MilkDrop today, and an alternative made of curated scenes.

MilkDrop, the Winamp plug-in that filled screens with swirling, morphing light in the early 2000s, is still how many people picture a music visualizer. Winamp itself has had no new release since 2023, but MilkDrop lives on in several forms, and there are visualizers that take a different road altogether. This page sorts out where MilkDrop runs today on Windows, Mac and Linux, and how LIQUIDWAVE differs if what you miss is the feeling rather than the presets.

Where MilkDrop lives now

App	Runs on	Hears	Notes
projectM	Windows, Mac, Linux	Any app on Windows; system audio takes extra setup on Mac and Linux, by its own store page	Free, open source; loads MilkDrop presets, 1,000+ included
MilkDrop3	Windows	Any audio device, microphone included	Free; a standalone successor, about 500 presets
Butterchurn	A web browser	A page's own audio or the microphone; a Chrome extension can hear any tab	Free, open source; MilkDrop in WebGL 2
Winamp with MilkDrop	Windows	Winamp's own playback	Last release in 2023
Kodi, VLC	Windows, Mac, Linux	Their own playback	projectM as an add-on or effect

If you want MilkDrop itself, its presets and the joy of editing them, projectM is the place to start on any system, and MilkDrop3 on Windows. Both are free.

A different idea: curated scenes

MilkDrop is a preset engine. Each preset is a small program of equations, and the community has written tens of thousands of them. The variety is the point, and so is the surprise: some presets are glorious, many are noise, and the engine moves on to another one on a timer.

LIQUIDWAVE goes the other way. Its 60+ scenes are curated, not generated: each one was composed by hand as a finished picture, with its own palette and its own way of moving, and grouped into ten styles. A drawn waveform. Chladni figures. A wireframe sea. Lasers through stage haze. An aurora. Neon grids. Liquid chrome. A lava lamp. A green oscilloscope. Where MilkDrop overwhelms, LIQUIDWAVE composes; it is made to be watched for a whole album.

The way the music drives the picture is designed too. LIQUIDWAVE splits the sound into seven bands on every frame and picks out the kick, the snare and the hi-hat, so each moves a different part of the scene. Motion follows the tempo rather than jumping on every beat, and the chrome and foil scenes let the sound shape the surface but never flash the light.

What it hears

MilkDrop in Winamp drew only Winamp's playback. LIQUIDWAVE hears whatever the computer plays: Spotify, YouTube in a browser, a game, a DAW. On a Mac it uses the system-audio capture built into macOS 14.2 and later, on Windows the default output device, on Linux the monitor of your default output through PipeWire or PulseAudio. No virtual audio driver anywhere. Listen Mode hears the room through the microphone instead, for a turntable.

Beyond the window

The scene can play behind your desktop icons (Desktop Mode, on Mac, Windows and Linux on X11), fill every screen when you step away, or be recorded to an MP4 with its sound. On a Mac, the song appears under the notch.

Where MilkDrop is still the better pick

• You want to write presets, or browse thousands of other people's. LIQUIDWAVE has no preset editor and doesn't load MilkDrop presets.
• You want something different every few seconds. LIQUIDWAVE's Shuffle moves between scenes on a pace you set, but the scenes themselves are fixed designs.
• You want it free, all of it. projectM and MilkDrop3 are free. LIQUIDWAVE is a free download with two scenes, Wave and one you pick, and one purchase inside the app unlocks the rest.

Try it

Download LIQUIDWAVE for Mac, Windows or Linux. Coming from Windows? Here is how it compares with the other Windows visualizers. On Linux, see the Linux comparison.