Beatbox Viz

A browser prototype: a microphone onset detector classifies beatbox hits (kick / hat / snare) in real time and bursts 3D letterforms onto a live webcam feed, timed to each hit.

I've been a beatboxer for over ten years. I wanted to make that language visible — to drive live visuals from beatboxing itself, and test whether onset classification and latency were good enough before investing in a heavier pipeline.

An AudioWorklet computes an energy envelope on small sample blocks for low-latency onset detection; a spectral heuristic — with an optional nearest-centroid calibration mode — classifies each hit as kick, hat or snare; MediaPipe tracks the face on the webcam feed while three.js erupts the matching letterform in 3D, timed to the hit.

Comfort at the metal of real-time audio DSP and browser media — and the habit of de-risking a hard idea with a fast prototype before scaling it.