Resonance
the instrument I built to see my music
Designed and built by Karel BarnoskiI turned Resonance's live mode into an app for your own music.
Play anything on your computer, or put a microphone in the room, and the Visualizer paints along in real time with the same light, motion and pacing as the films. Free for listening at home and with friends. Performers and events, get in touch.
Download for Mac
Karel built Resonance to understand his own recordings, and then to see them. It listens to a piece of music and composes a film for it.
It began as a way to look at his improvisations: the harmony, the pacing, the places a piece holds its breath. It grew into a full studio, with analysis, generated imagery, real-time light and motion, and a renderer for 4K films.
Every film on this site was made with it. So was his first installation, and every experiment in the dream lab.
1ListenResonance studies each recording before anything is drawn: its real tempo, its key, and a section-by-section reading of where the piece gathers and where it opens up.
2ComposeThe film is designed from that reading, never from the title. Light, imagery and motion follow the shape of the music instead of chasing the beat. Ever changing, never abrupt.
3PlayIt renders each piece as a 4K film for this site and YouTube, or runs live in a room, at 120 frames per second, for as long as the music lasts.
Ninety-four pieces across his albums and playlists, each its own film.
Tramokyo, October 2026
Resonance's first installation ran in a tent in the desert, offline, from one laptop and a projector. It played Karel's music for sixteen hours. When he sat down at the keyboard, it listened through the microphone and followed him live.
- 16 h
- of music, live
- 120
- frames per second
- 100
- journeys certified
- 0
- network needed
Every week an autonomous agent builds a new interactive experiment on Resonance and Karel's recordings. More than twelve hundred so far.
Visit the dream lab →