Audio Spectrum and various After effects tools

Using an audio file I created a audio spectrum in after effects, this is basically a shape or line that moves to the frequency of the music. To start we created a blank shape and added a audio spectrum. This creates the purple line below.

You can change various settings to create different bars shapes and colours, just playing with it for 10mins got the below.

Lastly I changed the visualization to plain box at 400×400. By alt clicking the scale you can add the function to make the shape change shape with the frequency.

This could be used well in music videos or anything that has a beat, a recent example is the “Vodka Greyhound” video by Swedish House Mafia. It features the three members dj’ing in an high tech bubble but the effects pulse with the sound. For using in my short I might use an alien scanner or number pulsating with sound.