When looking at audio-responsive visuals for your sets in Rekordbox, you probably have come across expensive and complex programs like After Effects or Blender. We wanted to bridge the gap between DJs and VJs with SYQEL. SYQEL offers an easier and quicker way to visualize your DJ sets.
Whether your sets are online via streaming platforms like Twitch or Youtube, or you’re doing a live set at a venue, SYQEL allows you to use already created audio responsive visuals with the press of one button. You can choose and have access to tens of thousand of pre-made visuals. We’re going to show you step by step how to send Rekordbox’s audio to SYQEL, so you can easily record or stream your sets paired with an audio visualizer.
SYQEL Overview
First and foremost, create a SYQEL account and login to get to the main page. Let’s quickly do an overview of SYQEL before we get into how to route Rekordbox’s audio. So, on the left-hand side is our visualization control menu. There are currently 2 visualizer engines: Threejs and milk drop. Threejs allows you to use visual playlists that you can create, we’ll go through those later. And milk drop will automatically cycle through tens of thousands of visuals.
You can get to your settings, hotkey menu, and user settings at the top right. Later, we’ll dive into the settings and hotkeys. As an overview, here you will be able to access the playlist creator, visual reactiveness, marquee text, and more.
Setting Up Rekordbox to Route Audio to SYQEL
Alright, before we really dive into SYQEL, let’s set up Rekordbox to send audio into SYQEL. So, here I have a set open in Rekordbox. So, let’s go to Rekordbox’s preferences under file in the top right.
In the audio section of the preferences, we need to select the correct driver/output. If you are windows, this can either be your default desktop audio like realtek audio. However we can also utilize a virtual audio cable. If you are on macos, download and install loopback. Loopback is a program that allows us to route audio from programs like Rekordbox to SYQEL.
Great, now we are ready to go back to SYQEL, and select our audio input. Click on the visual engine you want to use on the left-hand side. Then, click on the audio input selection. For users on windows, we will select our Line 1 (virtual audio cable) or desktop audio as our input. For users on macos, select Loopback Audio.
Creating Visual Playlists
Now that we know how to correctly route our audio from Rekordbox to SYQEL, let’s go over how to create visual playlists to use in the Three.js visual engine.
Click on the settings icon at the top right, you will then be greeted with SYQEL’s settings and options.
Navigate to the first option, visual playlists.
Here, we can create and edit playlists of visuals that you can choose from. Simply name your new playlist, and hit create new. Or you can select and rename playlists you have already created.
Then, hit next or go to available visuals. Here we can preview all of the audio-responsive visuals available to you. Simply hover over them with your mouse and speak into your microphone to preview how the visual responds. Then, click on any that you would like to add to your playlist.
Now we can head to selected visuals. Here we can view all of the visuals we chose. We can re-order them by clicking and dragging them, or remove any by clicking the small “x” at the top right of each one.
Now you’ve created your very first visual playlist! Now, let’s check out SYQEL’s other settings and options.
SYQEL Watermark Settings
If you are a paid user, you can add in up to 9 of your own watermarks to be displayed on the visualizer as it is going.
Here, you can simply drag and drop your images to upload them. Then, under each one, you can adjust the size and positioning. Don’t forget to save your settings at the bottom!
Great, now let’s move on to the Frequency Reactiveness Settings.
Frequency Reactiveness Settings
On the third menu, we can utilize the frequency reactiveness settings.
Here, we can set an equalizer to affect the incoming audio in SYQEL. In simpler terms, we can tell SYQEL what frequency ranges to respond to. For example, the low frequencies would be the kick and bass. The mid frequencies usually include synthesizers, instruments, and vocals. The high frequencies might include hi-hats and cymbals. So here, we can tell SYQEL which ranges to respond to.
First, we can upload an mp3 or enable our microphone to preview how the equalizer is changing the incoming audio.
Then, we have access to 8 sliders. The first two applies a bandpass filter to the audio. A bandpass filter is an effect that only allows certain frequencies to be heard. The first slider changes the frequency of the bandpass filter, while the second slider adjusts how much the filter is being applied. This is great for isolating certain parts of your audio like the kick and bass.
The next three sliders affect the overall equalizer. The first of these three affects the gain (or volume) of the low frequencies. The second of the three affect the gain of the mid frequencies, and the third affects the gain of the high frequencies.
The last three sliders affect the resonance or intensity of the three previous sliders. The first one affects the low frequencies, the second one affects the mid frequencies, and the last one affects the high frequencies.
Finally, we can name and save our settings as an audio preset at the bottom. We can also load and edit any previous presets we have created. We will be able to apply these in the visualization control menu.
Now let’s go over the Visualizer Behavior Options.
Visualizer Behavior Options
In the visualizer behavior settings, we can set the framerate of the visuals, the time a visual lasts on screen before cycling to the next one, and how long it takes to transition to the next visual. Don’t forget to save your settings at the bottom!
Now let’s head to the Marquee Text Options.
Marquee Text
Here we can write text that can be displayed while the visualizer is going. We can also choose the size of the text.
We can then choose a color for the text.
Then we can choose what position the text will be shown. As well as the font and what direction (right to left or left to right) the text will be displayed. Don’t forget to save your settings!
Now let’s go over the multicast settings.
Multicasting
If you are an Elite user of SYQEL, you have access to multicasting. Here you will see a URL shown that will stream the visualizer as it’s going to any other device with access to a browser. This is really useful if you want to display the visualizer on separate displays like TV’s or 2nd monitors.
Those are all of SYQEL’s settings and options. Now let’s go through the Hotkeys available to you!
Hotkeys
To see all of the hotkeys, click on the keyboard icon at the top right of the homepage.
There are a multitude of hotkeys available to you that affect the visualizer experience. Let’s go through them now:
1: Space — Cycle to the next visual in the playlist.
2: Backspace — Cycle to the previous visual in the playlist.
3: Enter — Lock/Unlock the current visual in place.
4: H — Hide the top toolbar.
5: L — Toggle your uploaded watermarks on/off.
6: 0–9 — Cycle between your uploaded watermarks.
7: M — Toggle your Marquee text on/off.
Starting the Visualizer
Now that we have gone through all of SYQEL’s settings and options, we can set-up our visualizer and get things started! First, let’s choose our visualizer engine. On the left-hand side we can choose Three.js or Milkdrop. Three.js allows us to select the visual playlist we created earlier, and milkdrop will cycle through tens of thousands of visuals.
Under each engine we can select our audio input that we figured out earlier. Then (in the three.js engine) we can select the playlist we created earlier. Finally we can also select any audio presets we’ve created.
Finally, we can simply hit Start Visualizer to immediately see results! As long as we have audio coming in from Rekordbox, we will immediately see the visualizer responding to the audio.
Visualizing your music from Rekordbox DJ has never been easier. You now know how to navigate SYQEL and utilize amazing audio-responsive visuals. We still have a few more tips and tricks!
Recording and Streaming SYQEL
Recording and streaming SYQEL + Rekordbox only takes a few more steps. To be able to do this, we recommend downloading and installing OBS, a screen recording software.
Within OBS, we need to make sure our audio source is the same input as the one we used in SYQEL. So, within OBS’s audio sources, select the 3 dots next to your “desktop audio” and click on properties.
Then, select the same audio source we used when routing Rekordbox’s audio to SYQEL. This should be your virtual audio cable or default desktop audio. For users on mac, this should also be your “core audio” since loopback is capturing the audio.
Great, now we need to create a new window source. You can do this in the sources window by clicking on the “+” button.
Select “window capture” and when prompted, choose the window that SYQEL is displayed on.
Now you are able to screen record SYQEL! Simply hit “start recording” or “Start Streaming” to begin!
Now you can utilize audio-responsive visuals with audio coming straight from Rekordbox!
