Yes, the sound provokes a lot of internal visuals when I get in the flow. I get vague images of places I haven’t been in for years, or places I’ve seen in dreams. Sometimes from different angles or different times of day, weather conditions, etc. from the last time I was there. I don’t work with any visual platforms.
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It’s usually feelings, emotions and textures for me: like I’ll get a recollection of the feeling of velcro or latex for scratchy or smooth sounds. Sometimes pictures. I think I was more visual when I was younger. I recall day-dreaming whole videos for particular tracks a few times.
I’ve often had images of LED level meters appear in my mind when analysing the relative levels of instruments in a track. So dry… 
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It’s a really interesting question, and I guess when I listen to other people’s music or sounds in general, it does invoke images or visuals. I think that when I myself am working with sound however, I’m so preoccupied with trying to accurately output or translate what I’m hearing in my head, that there is very little visual feedback in my mind.
I’m not sure if that’s 100% accurate, but to me it seems that way right now as I reflect on it. Strange, because I’ve done a lot of visual art in my life, but it seems that for me, these disciplines must come from behind partitions of sorts, separate in the way that the particular facet of the required creativity is accessed.
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I usually start a track after some tweaking with a device that unconsciously attracts me in that particular moment. When i have found a sound i’ll start jamming with a keyboard. Slow/fast or whatever that sound leads me. Then i’ll decide tempo and whether it needs more to add like drums or accompanying sounds. To be honest there’s absolutely no visualization whatsoever. But… it can work the other way around. Watching a video without sound instantly gives me directions of what music would fit to enhance the image.
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Vision 4K when producing… (if I hear phase issues)
Then after I’ll make some sort of art element for when I post on SoundCloud.
Lately with youtube uploads, I was finding video game footage, and using that to produce to, then posting a couple that way, but it wasn’t my footage, and crediting people in the description didn’t feel good enough… plus it detracted away from the music.
Now for YT, I’ll find a photo or piece of art of mine, or famous artists, and use PhotoMosh Pro… you can affect a bunch of filters with individual parameters for each one in parallel. And you load up your track, and it will sync to the tempo (I actually think its the transients, but they say tempo.). but it doesnt matter, becasue you can affect via sine wave frequency per parameter…
So… yes? i visualize sound.
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I’ve always been blown away by the visuals of some festivals I’ve been attending in Europe in the past ~12 years, but never really thought about making my own.
then, I’ve came across the videos of siteru on youtube, his M:C/ST jams with reactive visuals got me really interested, he’s doing Pure Data but unfortunately afaik PD gem module which is the visual model does not work with the mac silicon, so I’ve found hydra visual synth and started doing stuff with it. hydra has a big flaw being web based so you have to capture the screen and I didn’t like it, so I tried TouchDesigner and it’s gorgeous, so many things can be done with it and the learning curve is not so bad.
I don’t do it real time while recording audio but I do patch while playing back the recording inside TD and eventually I press record to generate a video, a very similar process to how I do audio recordings, fits me right, but eventually I stride to do something really midi reactive by recording both the audio and the video simultaneously, I just need more time to practice TD and setup the midi in from the rytm…
https://www.youtube.com/@suiteru
btw there’s plenty of info in this thread:
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(If we’re talking the neurology behind this versus the tools we use to make visualizations for sound…)
Synaesthesia is a very well-known condition, basically “crosstalk” between different sensory processing centers in the brain. It is fairly common in creative people with ASD and other conditions, and often undiagnosed. In more detail:
I definitely have this to a degree.
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So many points to respond to this is awesome! Thanks for sharing!
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Yes I’ve dove quite deep into looking at this condition and spoken to some who experience it. It’s very curious the different interpretations I’ve heard and not only read. The different variants are also bery fascinating. I do see color when I hear some sounds but its not systemic but more random with the context of what I’m hearing. I have generally been curious if those who experience it have attributed and established a relation to the color they are seeing vs the notes they are seeing? I wonder if this eould help in music production or generally anything auditorial?
P.s Fascinating read!
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This is very cool, I actually recently saw Ryoji Ikeda’s latest art exhibition at Amos rex here in Helsinki Finland. I have a feeling it was Pd he used to make the visuals but I cant be sure. Awesome exhibituon though shame I didn’t see him live. I have been trying to use pd but it does not work on my computer. I have not fully develed into touch designer but it is possible to route midi from say an elektron box or any midi device to touch designer to make these generative visuals? I’ve also seen there is the Max Msp stuff.
Not sure what Vision 4k is but I shall look. I have also used pictures to make some sound and music to. Its a fun process for sure! Is it that the visuals were not yours that they detracted from the music or do you mean that by watching something visual you are taking away attention from the music?
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yes, it has pretty good midi operators, you can also use midi controllers to control stuff, TD is really deep and basically you can code your own stuff in python there, not exactly like PD/Max but it’s very deep.
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Hmm yes I understand when I see videos without sound I immediately atart filling the holes in my brain and hearing the different possibilities!
Ahh thats pretty interesting. I agree with the aspect that making music can be become pretty choice dependet when you are really finalizing and getting work and tracks done. I also draw in my spare time and can def see the seperation of the processes. Do you feel that you accurately translate all the ideas in your head to the canvas often?
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Hahahah my man got the mix deck console imorinted into his brain! I think I also experience this haha but more like an EQ than a meter! I daydream music videos for tracks sometimes! Fun to give them little stories I guess! Do you have any favourite textures, emotions or feeling you like to work with?
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I’m still waiting for a visualiser that can process 192khz of data points at 24bits. That’s a lot of Information to turn into real-time reactive colour shape and, well whatever you want.
Hope it happens in my lifetime.
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Thats super cool! When you finish a track does it recall the same things or does it change?
Ok I’m not so knowledgable about the video side what you speak sounds amazing! This has me very inspired to learn more! Thanks
Thats fantastic to hear, I must dive more into it. thank you for sharing!!
your brain already does it 
i’m jealous of the synesthesia crew
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