A live wallpaper that reacts to music, on Windows.

A wallpaper that moves with your music is one of the best places for a visualizer to live: it is there while you work, behind the icons, without a window in the way. LIQUIDWAVE's Desktop Mode does exactly that on Windows. It plays one of its 60+ scenes behind your desktop icons on every display, and the scene answers whatever your PC is playing. When you step away, When you're away takes over the whole screen. The download is free.

A picture, not a looping video

Many live wallpapers are videos or slideshows that loop on a timer and ignore the sound. LIQUIDWAVE's scenes are drawn live, frame by frame, from the music itself: a bassline lifts a wireframe sea, a snare sends a ring through a field of op-art lines, a hi-hat shimmers across a sheet of foil. Each scene was composed by hand as a finished picture, with its own palette and its own way of moving, so the desktop looks designed rather than busy. The chrome and foil scenes let the sound shape the surface but never flash the light, which matters for something that sits in the corner of your eye all day.

How Desktop Mode works on Windows

Turn on Show on desktop in Settings → Desktop. LIQUIDWAVE places a canvas on each display between the wallpaper and the icons, and the icons stay where they are and keep working. Close the LIQUIDWAVE window and the scene keeps playing; the app waits in the tray, and Quit there ends it.

It doesn't change your wallpaper setting. Your picture, slideshow or Spotlight image stays exactly as you set it, and it comes back the moment Desktop Mode is turned off.

It stays out of the way

• Pause when covered: when windows cover the whole desktop, the scene stops drawing, so a maximized browser costs nothing.
• Pause on battery: on a laptop, it can stop while you're unplugged.
• Lock and sleep: it stops while the PC is locked and follows it to sleep. It never keeps the display awake.
• Open at login: turn it on under Startup and the desktop is playing from the moment you sign in.

The scene draws at the render quality set under Visual, so an older graphics card can trade a little sharpness for smoothness.

Full screen when you're away

When you're away is LIQUIDWAVE's own screen saver. After the wait you choose, it fills every screen with the scene and clears on the next key or mouse move. It can wait for music to be playing, so a silent office stays dark. It doesn't replace the screen saver in Windows' settings: Windows' own saver, lock and sleep still come first, so set them longer than LIQUIDWAVE's wait, or to Never, for it to appear.

What it listens to

System Audio hears your PC's default output device, the speakers or headphones Windows is playing through, so Spotify, a browser tab, a game or a DAW all move the picture. No virtual audio cable, no Stereo Mix. With nothing playing, the scene settles and holds still, the way a room does when the music stops.

Set it up

1. Download LIQUIDWAVE for Windows and open LIQUIDWAVE-win-Setup.exe. If Windows says "Windows protected your PC", click More info, then Run anyway: the installer isn't code-signed yet.
2. Pick a scene. Wave is free, and the first time you open the app you pick one more, also free. One purchase inside the app unlocks the rest.
3. Settings → Desktop → Show on desktop. Add When you're away and Open at login if you want them.