Streaming? Skip window-capture entirely — turn on Syphon and add SUPERNOVA as a native source in OBS. It's cleaner, sharper and lighter on the GPU.
The standalone app
SUPERNOVA is an audio-reactive visual instrument, and it ships two ways: as a VST3 / AU plug-in inside your DAW and as a standalone macOS app. This manual covers what's unique to the app — above all its headline trick: it can capture your Mac's system audio with zero drivers and react to anything playing on the machine — Spotify, YouTube, Serato, Ableton — with no BlackHole and no routing. Everything about the visuals themselves — all 50 worlds, the four domains (Movement · Matter · Camera · Color), the media drop, the 3D cutout, MIDI and export — behaves exactly as in the plug-in manual; this page is only the app-specific layer.
Where it shines The app is how you run SUPERNOVA outside a DAW: for streaming, VJ sets, listening parties, a second-screen visualiser, or reacting to a set you're playing off the decks. Because it listens to the whole machine, it doesn't care which app the sound comes from — point it at anything and the field moves. And because it only ever analyses the audio, it sits happily beside your DJ software or DAW with no routing and no doubled sound.
Up and running in five steps
Open the SUPERNOVA app — nothing pops up at you. It starts, the visual runs, and the moment it needs to hear the Mac the top bar shows a notice: ⚠ System Audio needs permission, with an ALLOW button.
The give-away that this is the app and not the plug-in: a macOS title bar of its own. No DAW required. Click ALLOW and then macOS asks — so you see what is being requested before you answer. Say yes and the meter starts moving; macOS only asks once. If you said no, the notice becomes OPEN, which jumps to the exact pane — System Audio Recording on macOS 14.2+, Screen Recording on 13–14.1. Turn SUPERNOVA on there and the notice normally clears by itself within a couple of seconds; if it doesn't, REOPEN relaunches this copy so the grant takes effect.
Pick your SOURCE: System Audio (whatever is playing on this Mac, no drivers) or a mic / audio-interface input (choose the device in Setup).
SOURCE → System Audio (this Mac) is the headline trick: it hears whatever is playing — Spotify, YouTube, Serato, a DAW — with no drivers and no routing. Play something and raise INTENSITY — the field ignites. The app only analyses the audio to drive the picture; it never plays it back, so there's no double sound and no feedback loop.
INTENSITY is the master fader here too — raise it and the field ignites with whatever the app is hearing. Go big: Fullscreen (F) on a second display, Immersive (Tab) to hide the chrome, and/or publish the live frame over Syphon straight into OBS, Resolume or VDMX.
Fullscreen on a second display, TOP to float above everything, and SYPHON to publish the live frame into OBS, Resolume or VDMX.
How the signal moves through it
In a DAW, the plug-in reads the audio on its track or bus and the MIDI from the host — and, as a plug-in, it is a bit-exact pass-through: out equals in, sample for sample, so the sound is never touched. In the standalone app, you choose where it listens. With SOURCE set to System Audio, the app taps the Mac's output mix through Core Audio process taps (macOS 14.2+) — which is exactly why macOS gates it behind the System Audio Recording permission, asked the moment you pick that source. On macOS 13–14.1 those taps don't exist yet, so the app falls back to Apple's ScreenCaptureKit and macOS gates it behind the older Screen Recording switch instead. With SOURCE set to an input device, it opens your chosen mic or interface instead. Either way the audio is only analysed, never played back. That analysis drives the same Metal engine as the plug-in — 262,144 GPU particles on a 512×512 grid, 17 colour look-ramps baked in OKLab, HDR linear additive light resolved through an ACES filmic tonemap — and the finished frame is rendered to the window, to a fullscreen display, and to a Syphon server for OBS, Resolume or VDMX.
That macOS permission is how the system authorises system-audio capture — it is NOT the microphone, and nothing is recorded. It is asked when you pick System Audio, not when the app opens, and macOS only asks once. On macOS 13–14.1 the same capture goes through ScreenCaptureKit and its older Screen Recording switch. The audio is only analysed, never played back: no double sound and no feedback loop.
Every control, explained
Hearing your Mac
SOURCE
Where the app listens for audio.
Two modes. System Audio taps whatever is playing on this Mac (Spotify, YouTube, Serato, Ableton) with no drivers; input device opens a mic or audio interface for a live source. Pick the device itself in Setup.
System Audio is the zero-setup path — no BlackHole, no aggregate device. Reach for an input device only when you want a specific mic or line-in.
The System Audio permission
The one-time macOS grant that unlocks system-audio capture — asked when you pick the source, not when you open the app.
The top bar runs it: ALLOW → macOS asks → the meter moves. Say no and the notice offers OPEN, which jumps straight to the right pane in System Settings → Privacy & Security; turn SUPERNOVA on and it normally clears by itself. macOS asks once — every later launch re-checks in silence.
On macOS 14.2+ the pane is System Audio Recording: audio, nothing else. On macOS 13–14.1 that API doesn't exist yet, so the app falls back to ScreenCaptureKit and macOS shows the older Screen Recording switch instead — same capture, same privacy, simply the only route those versions offer. It is never the microphone, and nothing is recorded. System Audio needs macOS 13+; on 11–12 use an input device.
REOPEN
The fallback for when the notice won't clear.
Once you grant the permission the notice usually clears on its own within a couple of seconds. When it doesn't, REOPEN relaunches this copy of SUPERNOVA — the exact bundle on disk, as a new instance — so the fresh grant takes effect.
You rarely need it now: the app re-checks by itself, and REOPEN no longer hands the job to LaunchServices, which could reopen a different installed copy of SUPERNOVA.
Setup (device & MIDI)
Choose your input device and MIDI port.
Opens the audio/MIDI picker: select a mic or interface for input-device mode, and a MIDI input for the note triggers and CC. The app produces no audio output — it only analyses.
You can stay on System Audio and still pick a MIDI input here, so a controller can fire the note triggers — a note explodes the field or launches a directional ray.
Visual sensitivity (Gain)
Input trim into the analysis — how hard the audio drives the picture.
In dB. Raises or lowers the level the engine sees before it reacts. It changes nothing you hear (there is no audio output), only how energetically the field responds.
Turn it up for quiet material; back it off if a hot master keeps the field pinned at maximum.
The window
Immersive (Tab)
Visuals-only mode.
Press Tab to hide the entire top bar and the knobs, leaving just the picture in the window. Tab again brings the chrome back.
Great for a clean second-screen look when you don't want to commit the whole display to fullscreen.
Fullscreen (F)
Throw the picture fullscreen to a display.
Press F (or the fullscreen button) to fill a connected monitor; Esc returns to the window. Works on any attached display.
Keep the controls on the laptop screen and send fullscreen to the projector or TV.
Always on top
Keep the SUPERNOVA window above everything else.
Toggle so the window floats over your DJ software or browser — handy when you only have one screen.
Combine it with Immersive for a tidy floating visualiser parked in a corner.
Out to the world
Syphon
Publish the live frame to other apps — the clean way to stream or VJ.
Toggle the Syphon server on and SUPERNOVA appears as a video source inside OBS, Resolume or VDMX — GPU-to-GPU on macOS, no capture card and no window grabbing.
In OBS, add a 'Syphon Client' source and pick SUPERNOVA. It's lighter and sharper than screen-capturing the window.
Export (record)
Record what you're seeing to a video file — with sound.
Writes an MP4 / H.264 in one of four aspect/format presets, and muxes a real-time audio track (a ~12 s ring buffer bounced to an in-sync AAC track) so the clip carries the music. Any length from 1 to 600 s — but that ~12 s window is what drives the clip, so anything longer repeats it, picture and sound together.
The audio comes from the same signal the visuals are reacting to, so picture and sound stay locked. macOS only (AVFoundation).
Media controls
Load · Rotate · Sequence · Clear
The media controls, shared with the plug-in, on the top bar.
Load a photo or video and the particles form it (Vision saliency finds the subject and cuts it out); multi-select builds a photo sequence; rotate the current media 90°; set the seconds-per-photo for a sequence; CLEAR returns to a bare canvas. You can also just drag media onto the visual.
Everything else — the 50 worlds, INTENSITY, the four domains, the rotatable 3D cutout, tempo-synced LFOs with their live meter, MIDI-learn and presets — is identical to the plug-in. See the SUPERNOVA plug-in manual.
Tips & tricks
01
02
One laptop, one projector: keep the knobs on the laptop and press F to throw the visual fullscreen to the projector; Esc brings it back.
03
The app never plays audio, so you can run it alongside your DJ software or DAW on System Audio — no routing, no aggregate device, no doubled sound.
04
On a single screen, Always on top + Immersive (Tab) makes a neat floating visualiser you can park in a corner while you work.
05
Capture the moment with Export: an MP4 / H.264 with sound (a real-time audio buffer muxed to an in-sync AAC track), any length from 1 to 600 seconds (longer than ~12 s and the take loops) — perfect for a clip to post.
06
Wire a MIDI controller in Setup and keep it on System Audio: a note explodes the field or fires a directional ray while the music itself keeps driving the motion.
Troubleshooting
I enabled the permission but nothing is captured.
Give it a couple of seconds — the app re-checks on its own and the notice usually clears. If it doesn't, hit REOPEN: it relaunches this copy so the fresh grant takes effect. Still black? Confirm SUPERNOVA is ticked under System Settings → Privacy & Security → System Audio Recording (macOS 14.2+) or Screen Recording (macOS 13–14.1).
There's no permission prompt at all.
Opening the app asks for nothing — the prompt appears when you pick System Audio and click ALLOW. If the notice reads Waiting for macOS permission…, macOS is showing you its own dialog: answer that one. If nothing appears at all, use OPEN and tick SUPERNOVA by hand in the pane it takes you to.
System Audio is greyed out or silent even after I grant the permission.
Driver-free system-audio capture needs macOS 13 or newer — Core Audio taps on 14.2+, ScreenCaptureKit on 13–14.1. SUPERNOVA itself runs on macOS 11+, but on 11–12 there's no system tap — switch SOURCE to a mic or audio interface instead.
I plugged in headphones and the visual went deaf.
Not any more: SUPERNOVA notices an output-device or sample-rate change and rebuilds its capture on the new output in about a second, without asking for permission again. The same self-repair covers any other way the capture dies — and if you switch the permission off while the app is open, the notice comes back instead of the app pretending to listen.
It's reacting to my mic, not to Spotify.
Set SOURCE to System Audio. Input-device mode listens to a mic or interface; System Audio mode taps whatever is playing on the Mac.
Will I hear the audio twice?
No. The app only analyses the audio to drive the picture — it produces no audio output, so there's no doubling and no feedback loop, even on System Audio.
Specs
Format: Standalone app — macOS 11+ (Universal: Apple Silicon + Intel)
Also ships as: VST3 · AU plug-in
System audio: driver-free capture — Core Audio taps (macOS 14.2+) · ScreenCaptureKit (13–14.1)
Permission: System Audio Recording — asked when you pick the source (Screen Recording on macOS 13–14.1)
Sources: System Audio · mic / audio interface
Output: window · fullscreen · Immersive (Tab) · always-on-top
Share: Syphon → OBS · Resolume · VDMX (macOS)
Export: MP4 / H.264 with sound · 1–600 s from a ~12 s window (macOS)
Engine: Metal · 262,144 GPU particles · 17 OKLab ramps · ACES tonemap
Worlds: 50 factory presets
Audio: analysis-only — never plays your sound
License: AGPLv3 · open-source