ASCII Magic
Open tool

Animated ASCII music art

This ASCII music collection draws sound you can see: equalizer bars jumping to a kick, a radial visualizer spinning around a record, DJ decks crossfading, a drum machine stepping through its pattern and a studio mixing desk riding its faders. Every piece is hand-coded in text and loops smoothly, ready for streams, podcasts and music sites.

22 pieces

View use cases
Boombox Speaker PumpMusic & Sound
Cassette Tape ReelsMusic & Sound
Concert Stage CrowdMusic & Sound
Conductor Baton BeatsMusic & Sound
DJ Decks CrossfaderMusic & Sound
Drum Machine SequencerMusic & Sound
Festival Speaker StackMusic & Sound
Graphic EQ Peak HoldMusic & Sound
Guitar Fretting HandMusic & Sound
Headphones Sound WavesMusic & Sound
Marching Snare DrumMusic & Sound
Modular Synth PatchMusic & Sound
Oscilloscope Wave MorphMusic & Sound
Piano Keys MelodyMusic & Sound
Piano Roll ScrollMusic & Sound
Radial Sound BarsMusic & Sound
Radio Dial TuningMusic & Sound
Sheet Music PlayheadMusic & Sound
Singing Mouth ChoirMusic & Sound
Studio Mixing DeskMusic & Sound
Tap Tempo CounterMusic & Sound
Vinyl Crate DiggingMusic & Sound

Where to start

Instruments get their own pieces too: Piano Keys Melody, Guitar Fretting Hand, Marching Snare Drum, Modular Synth Patch and Conductor Baton Beats. The animations are silent and follow their own original patterns, so you pair them with your audio. Embed one with a single tag, export a video loop, or play it in a terminal.

Radial Sound BarsRainbow spectrum bars radiating from a spinning record, the piece that reads most like a classic visualizer.Graphic EQ Peak HoldA rack equalizer whose LED bars jump to a kick, snare and hats while peak markers hang and drift down.DJ Decks CrossfaderTwo turntables, a sliding crossfader and scrolling waveforms, a natural header for a DJ or mix page.Piano Keys MelodyThree octaves of keys pressing down to a gentle melody, each note lifting off in color.Guitar Fretting HandA hand moving between chord shapes while a pick strums and the strings blur, warm and acoustic.Drum Machine SequencerA 16 step drum machine with a playhead sweeping lit pads and a fill every fourth bar.

Music visualizer loops for streams and videos

People searching for a music visualizer often want something that reacts to their own audio. These pieces do not listen to sound: each is a looping animation with its own built-in rhythm. That makes them a good fit wherever you need motion that always looks right, such as a starting soon screen, a break between sets, an instrumental music video or the background of a playlist stream.

Radial Sound Bars, Graphic EQ Peak Hold and Oscilloscope Wave Morph read most like a visualizer. Export a video at 1920x1080 or 4K and loop it in your editor, or add the live piece as a browser source in your streaming software. The guide at Animated ASCII overlays for OBS and streams walks through the setup.

ASCII art for podcasts and music blogs

Podcasts need a recognizable visual for video versions of episodes and short clips. Headphones Sound Waves and Studio Mixing Desk suit talk shows, the YouTube thumbnail export at 1280x720 gives a matching cover frame, and square PNG exports work as episode tiles on social posts.

Music blogs and newsletters can set a mood per post with ASCII art music scenes. Vinyl Crate Digging fits record reviews, Cassette Tape Reels suits mixtape roundups, Concert Stage Crowd heads a live review, and Boombox Speaker Pump brings energy to a hip hop feature. Embed the live piece in the article, or export a GIF for an email, where scripts do not run.

ASCII piano, guitar and other instruments

For an ASCII piano, Piano Keys Melody plays three octaves of keys with notes lifting off in color, and Piano Roll Scroll shows a composer view with notes passing the playhead. Sheet Music Playhead scrolls a grand staff, which suits music teachers and lesson pages.

The ASCII guitar piece, Guitar Fretting Hand, moves between chord shapes while a pick strums and the strings blur. Drummers get Drum Machine Sequencer and Marching Snare Drum, synth fans get Modular Synth Patch, and choirs get Singing Mouth Choir. More instruments live in other categories: a Record Player at Record Player and a Metronome at Metronome, plus Tabla Teental Hands at Tabla Teental Hands and Sitar String Pluck at Sitar String Pluck.

Music note symbols and ASCII music as text

If you only need a music note symbol, ♪ and ♫ are Unicode symbols (U+266A and U+266B) rather than part of standard ASCII, which has no note at all. They paste into most chats and documents and pair well with short text art.

When you want more than a symbol, pause any piece here and press Copy as text to copy the current frame as plain text, ready for a code block, a chat or a terminal. To see the full animation in your shell, npx --yes https://www.ascii-magic.com/ascii/cli.tgz drum-machine-sequencer plays it in color, and adding --frame prints one still instead.

Ways to use ASCII music & sound

Step-by-step guides with a live builder and code to copy.

All 18 use cases →
OBS

Animated ASCII overlays for OBS and streams

Use animated ASCII art as a browser source in OBS or Streamlabs for starting soon screens, borders and overlays.

YouTube

ASCII art for YouTube thumbnails

Export any animated ASCII piece as a 1280 by 720 YouTube thumbnail background, then add your title on top in any editor.

Social

ASCII art headers for X, LinkedIn and GitHub

Export ASCII art at the exact sizes for an X header, a LinkedIn banner and a GitHub social preview image.

Wallpaper

ASCII art wallpapers for desktop and phone

Download ASCII art wallpapers in 4K, 1080p and phone sizes. Pick any scene, choose dark or light, and export a full-resolution PNG in one click.

/FAQS

ASCII music & sound: frequently asked questions

Answers about using ASCII music & sound on websites, in READMEs, in terminals and in exports.

Q. What is ASCII music art?
ASCII music art is music imagery drawn with text, from simple note symbols to full scenes of instruments, speakers and equalizers. The pieces here are animated, so bars jump, reels turn and keys press in a loop, and each one can be embedded, exported or played in a terminal.
Q. Where can I find animated ASCII music art?
You can find it in this collection: equalizers, a radial visualizer, DJ decks, a drum machine, a mixing desk, a modular synth, piano keys, a guitar and a concert crowd, all animated in text. Every piece is MIT licensed and plays on any web page with one embed tag.
Q. Can I use these animations as a music visualizer?
You can use them as visualizer-style loops, but they do not react to your audio. Each piece has its own built-in rhythm, so it always looks like it is moving to a beat. For a starting soon screen or a background loop, that is often all you need.
Q. Do the ASCII music animations play sound?
No, every piece is silent. The rhythms and melodies you see are original patterns drawn as animation, so you can pair them with your own track, podcast or stream audio without anything clashing. Add sound in your video editor or streaming software after you export.
Q. How do I add a music animation to my live stream?
Add the piece as a browser source in your streaming software, or export a 1920x1080 video and loop it as a media source. The stream overlays guide at Animated ASCII overlays for OBS and streams has the settings for starting soon, be right back and ending screens.
Q. Is there an ASCII piano animation?
Yes, Piano Keys Melody plays three octaves of keys to a gentle melody with each note lifting off in color, and Piano Roll Scroll shows notes passing a playhead in a composer view. Sheet Music Playhead adds a scrolling grand staff for music teachers.
Q. Is there an ASCII guitar I can use?
Yes, Guitar Fretting Hand shows a hand moving between chord shapes on an acoustic guitar neck while a pick strums and the strings blur. It makes a warm header for guitar lessons, songwriter sites and acoustic playlists, and exports as a GIF, a video or a wallpaper.
Q. How do I type a music note symbol?
Copy ♪ or ♫ directly, or enter their Unicode code points, U+266A and U+266B, in an app that supports Unicode input. Standard ASCII has no music note, so these come from Unicode. In HTML you can write ♪ and ♫ to get the same two symbols.
Q. Can I use ASCII music art for a podcast cover or episode clip?
Yes, export a square PNG for an episode tile, a 1280x720 YouTube thumbnail, or an MP4 video loop to sit behind the audio. Headphones Sound Waves and Studio Mixing Desk suit spoken shows. All pieces are MIT licensed, including for commercial podcasts.
Q. Are the melodies in these animations from real songs?
No, every melody, chord shape and drum pattern is original, and none of them recreates a known song. You can show them anywhere and pair them with whatever audio you have the rights to use.
Q. Can I run an ASCII equalizer in my terminal?
Yes, run npx --yes https://www.ascii-magic.com/ascii/cli.tgz graphic-eq-peak-hold and the equalizer plays in color in your terminal. The same works for any piece name, such as radial-sound-bars. Add --seconds=3 for a short burst or --look=dots to redraw it as halftone dots.
Q. Is there retro music gear like cassettes, vinyl and radios?
Yes, Cassette Tape Reels plays a handwritten mixtape, Vinyl Crate Digging flips through a crate of records, Radio Dial Tuning sweeps a glowing dial and Boombox Speaker Pump pumps its speakers. The Retro Computing category adds Chiptune Tracker and MIDI Step Sequencer.

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