Building PULSE: What I Learned Co-Creating an App with AI

PULSE started as a frustration. I'd been at too many live music events where the visuals were an afterthought: looping animations, generic waveforms, stock footage that had nothing to do with the music being played. I wanted something that actually listened.

So I built it, collaboratively with AI, and the process taught me more about human-AI creative partnership than any think piece I've read on the subject.

What PULSE Does

PULSE is a web-based, audio-reactive VJ visualiser. It connects to live audio inputs, uploaded tracks, or DJ mixers and generates dynamic 3D scenes that respond to rhythm, frequency, and energy in real time. It has multiple visual scenes, MIDI controller support, an Auto VJ mode, and built-in recording. The PULSE case study covers what it does on stage rather than how it was made.

The goal was to make professional-looking live visuals accessible to performers who don't have a dedicated VJ or complex software setup. You run it in a browser, connect your audio and go.

The Collaboration Process

The phrase "built collaboratively with AI" gets thrown around a lot without specifics, so this is what it meant in practice.

I came in with the concept, the creative vision, and the decisions about what mattered. The AI, across multiple tools and models, contributed code scaffolding, debugging, documentation, and the ability to iterate 10x faster than I could have alone.

What I did:

• Defined the experience and what "good" felt like
• Made every significant architectural and UX decision
• Tested every iteration against real music
• Directed the visual aesthetic and scene design
• Knew when to reject AI suggestions and when to run with them

What the AI did:

• Generated WebGL shader code I would have spent days writing manually
• Debugged audio-processing logic faster than I could trace it
• Suggested structural patterns I hadn't considered
• Produced documentation so I could hand off cleanly

"Not AI doing the work. AI amplifying what you already know how to do."

The Bigger Lesson

The biggest surprise was how much my own taste and judgement, more than the AI's capability, determined the quality of the output.

When I had a clear vision of what I wanted, the AI got me there faster. When I was fuzzy on what I wanted, the AI produced technically correct outputs that felt wrong, every time.

AI accelerates your creative judgement, for better or worse. If your taste is strong, you'll build better things faster. If your taste is vague, you'll produce vague things faster.

PULSE works because I knew exactly what I wanted it to feel like, and the AI helped me get there.

If you're a DJ, performer, or creative technologist who wants to try PULSE, or you want to talk about building something similar, get in touch.