mekong

mekong makes real-time visuals for projecting behind improvised guitar, noise, and drones. They're abstract and data-driven, kinda based originally on Ryoji Ikeda. It's free, and the source is on GitHub.

Plug in your instrument and put the visuals on a projector. They follow what you play: the drone shapes them slowly, and each picked note sets something off.

The Barcode scene: strata of black and white data lines of varying widths. — Barcode. Attacks re-scramble the code.

What it does

Six scenes built in, from monochrome data lines to coloured ribbons of light. Switch with the number keys, or let mekong move on by itself
Your own scenes from pictures or Metal shader files, which load live
Any audio input, including one channel of a multi-channel interface, plus a test signal for trying it without an instrument
One key to present on the projector, one to stop and one to black out. If the projector drops out, the visuals come back when it does

The Ribbons scene: vertical ribbons of coloured light in orange, blue, pink and teal on black. — Ribbons. Attacks send a surge through.

Install

mekong needs macOS 14 (Sonoma) or newer. It asks for microphone access the first time; audio is analysed live and never recorded.

Build it yourself (recommended)

Paste this into Terminal:

git clone https://github.com/socialspacedev/mekong.git
cd mekong
./install.sh

It needs the Xcode Command Line Tools; the script tells you how to get them if they're missing. Built this way, mekong opens without any warnings.

Download the app

Get the DMG from the latest release and drag mekong to Applications.

It isn't notarised by Apple, so macOS refuses it the first time. Open System Settings ▸ Privacy & Security, scroll down and click Open Anyway next to mekong. You only need to do this once.

Give it a crack

If you play over drones and want something on the wall behind you, give it a crack. It comes with no guarantees.

Found a problem? Add it to Issues on GitHub.