration.
All VS expansion packs are fully compatible with VS 2.
Features include:
- 8 Polyphonic visual layers with blend modes
- 4 voices per layer
- Multiple layer sources: shaders, audio visualizers, image, video, and text
- Real-time input sources: camera, Syphon / Spout, and render output feedback
- 1 background layer with a solid color or image / video
- Factory content amounting to 57 shaders, 63 presets and over 100 images and videos
- Multiple expansions with new shaders, videos, images and presets in a variety of styles
- Built-in shader editor for creating your own materials
- 4 multi-shape LFOs with sync and MIDI trigger options
- 2 MIDI-triggered envelope generators
- 4 audio-triggered modulators with peak and frequency band modes
- Modulation Matrix per layer
- Built-in video recorder
- Preset Playlist with duration and transition time settings
- Audio & MIDI player for loading your music
- Midi Mapping Manager
- Media Manager
- Up to 60 FPS, 4k output with horizontal and vertical portrait rendering
- Syphon / Spout and NDI output
VS 2 is available to PC and Mac users (VST2, VST3 and AU).
For more information on VS 2, click here:
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