VJ Software: Create Live Visuals from Your Own Artwork

You have an image you want to perform with: a painting, a photograph, a collage or artwork for a song. The next step is to make it change with the music, adjust it while the music plays, and send the picture to a screen without showing your controls.

That is one reason to look for VJ software. Another is to trigger and mix a library of video clips. A third is to choose reactive scenes and let them evolve. These tasks overlap, but the starting point matters more than the longest feature list.

Choose Artfkt for an editable artwork you want to shape and play. Consider Resolume for clip-based performance and show control, or Synesthesia for scene-based audio-reactive visuals. Both competitors also support your own media; that ability alone does not distinguish Artfkt.

Disclosure: we make Artfkt. The video below is a real Artfkt recording. Competitor coverage comes from official documentation checked on 6 November 2026, rather than a hands-on speed or usability comparison.

Choose around what you need to do live

Resolume’s product overview describes clip mixing, MIDI/OSC and its output integrations. Its parameter-animation manual explains audio FFT and BPM-driven controls. Synesthesia’s features, preset manual and edition comparison cover reactive scenes, media, FavSlots, playlists and routing.

For Artfkt, the purchase reason is keeping an editable composition: your image, text, layers, effects and sound assignments together. You can prepare the visual idea before playing it live, then return to the project to change it. This is a useful fit for an artwork-led jam, a visual experiment or a stream backdrop you control by hand. It is a narrower job than running a multi-projector show or launching a night’s worth of clips.

What an artwork can become

This example starts with a single image. Bass changes its scale; kick drives Bulge/Pinch; lead changes hue; percussion accents Soft Glow. The music was played in Strudel and routed through a BlackHole 16ch virtual device so those four parts could control different properties. The video is a compressed copy of the live recording, rather than a soundtrack added to a silent export.

You do not need that routing setup to begin. Start with the complete computer mix and one visible response. Separate instrument inputs are an optional, more involved setup: a frequency band in a mixed song does not isolate an instrument.

Start with one image and one response in Artfkt

This starting route uses Artfkt desktop on an Apple Silicon Mac with macOS 14.2 or later for Computer audio. Device input is available on supported Macs with macOS 13 or later. Windows downloads are available, but this example does not establish live-audio behavior on Windows hardware; check requirements and your actual setup.

1. Bring in the picture

Drop an image you have permission to use onto the canvas. Select its layer. Start with a composition whose subject remains readable when it grows or bends; leave space around details you want to preserve.

For a landscape screen, choose Document → Canvas preset → YouTube Stream for a 1920 × 1080 canvas. Check the framing instead of assuming a square cover will fit. Add text as a separate layer if you want a name to remain still while the image moves.

2. Connect the music and check the meter

Play music in your usual app through your normal speakers or headphones. In Artfkt, open Animate → Sound input, select Live audio, and choose Computer audio. The next action connects that source. To check it before moving the artwork, you can use Connect audio and confirm that the Master meter moves. Allow the system audio permission when requested.

Computer audio captures the audible system mix, including other apps and notifications. It is not an individual-app capture source. Artfkt listens without playing a second copy of that mix back to your speakers. For an interface or a separately routed music source, choose the actual input device instead and check its channels.

3. Start the audio pulse

With the image selected, choose Start audio pulse. It sets a starting sound response on Scale, switches to Animate and starts playback. If audio is not connected, it uses the selected source and the normal permission flow. You can pause from the footer or choose Still to return to a static picture.

Watch the image while listening. Under Animate → Properties → Motion settings, reduce Amount or the scale endpoints if the crop becomes distracting. Adjust Response amount to change visual sensitivity; it does not change the audience’s music level.

If the meter moves but the picture stays still, check that Animate is selected and playback is running; Start audio pulse sets both as well as assigning the layer response. If the meter does not move, check the capture source and permission first. The audio-reactive tutorial explains frequency bands and response shaping in more depth.

Give yourself controls worth playing

Open Perform → Add FX, check the named destination under Add FX to, and add one treatment. Begin with a property whose change you can see clearly. Use the FX name menu to pin a useful parameter to the board. Take over gives you manual control of that property; a sound-driven control offers Resume sound to return to its sound response.

Make two versions of your effect stack: perhaps a restrained look and a stronger accent. Choose Save beside Saved FX settings for each. Click the numbered buttons, or press 1–9 while working in the editor or board, to recall them. Keep keyboard focus out of a text field when using shortcuts.

Saved FX settings belong to each scene and restore its effect stacks for layers that still exist. To switch a complete composition, open Scenes. Add or duplicate a scene, then select it to prepare privately. The outlined Editing row marks the editor; the solid Live row marks audience output. Editing the live scene changes the picture immediately.

Choose Cut or Crossfade, then Show scene when preparation finishes. Crossfade defaults to one second and accepts 0.1–10 seconds. The incoming scene starts at zero and becomes the Perform target; the outgoing scene continues through the fade. Live music stays connected, and private preview stays silent. Save the project to keep every scene and its media.

Scene changes are manual. For timed playlists, check Synesthesia’s preset workflow. For triggering and mixing clips, look at Resolume’s quick start.

Send a clean picture to the audience

Open Animate → Output, choose the Output display before opening it, then open the output. Use a second display for the audience while keeping the editor or popped-out Perform board available to you. Check aspect ratio and letterboxing on that screen. Closing the output window leaves the show running. Use the master visual level to fade the audience picture, or toggle Blackout to make it opaque black. Releasing Blackout restores the current level. The editor stays unfaded; the audience monitor shows the finished result. Stop show ends the session.

For an OBS stream, use Perform → OBS setup → Open stream output. On Mac, capture the Artfkt output window with OBS’s macOS Screen Capture source. Add your music separately in OBS if it is not already in the mixer, and check that you have only one audible copy. OBS handles stream encoding and transmission. See OBS’s screen-capture instructions and Mac audio-capture guide.

To keep the performance, use Record live and choose the destination. Artfkt records scene transitions, master fades and blackout with the configured Master audio to H.264/AAC MP4. Stop recording to finalize the file, then play it back to check picture and sound. Ordinary timeline export cannot replay changes driven by a past live input.

Before using any setup in front of an audience, rehearse with the actual display, input, artwork and capture arrangement. The demonstration here is one Mac setup, not a long-session reliability or frame-rate guarantee.

Try the visual idea, then choose the tool

If your goal is to play your own artwork, try an effect on your image in the free demo. The demo explores image treatments, layers and silent exports. Live audio, saved projects and the desktop performance workflow require Artfkt desktop; the browser demo does not test them.

Check Artfkt’s current offer and requirements before buying. Choose it for the composition you want to make and revisit. If your next step needs MIDI faders, native video-sharing protocols, automatic scene playlists or mapped projection surfaces, compare the dedicated live tools above against those requirements first.