It sees the
whole song.

iOS 27 opens a new possibility for music visualizers:
a view of the whole song. Including what comes next.

We built that idea into Conductor—visualizers guided by a song’s full structure: its quiet passages, instrument entrances, recurring themes, and climaxes. Part of Prismatic Pro in Prismatic Music for iOS 27.

Watch the drop

For iPhone and iPad · Part of Prismatic Pro

0:40 · Score read · drums land at 0:59 · climbing since 0:00

“Night Owl” — Broke For Free · CC BY 3.0 · Cymatica, rendered by the production scene over the song’s on-device analysis. Section names are editorial; the boundaries, beat grid, and instrument activity are the analysis.

There are no drums in this song until 0:59, and the scene knew that before the first bar. Four sections lead to them, and the plate has been ordering its figure at every boundary since the song started—this clip joins the climb two thirds of the way up, twenty seconds out. Watch the figure tighten, more of the harmony arrive, and the whole plate snap to a lattice on the first hit. The bar under the video is the scene’s own build; the part already filled happened before the clip begins. Sound starts only when you press play.

The next moment
changes this one.

A live visualizer can follow a beat beautifully. But the audio playing right now doesn’t tell it that the drums are about to enter—or that a quiet passage is leading to the biggest moment of the song.

Conductor adds that wider view. It uses on-device song analysis to give supported visualizers information about musical structure, rhythm, instrument activity, and energy. A scene can begin preparing before an event arrives, while staying connected to the sound you hear.

Like a conductor who has read the score before the performance begins.

Same scene. Same sound. One of them read the score.

Cymatica rendered twice from one recording of the audio pipeline: once with the song’s analysis attached, once with it stripped. Everything else is identical. One half is a traditional reactive visualizer; the other is the new class the analysis makes possible. Jump into a lead-in and watch what changes.

Reactive. The scene hears the live audio and nothing else—the way music visualizers have always worked. Every scene here still runs this way until a song is prepared.

Conductor. The same audio, the same scene, plus the saved section map, beat grid, instrument activity, and energy. Sound plays from this half.

Plays sound

Approach the drop. There are no drums in this song until 0:59. The Conductor half has been ordering its figure since the first bar and tightens hard through the last section, so the kit lands on a plate that is already fully voiced; the Reactive half only answers the drums once they are audible.

Both halves are native renders of the production scene from the same DSP trace; the analysis is the only variable. The Reactive half is muted and kept in step with the Conductor half.

What we built with iOS 27.

Apple’s MusicUnderstanding framework supplies the on-device analysis. Conductor connects that musical information to our live visualizer engine—and gives each scene its own way to use it.

Read the song: Analyze an eligible local audio file for its beat grid, section boundaries, instrument activity, and energy. Save that information on-device so it can be reused.
Look ahead: Follow the audible playhead through the saved analysis. Give the scene context about the current passage and upcoming changes, alongside the live audio.
Shape the performance: Let the visualizer decide how to prepare and respond: gather toward a boundary, make room for an entrance, or keep a quieter passage restrained. The visuals still render live, frame by frame.

See the song behind the visuals.

This is the analysis every clip above was rendered over. Scrub through the song, follow its instrument activity, or jump straight to a change. The playhead shows where we are. The rest of the timeline shows what’s still to come.

Press play, or jump straight to a moment. Click anywhere on the score to seek.

What it knows at 0:00

Now

Opening — bar 1

Groove A in 4 bars

Instruments

Vocals none in this song

Drums resting — returns in 16 bars

Bass playing

Everything else resting — returns in 4 bars

Real MusicUnderstanding output — captured with the app’s own analysis provider (9.8 s for the full song). Section names are ours; every boundary, beat, curve, key, and tempo is the framework’s.

Captured from an on-device analysis run and re-checked against the current producer on September 11, 2026 (same boundaries; beats within five milliseconds). Section names such as “The Drop” are our editorial labels, not labels returned by the framework. Whole-song analysis has a history beyond this app; our work is in bringing it into the listening experience. Analysis is an interpretation of the music; not every section change is a drop.

One drop. Five conductors.

Conductor lives in the engine, not in one scene. The same thirty-four seconds of Night Owl, across five visualizers that ship in Prismatic Music. Each prepares for the kit in its own language.

Cymatica. The hero scene, in portrait. A vibrating plate: the figure has been ordering itself since the song began, the ring closes in ahead of the kit, and the drop snaps it to a crystal.

Murmuration. A flock that reads the whole track. This is the last stage of a four-section climb: a vanguard takes the centre, the shell closes on the breath, and the kit detonates it.

Prism Constellation. A sky of twelve notes. The wheel draws in through the last seconds before the drop, then meteors leave it as the kit lands.

Whiplash. A creature of light whose position is the timbre. It coils through the countdown and cracks its strands on the drop.

Prism Glow. The free default behind every player. The wash dims and the drift slows for the last two seconds, then the boundary lands as one flare with the palette already turned.

One conductor. Six songs.

Murmuration over a section change in six genres. The point is as much what it doesn’t do: a flat track gets no invented drop, a slow swell gets a long, soft build, and a valley is allowed to be quiet.

Downtempo. Night Owl’s first drop — the same passage as the hero, read by the flock instead of the plate. “Night Owl” — Broke For Free (CC BY 3.0)

Lo-fi. A twelve-second breakdown into the beat’s return. The flock counts the whole breakdown down. “Hooptie” — HoliznaCC0 (public domain)

Electronic. A flat, loud track with no drop anywhere. Conductor does not invent one; the segments and the drum drop-outs carry the motion. “Voltaic” — Kevin MacLeod (CC BY 4.0)

Jazz. Three quiet sections climbing to a loud one. The flock has been gathering since the last peak, fifty seconds before the boundary. “AcidJazz” — Kevin MacLeod (CC BY 4.0)

Ambient. A slow swell. The horizon is the whole preceding section, so the gather is long and the release lands on the swell. “Deep Haze” — Kevin MacLeod (CC BY 4.0)

Chiptune. A valley into a riff. The flock idles through the quiet passage and forms up for the return. “Itty Bitty 8 Bit” — Kevin MacLeod (CC BY 4.0)

Rendered by the production scenes over each track’s on-device analysis; nothing is keyframed by hand. Loops are silent; the hero and the comparison above play with sound. Music: Broke For Free (CC BY 3.0); Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0); HoliznaCC0 (public domain).

Drops are the easy part.

The analysis also says when an instrument enters, when a section comes back, when the next passage is quieter, and how far the end is. Scenes use that too.

An instrument entrance. Cymatica on Hooptie’s opening. The drums enter at 0:09 and the bass at 0:12; the ring closes in ahead of each arrival. “Hooptie” — HoliznaCC0

A section that returns. Prism Constellation remembers each section’s harmonic figure. Night Owl’s second peak brings the drop’s figure back; it is sketched in as a ghost before it lands. “Night Owl” — Broke For Free

A quieter passage ahead. Prism Glow into Night Owl’s floor drop at 2:14. Before a quieter section the light eases down instead of flaring. “Night Owl” — Broke For Free

The ending. Prism Glow through the wind-down and outro. The analysis knows how far the end is; the scene lets the song leave. “Night Owl” — Broke For Free

In the app, it just
happens.

Play a song and Prismatic Music prepares it in the background, once. Until it’s ready, the same visualizer plays reactively. When the analysis lands, the scene upgrades in place, mid-song, without restarting playback.

The visualizer gallery marks Conductor scenes and can filter to them. Prepared songs show a Conductor line in the player, and a Prepare Library option gets the rest of your music ready while you’re not looking. Songs that can’t be read—protected tracks, for example—simply stay reactive.

Built for the music
you already own.

Prismatic Music is an offline music player for iPhone and iPad. Bring your own files, build your library, and listen with live visuals—from an ambient backdrop behind the player to a full-screen scene.

Conductor is part of Prismatic Pro in the iOS 27 update. It works with supported visualizers and eligible local audio. Song analysis stays on your device, and you can keep listening while it prepares.

Explore Prismatic Music

Frequently asked questions

A closer look at Conductor

Conductor is the whole-song visualizer feature in Prismatic Music. It combines a saved analysis of a song with live audio to let supported visualizers prepare for upcoming changes. It is part of Prismatic Pro and arrives with the iOS 27 update.

The launch experience is for Prismatic Music on iPhone and iPad, with Prismatic Pro and a device capable of on-device music analysis on iOS 27. You also need an eligible local song and a visualizer that supports Conductor. Other visualizers continue to react to live audio.

Yes. Conductor analyzes readable local audio files in your library. Protected subscription tracks cannot be analyzed. Prismatic Music supports importing music through Files, Wi-Fi transfer, and eligible songs from your Apple Music library.

No. Playback and reactive visuals continue while a song is being prepared. Conductor takes over when the analysis is ready and the selected scene has the information it needs. Preparation time varies; saved analysis is reused on later plays.

No. Conductor’s song analysis runs on-device and its results are stored locally. It does not upload your audio for analysis.

Yes. Every clip is a render of the production Metal scene over the track’s real on-device analysis, made with the same headless tool we use to review scenes. The reactive halves of the comparison are the same scene rendered from the same audio with the analysis stripped. Section names in the readouts are our editorial labels; the boundaries, beats, and instrument activity are the analysis. Live playback on a phone adds the album’s palette and can differ frame to frame.

No. The saved analysis describes the music. The app’s visualizers still render live, combining that information with the audio as you listen. Different scenes use it in different ways.

Your next listen.
A little more foresight.

Get Prismatic Music on the App Store. Conductor is part of Prismatic Pro on iOS 27.

Covering iOS 27? Get in touch about Conductor.

It sees the whole song.

The next moment changes this one.