How to add visuals to REAPER

REAPER edits and renders video, and its Video processor can draw a spectrum or an oscilloscope from your audio with a little setup. For a full look that follows the song from the first bar, a visualizer plugin in the FX chain is the shorter path. This guide walks through both, from the stock presets to recording a finished clip from the Master.

The built-in route: the Video processor

The Video processor is an effect that ships with REAPER. It runs short EEL2 code on video, and it comes with presets for titles, wipes, crossfades, chroma key, and color. Two presets draw the sound itself: Synthesis: Decorative Spectrum Analyzer and Synthesis: Decorative Oscilloscope with Blitter. Each one needs JS: video sample peeker placed before it in the same FX chain, so the audio reaches the video.

Open View, Video Window to watch it. When the video is ready, File, Render with a video output format writes the whole project to one file, sound included.

It is the right tool for scoring to picture, titles over footage, or a spectrum over cover art. The cost is build time. Anything past the stock spectrum and scope means editing preset code by hand.

The plugin route: a VST3 visualizer on the Master

A visualizer plugin loads into the same FX chain, with every look already built. You pick a scene and a palette, and it reacts to the track from the first beat. You need no video items and no code.

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 architectural geometry to a live reaction-diffusion figure, each react to kicks, bass weight, and energy in real time.

Install and scan

1. Install the plugin. On a Mac, run the Photism installer. It puts the VST3 and the Audio Unit where REAPER looks. On Windows, extract the zip and copy the whole Photism.vst3 folder into C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3, with the Contents folder still inside it.
2. Scan it in REAPER. REAPER scans for new plugins when it starts. If it was open during the install, open Options, Preferences (REAPER, Settings on a Mac), choose Plug-ins, VST, and click Re-scan.
3. Put it in a folder. In the Add FX window, right-click Folders, choose Add folder, and drag Photism into it.

Load it on the Master

1. Right-click the empty space below your last track and choose Show master track, or open the Mixer.
2. Click the FX button on the Master. In the FX chain window, click Add if the Add FX window is not already open.
3. Type Photism in the filter box, pick VST3: Photism (or AU: Photism on a Mac), and click OK. The plugin window opens, and it is the visualizer. Press play and the picture moves with the song.

On the Master, Photism hears the whole mix. Put it on a single track instead and it follows only that part, a drum bus for example.

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 work too. In the plugin they take shift: shift+g for the panel, shift+r to record, shift+o for the output. If REAPER keeps the keys for itself, double-click Photism in the FX chain to float its window, right-click the title bar, and turn on Send all keyboard input to plug-in. While that window has focus, your keys go to Photism, so click the arrange view before you press the space bar. 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. Put the edit cursor at the start of the song.
3. Click r · rec in the window, or press shift+r, then press play in REAPER.
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. The take records as the song plays, so you press play instead of File, Render, and there is no audio to line 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 REAPER can automate them:

1. Click Param in Photism’s FX window, choose FX parameter list, then Show track envelope, and tick Scene. A Scene lane opens under the Master track.
2. Shift-click the lane to add a point at the start and another at the drop. Drag the drop point to the new scene.
3. Right-click each point, choose Set point shape, then Square. The scene now jumps on that beat every time you play it.

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.

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 Syphon (Mac) or Spout (Windows, beta) in that window’s top bar and pick the Photism source in OBS, Resolume, or TouchDesigner. On a Mac, allow REAPER when the first use asks for Screen Recording access. The Syphon and Spout guide covers the receiving side.

Which route to pick

Both run inside your project, so trying either costs nothing but an FX slot. 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.