Ljómi
Aurora to MIDI, in real time
Our flagship system captures aurora borealis footage — live or from recorded video — and transforms it into responsive, generative musical compositions via MIDI. It detects green, pink, and purple aurora hues, analyses their intensity, movement direction, wave patterns, and area coverage, then translates all of that data into notes, chords, and MIDI CC values.
How it works
Aurora colour detection
Detects three primary aurora colours — green, pink, and purple — with configurable HSV ranges, so you can fine-tune sensitivity to the conditions you're capturing.
Brightness-driven harmony
At low brightness the system produces simple triads. As intensity increases, it builds through seventh chords up to full ninth chords, creating natural harmonic complexity that mirrors the aurora's energy.
Wave pattern analysis
Analyses the coherence, wavelength, and speed of aurora wave patterns and maps them to MIDI CC values — giving you continuous, expressive control data alongside note events.
Per-colour MIDI routing
Each detected colour can be routed to its own MIDI channel, letting you assign different instruments or synth patches to green, pink, and purple aurora activity independently.
Configurable musical scales
Choose from a library of scales including major, minor, Hungarian minor, Japanese, Persian, and more. The root note and octave range are fully adjustable.
Performance optimisation
Resolution scaling from 240p to HD, configurable frame skip rates, and MIDI value deduplication to prevent message flooding — all while maintaining natural musical transitions.
Technical specs
Use cases
- Live aurora viewing experiences with a real-time musical soundtrack that responds to what's happening in the sky
- Studio composition using recorded aurora footage as a generative MIDI source
- Modular synth performances driven by aurora data via MIDI-to-CV conversion
- Multi-sensory installations for science centres, planetariums, and exhibitions
- Tour operators offering aurora trips with an immersive audio dimension
Interested in Ljómi?
We'd love to walk you through the system, answer questions, or discuss how it fits your workflow.