Winamp visualizations were a big part of the early 2000s listening experience for many people.

Where things got more interesting is with the release of Winamp 1.90 in early 1998.

Among the first plugins that shipped with the updated version were two input plugins and a music visualizer plugin.

WinAmpVisuals3

That same year programmerRyan Geisscreated the eponymous Geiss plugin for Winamp.

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A screenshot of the original Geiss music visualizer.

Jason Fletcher

The complexity of the visualizations and their pseudo-psychedelic patterns contributed to the popularity of the plugins.

People loved to watch them and see what colorful output their favorite songs would produce.

In fact, the popularity of Winamp mirrored the rise in popularity of the MP3 format itself.

A radial waveform music visualization created by the Milkdrop plugin for Winamp.

For a significant number of people, MP3s, Winamp, and Winamp visualizations were completely intertwined.

Let’s dig in with the start-to-finish list of steps to get your visualizer up and running.

you’ve got the option to grab a copy directly from the source in one of two ways.

A screenshot showing the Windows control panel and sound menu.

Installation is straightforward, just spin up the installer.

Additionally, if you poke around the internet, you’ll also find old archives of various Winamp plugins.

In the Sound menu, grab the “Recording” tab.

A screenshot showing how to select the play source in Winamp.

If Stereo Mix is not enabled, right-select it and select “Enable” from the context menu.

Now is a good time to test if Stereo Mix is functioning as expected.

Load up literally any audio source on your gear—YouTube video, Spotify playlist, doesn’t matter.

A screenshot showing the simple playback visualization on the main Winamp window.

You may have to make similar adjustments.

With the app open, right-snag the main window to enter the context menu and select Play > URL.

Alternatively, you’ve got the option to press Ctrl+L to dive into the same feature.

A screenshot showing the Winamp visualization selection menu.

The Winamp interface should indicate the “song” is

.

The Stereo Mixer trick is tapping into the existing audio feed, not creating a new one.

Select a visualization plugin.

Sample images of a collection of MilkDrop presets.

Jason Fletcher

If you haven’t downloaded Geiss 1.0 yet, we recommend just jumping into MilkDrop.

If you have downloaded Geiss 1.0, it’s a really good one to start with.

Most of them have keyboard shortcuts to help you navigate the experience.

you’re able to browse throughthe Winamp MilkDrop Preset subforumto find all sorts of really neat ones.

One such notable collection is theCream of the Crop collectionfrom NestDrop.

To use the presets, simply take the .milk files and dump them into the MilkDrop plugin folder.