> live coding video synth

It's not a "synthesizer" that makes sound but one for visuals. You'll make your own sounds somewhere else/somehow, pipe them into Hydra and have it react to your own music/sounds.

Back in my day we called them visualizers

I'm guessing they don't call it just that because of the modular nature of a programming language and because it depends on the user configuring it, rather than just hitting "Play".

Is this much different than Winamp's Advanced Visualization Studio? That was also 'programmable', depending on how you define programmable I suppose

I'm not super familiar with Advanced Visualization Studio but as far as I can tell, it wasn't geared toward live programming in a performance setting nor was able to work with general libraries as it was it's own language, not using a general one.

I think they're a bit different, a visualizers uses incoming audio to create visuals, a video-synth can do that but it can also do much more, without the involvement of sound in any way.

thank you for explaining I am familiar with audio synths never used a video synth, that's awesome.

its a video-synth so it doesn't make sound, it makes video

If its your first encounter with one I get why it'd be confusing though. We don't call regular synths audio-synths

My first encounter tbh but this is awesome thanks for explaining.

why is the page requesting microphone?

That is why I thought there should be sound but I missed the point it seems as others have commented something to do with modifying the visuals based on a function.

I suppose there could be a function that takes mic input. Then you could turn it into disco lighting.