Inputs
Bring the outside world into your graph — controllers, video, sensors, networks, and people.
DNA can listen to live signals from hardware and other apps and feed them straight into your nodes. Each source is just a node you drop in. While any live input is present, your graph cooks every frame so it stays responsive in real time.
Most control sources (knobs, faders, network messages) don't have to be wired by hand — you can map them onto any pinned parameter through the The parameter bridge. Richer sources like video and tracking flow out of their node as data you can connect anywhere.
When you delete the last node using a given device, DNA releases it automatically — your webcam light turns off, the lighting socket closes. Add a node, it reconnects.
Control & messaging
These carry numbers, notes, and messages. Pair them with the The parameter bridge to drive parameters.
MIDI — hardware controllers, keyboards, and instruments. Notes, CC knobs, clock. input.midi
OSC — network control between apps and devices over your local network. input.osc
DMX / Art-Net / sACN — stage and architectural lighting control. input.dmx
Serial — talk to microcontrollers and custom hardware over USB/serial.
WebSocket — two-way messaging with web pages and services.
MQTT — lightweight messaging for IoT and sensor networks.
Ableton Link — share tempo and beat phase with Ableton Live and Link-enabled apps. See Tempo sync.
Serial, WebSocket, MQTT and Link are control transports — connect them through the The parameter bridge or read their values with an Expression.
Video & screen
Live picture coming in as raster you can composite, warp, or sample.
Camera — webcams and capture cards. input.camera
Network Camera — IP cameras and RTSP streams.
Screen Capture — grab a window or display (macOS).
Syphon — share GPU textures with other macOS apps, no copy to disk.
NDI — video-over-IP across the network. input.ndi
Browser Source — render a live web page (including generative web sketches) and read it back as an image.
Video sources arrive as raster, which means you can run them through any image or compositing node, or sample them as a Field to drive other effects.
People & devices
Direct human input and body tracking.
Gamepad — joysticks and game controllers. input.gamepad
Keyboard — key press and release state.
Pointer — mouse and trackpad position.
Pose Detect — full-body tracking with 133 keypoints (body, hands, face, feet), output as a Collection you can scatter or drive geometry with.
Vision Pose / Vision Segment — on-device body pose and person cut-out (macOS). See Vision & ML.
Audio
Audio Input — microphone or audio interface in. Pair with Audio Analysis for level, spectrum, and beat data to drive visuals. See Numbers, signals & audio.
The Web Player has no audio output and no native live device I/O. Build and test live setups in the desktop app.
How it reaches your graph
An external source feeds a small background service, which DNA polls only when a matching input node is present. Control values can be mapped onto parameters through the The parameter bridge; everything else comes out of the node as data — video as raster, tracking as a Collection, signals as numbers — ready to wire downstream.