An approachable Java remake and community continuation of Sonic Candle, built for creating customizable music visualizers without needing a full video editor.
Current status: Beta 1.0. The complete core workflow is ready for community testing and feedback.
Download the latest Windows installer or executable JAR from GitHub Releases.
- The Windows EXE includes its own Java runtime but requires FFmpeg/FFprobe in
PATH. - The executable JAR works across platforms with Java 17 or newer and FFmpeg/FFprobe.
Sonic Candle was useful because it did one job quickly: turn a song into a visualizer video. Sonic Candle 2.0 keeps that simple spirit. It is not trying to replace After Effects, Vegas, or a complete motion-graphics editor. It is meant to be the comfortable tool you open when you want a polished audio visualizer without following a long tutorial.
- Desktop interface built with Java Swing.
- Spanish and English interface with instant language switching.
- Modern blue and Classic dark/purple themes.
- Real-time visual preview with synchronized audio, Play/Pause, and timeline seeking.
- Audio or video input through FFmpeg. A video with embedded audio becomes both the spectrum source and background automatically.
- Embedded album artwork is treated as audio metadata, never as a background-video stream.
- Silent or audible background videos can be combined with a separately selected song without loading the video into memory.
- Background-video Cover, Contain, Stretch, Loop, and Freeze-last-frame controls.
- 720p or 1080p output at 30 or 60 FPS.
- 16 to 160 logarithmic frequency bands.
- Standard and Classic interleaved spectrum modes.
- Standard, Balanced, and Proportional frequency distribution.
- Normal, Agile, and Fast motion response without changing song speed.
- Free-overflow or softly normalized peaks.
- Invisible or dotted idle line.
- Optional dotted intro animation with configurable direction and timing.
- Rotating diagnostic logs for easier bug reports.
Classic horizontal spectrum with left/right reversal, adjustable sensitivity, idle line, peak behavior, colors, and eleven rendering styles.
One or two circular visualizers with configurable size, alignment, rotation, sensitivity, and inner content. The circle can remain transparent, use a solid color, or crop and reposition an image.
Top/bottom edge bars or joined center halves. Each half can be reversed independently, hidden, or limited to low, medium, or high reach.
Horizontal or vertical single-level visualizer with one or two bars, reversible direction, several fill and border styles, independent colors, response modes, and temporal smoothing.
P–QRS–T heartbeats sweep across the frame and disappear as new beats enter. Heart rate is the default: it behaves like a continuous monitor whose BPM rises smoothly from a resting pulse toward tachycardia as the song becomes more intense. Its optional Adapt sweep to intensity control switches the trace's actual advance among Normal, Fast, and Very fast while keeping a fixed visual scale, so existing beats move faster without accordion-like stretching; turning it off keeps Normal speed. Musical hits remains available for placing the R peak directly on detected attacks and offers manual Slow, Synchronized, and Fast sweeps. Both modes support reversible direction, sensitivity, color, and five line finishes.
A contained polygonal waveform made from configurable glowing nodes. Music-driven peaks leave deterministic temporal echoes that form luminous fans, while optional subtle or intense sparks react to energy and attacks. The wave supports 8–32 points, Angular, Smooth, and Rounded traces, adjustable echo count/spacing/opacity, glow strength, sensitivity, color, top/center/bottom placement, and vertical inversion.
| Format | Background | Transparency | Audio | Best use |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MP4 (H.264) | Color, image, or streaming video preserved | No | AAC | Ready-to-share complete videos |
| ProRes 4444 | Removed | Maximum quality | PCM | Professional editing and archival masters |
| WebM VP9 | Removed | Compressed | Opus | Lightweight transparent overlays |
| PNG sequence | Removed | Lossless per frame | No | Legacy workflows and maximum editor compatibility |
Transparent exports keep only the visualizer. In Circular mode, a configured solid or image fill is preserved; a transparent interior remains transparent.
- JDK 17 or newer.
- FFmpeg and FFprobe.
- Apache NetBeans with Maven support, Maven itself, or another Java IDE.
Sonic Candle searches for FFmpeg in this order:
- The project's
toolsdirectory. SONIC_CANDLE_FFMPEGandSONIC_CANDLE_FFPROBEenvironment variables.- The system
PATH.
On Windows, the easiest portable development setup is to place ffmpeg.exe and ffprobe.exe inside tools/.
Clone the repository and open it as a Maven project in NetBeans, or build it from a terminal:
mvn clean package
java -cp target/classes com.soniccandle.AppThe main class is com.soniccandle.App. NetBeans launch settings are included in nbactions.xml.
Detailed NetBeans instructions for producing both the executable JAR and Windows EXE are available in BUILDING.md and BUILDING_ES.md.
src/main/java/com/soniccandle/
├── analysis/ Audio decoding, FFT, spectrum response and distribution
├── ffmpeg/ FFmpeg/FFprobe discovery and process handling
├── logging/ Rotating diagnostic log
├── render/ Visualizer composition and video/PNG encoders
└── ui/ Swing interface, themes, dialogs and audiovisual preview
Dependency-free regression programs live in src/test/java. The GitHub Actions workflow compiles the project and runs the core headless suite.
Bug reports and focused feature proposals are welcome. Please include:
- Sonic Candle version and operating system.
- Java and FFmpeg versions.
- Export format and visualizer mode.
- Exact reproduction steps.
- The relevant file from
logs/, when available.
See CONTRIBUTING.md for the development workflow.
Sonic Candle 2.0 is based on and inspired by the original Sonic Candle, created by Ryan Schroeder and Chris Soderquist.
This community continuation was rebuilt in Java with a new FFT/audio-analysis pipeline, FFmpeg-based encoding, audiovisual preview, additional visualizer modes, bilingual UI, and expanded customization.
The application header preserves the historical credit as by JavCif & Candle.
Licensed under the Apache License 2.0. See NOTICE for attribution details.