How to add visuals to Mixcraft

Mixcraft is Acoustica’s Windows DAW, and version 10 hosts VST and VST3 plugins on any track or on the Master Track. It also has a Video track, built for laying music under footage or a slideshow you bring in. For picture drawn from the mix, load a visualizer plugin on the Master Track and record a clip straight from its window. This guide covers both, plus the blend trick for putting the visuals over your own footage.

The built-in route: the Video track

Click +Track at the top of the track list and choose Video to add a Video track. It takes AVI, WMV, and MP4 files plus still images, and the track header button shows or hides the floating video preview window. The track’s automation lanes carry simple picture effects such as Lightness, Blur, and Grayscale. File > Mix Down To > MP4 renders your mix with that picture. A project holds one Video track, and every frame on it comes from a file you add.

The plugin route: a VST3 visualizer on the Master Track

A visualizer plugin loads into an effect slot like any EQ or compressor, with every look already built. You pick a scene and a palette, and it reacts to the track from the first beat.

This is the route Photism takes. It is a VST3 and Audio Unit effect that passes your audio through untouched, and the plugin window is the visualizer. Twenty-four scenes, from marbled ink to a Chladni sand plate to streams of neon light, each react to kicks, bass weight, and energy in real time. Mixcraft loads the VST3.

Install and scan

1. Install the plugin. Right-click the zip, choose Extract All, and close Mixcraft. Copy the whole Photism.vst3 folder into C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3, with the Contents folder still inside it.
2. Check the folder list. Open File > Preferences (or press Ctrl+Alt+P), go to Plug-Ins, and click Edit VST/VSTi Folders. If the VST3 folder above is missing from the list, add it and click OK.
3. Scan. Click Re-Scan All VST Plug-Ins, or restart Mixcraft. It checks its folders each time it opens, so a plugin installed while it was closed shows up on the next launch. Keep Load VST Effects and Instruments ticked on the same page.

If Photism still does not appear, open File > Plug-In Management and look in the Unable to Load group. Select Photism there and click Attempt to Load, then restart Mixcraft.

Load it on the Master Track

1. Click the Master button above the track list so the Master Track shows at the top.
2. Click the Master Track’s fx button. The Effect List window opens.
3. Click Select An Effect and pick Photism.
4. Click Show to the right of the effect name. The plugin window opens, and it is the visualizer. Press play and the picture starts moving with the song.

To skip the Show step every time, tick Show Editor Window When Adding New Plug-In in File > Preferences > Plug-Ins. The fx button next to the Master output slider and the one on the Main Mix channel in the Mixer open the same Effect List.

On the Master Track, Photism hears the whole mix. Click the fx button on a single track or a submix instead and it follows only that part, a drum submix for example, so the kick drives every change.

Pick a look

Every control has a button in the row along the corner of the window, so you can drive the whole thing with the mouse:

• tab · scenes opens the scene grid. Click any scene to jump to it.
• p · opens the palette card. Every color set is on one card.
• x · shuffle picks a fresh scene and palette in one click.
• g · tune opens the tuning panel, with the macros, the lens, and your saved presets.

The keyboard shortcuts take shift in the plugin: shift+tab cycles scenes, shift+g opens the panel, shift+r records, shift+o opens the output. If Mixcraft takes a key first, the buttons do the same job. Drop an album cover onto the window and Photism builds a five-color palette from it, so the visuals match the release.

Record the video

1. Choose the frame with the a · button: 16:9 for YouTube, 9:16 for Reels and TikTok, 1:1 for a square post.
2. Move the playhead to the start of the song.
3. Click r · rec in the window, or press shift+r, then press play in Mixcraft.
4. When the song ends, click the record button again. The button steps through finishing, adding sound, and saving, then names the folder.

The MP4 saves to your Downloads folder with the song already in it, taken from the track Photism sits on. You skip the mixdown and the step of lining the song up in an editor. Clips record at each platform’s upload size, and the recording settings in the tuning panel go up to 4K.

Keep the plugin window open until the button says saved. Covering it with other windows is fine, and closing it ends the take.

Change scenes on the drop

Photism’s scene, palette, mode, preset slot, and main controls are ordinary plugin parameters, so Mixcraft can automate them:

1. Click the Track Automation button on the Master Track to show its automation lane.
2. Click the lane’s parameter menu, which reads Track Volume at first. Point to Photism and choose Scene.
3. Click the line just before the drop and again on the drop, then drag the second point to the scene you want. With the two points close together, the scene cuts over on that beat every playback.

The same works for Palette at the bridge, Spin or Mirror as a slow build, or Preset Slot to swap the entire look on a section.

Putting the visuals over your footage

Mixcraft holds one Video track, so layering happens in a video editor. Photism’s scenes are bright shapes on a dark field, which is what the Screen blend mode is made for:

1. Record a take from Photism as above, at the same frame as your footage.
2. In your editor, put the footage on the bottom track and the Photism take on the track above it.
3. Set the Photism clip’s blend mode to Screen. In DaVinci Resolve it is Composite Mode in the Inspector. In Premiere Pro it is Blend Mode under Opacity in Effect Controls.

The dark parts of the frame drop out and the light glows over the footage. Every palette has a background slot, and one near black keeps the shadows of your footage deep. Scenes made of light on a dark field, such as spacetime and wisp, sit best on top. Solid forms like idol come through as glowing light rather than a solid object.

Getting it on a second screen

Click o · output, or press shift+o, to open a separate output window. Drag it to your second display or projector and make it fullscreen. It shows the visuals alone, with no buttons. To stream it, turn on Spout (beta) in that window’s top bar and pick the Photism source in OBS, Resolume, or TouchDesigner. Spout needs Windows 10 version 1903 or later, or Windows 11. The Syphon and Spout guide covers the receiving side.

Which route to pick

Both run inside your project, so trying either costs an effect slot at most. You can feel Photism’s engine before installing anything at photism.app/online, which runs three scenes free in your browser from a dropped track or your mic.