Hi guys,
I'm researching regarding reactive visuals. My ultimate goal is to be able to perform music and have visuals that change according to the music, without the need of a human controlling them. I'm still early on the development of the idea, and one of the first things i'd like to come up with is a list of *meaningful* musical gestures/parameters that could drive the visuals.

I still don't want to get into the details of implementation, but given that ableton live is my musical tool, the ideas will be somewhat tied to its way of working.

So far I have the following:

Sequencer
This category comprises the main aspects of working live with the sequencer:

tempo change
volume change
pan change
fx change
clip start/stop
scene start/stop

All transmited from the audio computer to the video computer via MIDI/OSC.

Audio analysis
This category comprises data that can be obtained from analysing the audio data:

spectrum change
dynamics change


For both categories, visuals could react in an immediate fashion (such as drawing something on screen on every beat detected) or due to changes over time (such as a filter going up or down).

I think this list gives me quite an interesting point of departure for developing more the idea, what do you think? Any other parameters that would be really interesting to drive the music?

THANKS GUYS a lot, any input will help this research!

On the midi side I would recommend:

reacting to

-  midi channel
-  note pitch
-  note length (if you want ?)
-  note velocity
-  note position within a bar (e.g. if you're considering the played back music is in 4/4: defining time slots which should be more emphasized visually depending on any "intelligent" rules, e.g. where the kicks are...)
-  midi-cc commands (e.g. 7 for volume, 10 for pan...)
-  midi lyrics or marker events, so a fitting text effect is used on the screen, so you should try to add interesting lyrics or markers into your midi file

I think that should be enough and I suppose there's not anything more available?!