Patent ID: 7599961

Claim:
One or more computer-readable storage media having computer-readable instructions thereon which, when executed by a computer, implement a system comprising: one or more audio sources configured to provide audio samples that are to be rendered by a media player; an audio sample pre-processor communicatively linked with the one or more audio sources and configured to receive and pre-process the audio samples before the samples are rendered, the pre-processing configured to extract frequency data from the audio samples, wherein the audio sample pre-processor comprises a timestamp module that provides a timestamp for each audio sample, each timestamp being maintained by a data structure associated with the audio sample, and wherein the audio sample pre-processor is configured to associate a timestamp with frequency data extracted from one of the audio samples based on a current rendering time of the audio sample and a number of other audio samples in a pipeline scheduled for playing on the media player; an audio rendering object called by the media player to render visualizations corresponding to the audio samples provided by the one or more audio sources, wherein the audio rendering object has an associated target frame rate defining how frequently the visualizations are drawn, redrawn, or painted; one or more effects associated with the audio rendering object, the one or more effects configured to receive the frequency data and use the frequency data to render a visualization of an audio sample that is synchronized with the audio sample that is being rendered by the media player; the data structure configured to hold the extracted frequency data, wherein each audio sample is associated with the data structure; and wherein said audio sample pre-processor comprises a Fast Fourier Transform that it utilizes to process the audio samples to provide the frequency data associated with the audio samples.