The Visualizer feature in iTunes is pretty cool because it displays a real time animated visualization of the songs you play. If you want to do more than just watch the visualizer, however, you are in luck. Apple tucked away controls that let you bend those dancing lights to your will.

Before you can control the iTunes visualizer, you need to activate it. There are two ways to do that: While in iTunes, you can choose View > Turn On Visualizer, or use the Command-T keyboard short cut.

The iTunes Visualizer

Once the visualizer is active and hopping to your music, tap the ? key to bring up the visualizer controls. Tapping the ? key again when you are using the default iTunes visualizer will toggle between the basic and visualizer configuration settings. These on-screen displays show which keys to use when changing visualizer settings.

iTunes Visualizer Custom Settings Options

Here’s how to customize your visualizer settings:

• While the iTunes Visualizer is running, tap M until you see Freezing current config.
• Now use the W, S, and X keys to change the wave form, visual effect, and colors, respectively. It usually takes a few seconds to see a change when modifying a setting.

Each setting includes a long list of named effects, so there are thousands of possible combinations to try out. Once you find a combination you like, save it as a preset by typing Shift-x where x is a number between 1 and 9. Since you can save up to nine different settings combinations, you can create special effects for different types of music, events, or moods. Just type the number of a setting to recall it.

Displaying Custom Visualizer Settings

You can switch back to the standard random mode by tapping the M key until you see Random slideshow mode.

Visualizer custom settings aren’t new to iTunes 7, so Mac and PC users with older versions of iTunes can take advantage of this feature, too.