An audio player with shader animations which move in time to music.

Forget fidget spinners. You can fidget with this forever! Infinitely tweakable, see if you can come up with visuals that nobody else found.

• Tunes, visuals and chill
• Project onto party walls

Named after Algernon the mouse from the sci-fi short story ‘Flowers for Algernon’ by Daniel Keyes.

Algernon works on Linux, macOS, Windows, Android, iPad and iPhone.

• Shader: Alloy (tiwrl)
• Shader: Alloy (user interface)
• Shader: Biomorph (green + ui)
• Shader: Biomorph (pink)
• Shader: Blades (green + ui)
• Shader: Blades (purple + ui)
• Shader: Cells (blue)
• Shader: Ink (red + ui)
• Shader: Ink (rhubarb + custard)
• Shader: Moire
• Shader: Orbs (user interface)
• Shader: Spectral Sphere (user interface)
• Shader: Prism (user interface)
• Shader: Rose Tunnel
• Shader: Kaleido Warp

Power usage

Algernon works your GPU to create the visuals. In terms of power think of it like playing a game.

If you just want to listen with your ears there are more efficient apps. Algernon is for when you want to invite eyes to the party!

On the left edge of the screen is the performance meter, it looks like 3 squares

• Controls: Performance meter

Tap the meter to change performance settings.

• Lower settings (lower resolutions) will save power but look pixelated
• Higher settings will look sharper but use more power
• On ‘auto’ setting, Algernon will constantly adjust resolution to keep the quality as high as your device can handle

How to Use

Add some audio files

The playlist is in the bottom-right corner, press the ‘+’ button

The button is pink at first to help you find it.

• Controls: Add tracks

Controls

Tap the screen to show/hide controls

Select animations from the top dropdown

• Controls: Shader dropdown

Sliders

It’s all about the stability slider!

Ajust sliders to change how the animation reacts to the music

Each animation will remember its settings.

• Controls: Sliders

Pay close attention to the top slider

The top slider adjusts stability (smoothness of animation) vs responsiveness (sensitivity to the music).

• Controls: Stability slider

Some sliders have an ‘auto’ icon

Tapping this icon (on the far right) disables the slider and matches that control automatically to the energy of the music. For example, if the slider affects the number of orbs on the screen, setting it to ‘auto’ means when the energy is high there will be more orbs, and when it’s low there will be fewer.

• Controls: 'Auto' slider

Memory Slots

The numbers [1] to [5] above the sliders are memory slots

Each animation has 5 memory slots to save your favourite settings. Tapping a slot activates it. When you adjust sliders, they will be saved into whichever slot is currently active.

• Controls: Memory slots

Memory slots can be copied

Long press a slot until it turns pink, then drag it over another slot. This duplicates all the settings from one slot into another.

• Controls: Copy memory slot

Building

If you want to build Algernon yourself or explore the code, see BUILDING.md.