Hey all..
I know I don't post here much, but I'm constantly holed up working on projects and its easy to forget to tell you all about them from time to time.
I've promised the team I'll make more effort though, so here goes.
We've been working on a number of music based websites lately, and I wanted to create a new audio player in flash for these sites that would have a true graphic EQ. Most EQ's on the web have a simple animated EQ that does not actually follow the music but is merely there as a bit of eye candy. Why not make that eye candy functional I ask?
If you're not into the technicalities, now might be a good time to just point your browser at www.wilnomek.com to check out the player in action... otherwise, read on!
Since Flash 9 there has existed the AS3 compute spectrum method that outputs data from the audio stream into a BiteArray and then its merley a case of interpreting that data and tweaking it to fit with the front end interface.
I basically use a method of splitting the array data into 10 blocks, 5 left and 5 right and reading the upper most value to represent the peak amplitude of that particular frequency band. Then gating that data over the for upward LEDs in that band gives a realistic visual representation of the audio.
To finish I added a timer and playhead with a load progress bar, play pause button and some more eye candy with some glowing of the LEDs. This was created by storing bitmap data from the MovieClip containing the LEDs and then applying some soft processing filters, i.e. a quick blur (set to low quality) and reducing the brightness so the glow fades on playback. Then all that was needed was to draw the bitmap data back into the MC with the display mode as screen. I got quite a few interesting results experminting with visual feedback in this way but less is always more and I didn't want to push the boat out too far!
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