Quick start: make music in Blender in one minute

The panel opens simple, with big buttons: Make Me A Song (a whole song, playing at once), Listen, Put It In My Scene, Make The Music Video, and the Song Game. Show Every Option (the choice is remembered) opens the seven numbered steps described here. Open the sidebar (N) in the 3D Viewport, tab Blendertronika. 1: click a genre and it plays. 2: press Make Catchy if you want a stronger tune. 4: press Add Music To This Scene: the song is written to the length of your scene and lands in the Video Sequencer. 7: press Render Music Video for an MP4, or pick a built-in model and press Music Video With This Model. Already have a song or a MIDI file? Choose it in step 1 under Music and skip straight to steps 4, 5 and 7.

Install

Blender 4.3 to 5.2. Drag the blendertronika zip you downloaded onto Blender's window, or use Edit > Preferences > Get Extensions, the small arrow at the top right, Install from Disk. Open the sidebar in the 3D Viewport or in the Video Sequencer (press N): tab Blendertronika. Nothing else to install: it uses only Python, numpy and Blender's own audio library. It is a beta: tell me what you think through the Superhive inbox.

1 - Pick a genre

86 genres on nine shelves. Click a name and the track is written at once: tempo, key, drums, bass, chords and melody. Click the same genre again for another take. Listen starts a live loop that follows you while you keep clicking; Surprise Me picks and varies one for you.

Music: at the top of step 1 you choose where the music comes from. Blendertronika Song is what this page describes. My Audio File (WAV, MP3, OGG, FLAC, AIFF) and My MIDI File let your own music drive steps 4, 5 and 7: with audio, the beat curves are measured from the frequency bands of the mix and the tempo is estimated; a MIDI file is played by the instruments of the genre you pick, drums on channel 10, the lowest part on the bass, the chord part on the chords and the rest on the lead. Fit The Scene To The Music (step 4) sets the last frame to where your music ends. Studio Pad shows the notes of a Blendertronika song, so it is the one video style that needs one.

More ways to write the tune (the genre plays the band, always in key): Draw A Melody, where New Drawing adds a Grease Pencil object in the front view and you draw one line from left to right (higher is a higher note, lifting the pen is a rest; a curve works too, and Bars sets how long the drawing lasts before it repeats); Write Words, where every letter of a sentence becomes a note and vowels ring longer; My Animation Plays, where the first object of a collection plays the melody while it moves, a second object plays the bass and the first one's keyframes hit the drums. Make It And Add To Scene puts the result in your scene.

2 - Shape it with the Maestro

Tempo, key and mood are three fields. The Maestro buttons do the musician's work: Make Catchy writes a famous chord progression with a bass line, a melody and a proper ending; Melody, Bass Line, Fix Off-Key, Ending, Arpeggio, 7ths, Drum Fill, Variation, Double-Time, Half-Time, Pump, 20 chord progressions and 14 drum grooves, and a dice for every part. Notes are steps of the scale, so everything stays in tune.

2b - Step grid: eight drums with accents, and bass, lead and chord grids, if you want to place notes yourself. Import MIDI Into Pattern brings a clip from your music program into a pattern.

2c - Sounds and mix: 20 synthesized instruments, eight drums, reverb, echo, tone, EQ, glue and pump. My Voices gives any part or drum a sound of your own: Add A Recorded Instrument (a WAV of yours, played at every pitch, in tune) or New Python Voice (a documented template in the Text Editor: one function, render(freq, seconds, sr, params), returns the sound). A Python voice is code, so it never runs until you have read it and pressed Trust, and changing one character switches it off again. Voices in a pack from someone else always arrive switched off. This is informed consent, not a sandbox: trust only code you have read or whose author you trust.

3 - Make it a song

A Song Template tells your pattern as a story (intro, verse, chorus, break, build, outro) stretched over your scene. Or choose Timeline Keys and keyframe Energy, Pattern, Fill and the Mute switches: the timeline is the arranger. Transitions adds a riser into every lift and a sweep-down out of every drop-out.

3b - Arrange, Score and the Song Game

Arrange: Build Arrangement lays the song out in the Video Sequencer, one channel per instrument group and one clip per pattern. Move, duplicate (Shift+D), cut (K), mute channels, keyframe volume and pan, add your own audio. With Linked Clips on, editing a pattern renders it again and every copy follows. Export Sequencer Mix writes WAV, FLAC, MP3 or OGG; Music: My Sequencer Mix makes steps 5 and 7 follow the arrangement.

Score: Song To Score writes the song as mesh objects, one per instrument; New Score Track starts an empty one. Every vertex is a note: X is time (16 per bar), Z is the note (a scale degree, always in key; for the drums 0 kick, 1 snare, 2 closed hat, 3 open hat, 4 clap, 5 tom, 6 rim, 7 ride). Optional point attributes "length" and "velocity". Modifiers compose, because the evaluated mesh is read. Music: Score In The Viewport plays it.

Song Game: in the Song Game box at the top of the panel pick a Style and a Player, then press Play. The melody becomes tiles, the player runs at the tempo: Space jumps, Space again in the air double jumps, Down drops through a note, Esc stops. Notes you touch play, notes you miss stay silent. Video Of My Game makes a music video of your last game; Robot Plays It makes one where every note is played. Video Format (Vertical 9:16, Landscape 16:9, Square 1:1) and the Hook line are right there. Make Everything Yours opens: your objects for the notes, the played notes, the skyline and the sun; your materials for the notes, the played notes (an Attribute node set to Instancer reads lit_col and flash), the floor and the backdrop; your font; Sun, Skyline, Trail, Sparks, Beat Kick and Live Counter on or off; which part is the level (Notes To Play); Game View (Pretty or Fast). Custom style: Make This Style My Own copies a ready look, then change every colour. It plays a song, a MIDI file, a Score, a drawing, words or your animation; an audio file has no notes to jump on.

4 - Put it in your scene

Add Music To This Scene writes the song to the length of your scene, nudges the tempo so the last chord rings out on the last frame (Land On Last Frame), and drops it in the Video Sequencer as a sound strip, packed in the .blend, with its waveform showing. Press Space: you hear it with your animation, and it is already in your edit and your render.

Music Hits: go to a frame and press Add A Hit Here, or name any timeline marker Hit. Add the music again and it lands on those frames: a two-bar build-up that arrives exactly there, an impact (Impact, Boom or Crash), the music ducking under it, and, with Silence Before The Hit, a breath just before. Hit Level sets how loud; Remove All Hits clears them.

5 - Beat Reactor and Viewport Preview

Nine 0 to 1 curves (kick, snare, hats, perc, bass, chords, lead, everything, beat) are written on the scene. Select objects and press Make Selected React to add a plain driver. They are ordinary F-curves and drivers, so they render anywhere, even without the add-on.

Viewport Preview puts the Studio, a soft-touch groovebox, in the 3D viewport: click pads, scroll on a note to change its pitch, Play, Dice, patterns A to D, live meters. Esc to leave.

6 - Take it out

Export Audio File: WAV, MP3, OGG or FLAC. Export Seamless Loop for game engines: it repeats with no gap and no click and is exactly the musical length. Stems (4 WAV) and MIDI for other music programs. Your own presets, preset packs, and Export Pack With My Voices (.zip) with the recordings and Python voices they use, ready to share or sell. Presets are also valid Rego Beat online projects.

Never lose your work: Export All Settings writes every setting of the scene to one small JSON file (the song, the sounds and the mix, the video and model options, the Reactive Groups, the Timeline Keys and the music hits), and Import All Settings brings it all back in any .blend. Each time you save the .blend, a backup of the same is written to a folder in Blender's user configuration; the last 20 are kept, Open Backups Folder shows them, and the add-on preferences can switch it off.

7 - Music video

One click renders an MP4 (H.264 and AAC) with your music inside. Styles: Neon Wormhole, Neon Bars, Pulse Ring, Lava Spectrum and Studio Pad. Studio Pad is the Studio itself, drawn frame by frame by the same code as the Viewport Preview, in the theme and colours you choose; it is drawn by your graphics card, so make it from Blender's window. Preview Music Video shows it in the viewport before anything is rendered. A logo image or a 3D object can sit in the middle; landscape, vertical and square. Cycles renders use your GPU if it is set in Preferences, and the denoiser. Every model is centred on the visualizer ring by what the camera sees and fits inside it. The Retro Monitor sits on its own feet; Monitor On A Stand brings the stand back. Karaoke (alpha, experimental): turn it on in step 7, New Lyrics, then Tap Timing or Import LRC; the ring moves up with the model to leave room for the words.

Model gallery: eight music devices are built in (Retro Monitor, Boombox, Synth Keyboard, Cassette, Tower Speaker, Vinyl Record, Studio Microphone, Headphones). Music Video With This Model makes the chosen one the hero of a light-style video and plays the preview; Add To My Scene brings it in at the 3D cursor. Screens play the music; bodies, sleeves and labels wear the song, in the video colours or as Ink Sketch (black ink on paper). Your own models can be added from a folder set in the add-on preferences.