Disco Mode turns your screen into a 3D disco ball — rotating mirror tiles, rainbow beams, spotlights, and drifting particles — that scales, spins, and changes direction in real time based on the bass, treble, and volume it hears through your microphone. Point it at a TV, monitor, or projector and it becomes a live visual for whatever music is playing in the room.
Before you start
- Microphone access. Disco Mode needs your browser's microphone permission to react to music. It listens through the mic, not your computer's audio output.
- Music that's actually audible near the microphone. A phone or speaker playing into the room works; music going only to headphones or a private audio device won't be heard.
- A screen you're comfortable leaving in fullscreen for the party — this is a demanding 3D effect, so use a device that runs it smoothly rather than an older phone.
Set it up
- Open the Disco Mode effect.
- In the top-left corner of the preview, select Enable Music Reactive.
- Your browser will prompt for microphone access — allow it. The button changes to Music Reactive ON and a green Live badge appears next to it.
- Start the music, played through a speaker the microphone can actually hear.
- Adjust Brightness in the Controls panel to taste.
- Select Go Fullscreen for the actual display.
You'll know it worked when the ball's scale and spin direction shift with the bass, the beams pulse louder on loud passages, and the particles flare on treble. The Enable Music Reactive button stays visible in the corner even in fullscreen — it doesn't fade out the way the Exit Fullscreen and settings buttons do.
What each control does
| Control | Range | What it changes |
|---|---|---|
| Brightness | 10–100 | Overall light output — the disco ball's glow, spotlight intensity, beam opacity, particle opacity, and rainbow background brightness all scale with it. |
| Color (swatch) | Any color | Shown because Disco Mode has no color temperature presets, but it doesn't currently change anything visible in this effect — the rainbow palette is fixed. |
There's no speed, color-scheme, or beam-count control exposed for this effect — Brightness is the only working dial.
Common setups
- House party, TV or monitor in the living room. Brightness 80–90, and set the volume high enough that the mic clearly hears the bass over room noise.
- School disco with a PA system. Position the device running Disco Mode near a speaker rather than the DJ booth, so the mic gets clean sound instead of crowd noise. Brightness 70–80 reads well on a gym-sized screen.
- Projector at a venue, DJ running a mixer. Keep the device a few feet back from any subwoofer — bass this close can clip the mic input and make the effect feel jumpy rather than rhythmic. Brightness 60–70 keeps the projected image from washing out under venue lighting.
- Quiet background ambiance while music plays softly. Brightness 40–50 gives a calmer glow that still shifts with the music without dominating the room.
Troubleshooting
The permission prompt never appears when I select Enable Music Reactive. Your browser has this site's microphone blocked from a previous decision and won't ask again automatically. Open your browser's site settings (the icon in the address bar) and change Microphone to Allow, then select Enable Music Reactive again to retry.
It doesn't react to the music at all. The most common cause is that the music isn't reaching the physical microphone — headphones, a muted room, or the device's mic being far from the speaker. Move the device closer to the sound source, or turn the music up. If it still doesn't respond, check that your operating system's default input device is actually a working microphone, since the browser uses whatever your OS has set as default.
It reacts a little, but not much compared to how loud the music is. Very quiet input is intentionally suppressed to avoid the ball twitching on room noise. Raise your music volume, move the device nearer the speaker, or check your operating system's microphone input level isn't set low.
The button still says "Enable Music Reactive" even after I allowed access. This can happen if you dismissed the browser's prompt without explicitly allowing it. Select the button again — if a prompt appears this time, allow it; if it doesn't, check your browser's site permissions directly and set Microphone to Allow.
The screen stays black and the disco ball never appears. Disco Mode is a demanding 3D effect and needs graphics acceleration turned on. Switch it on in your browser's settings, then reopen the effect, or try a different device.
Next steps
For a softer, less chaotic music-reactive look, try Shimmer. For a flatter, more graphic audio visualization instead of a 3D scene, see Circular Wave.