Make your MacBook Pro Keyboard Lights Dance to Music!

Oct 15, 2009 - 56 Comments

macbook keyboard lights

Have you ever wanted to make your MacBook or MacBook Pro’s keyboard lights dance to the music you are listening to? Has the thought never crossed your mind? Well me neither, but once I saw someone using this iTunes plugin on their MacBook Pro I was instantly hooked on the novelty. iSpazz is the name of the iTunes Visualizer Plugin and it works exactly as advertised, the keyboard lights will flash in sync to the music you’re listening to! It also has a feature to allow the screen’s backlight to flash too, but that just about sent me into a seizure like a bad Japanese cartoon so I’ll opt just for the keyboard lights. File this one under the ‘cool useless eye candy’ category!

Download the iSpazz iTunes plugin and drop it in ~/Library/iTunes/iTunes Plug-ins/ and from there you can select it as a visualizer option within iTunes.

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Posted by: Bill Ellis in Fun, iTunes, Mac OS

56 Comments

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  1. Kayla says:

    What if you don’t have an iTunes folder in Library?

  2. John says:

    I Cant find the iTunes Plug in folder!!! Where can i find it?

  3. Sean Patrick says:

    Would be great if it worked. But it doesn’t. So it’s essentially wasted time and space. Bunk.

  4. Frank says:

    keeps telling me to Open in 32-bit mode… help

  5. Spencer says:

    I KNOW THAT THIS IS LIKE REALLY LATE but it’s not an option in my visualizer, even if I run it in 32 bit (which it told me to)
    what do I do?

  6. vanessa says:

    so i still don’t know how to work it . could someone explain the steps to me please if you guys don’t mind ? :)

  7. yoyo says:

    finder–library–itunes–iTunes Plug-ins
    but it dosen’t work in new macbook pro 2012:(

  8. Siang says:

    Hey, i cant find the Library at my finder is it still working for mac book pro 10.7.2? please help

  9. Alex says:

    How do you open that file? I searched “iTunes” in my finder and drop the bundle in the iTunes folder. I don’t know where to find the plug-in folder, so did I do it correctly?

  10. Devin says:

    Hey could anyone tell me if this still works? I have a macbook pro 15 inch that i bought in august 2011

  11. filan says:

    i did what u guys said. but its still working. whatever i open the iTunes. its kept asking me to change 32 bit on iTunes. i did and later on i saw some visualizer. but i didn’t see backlight visualizer. anyone help please… really want to try it…
    its look awesome..

  12. Mitch says:

    I have done everything like said, im on lion.
    Johnathan, can you assist me?
    my itunes is normal, i unzipped and pasted it in but the option doesnt come up in Itunes?

  13. k738 says:

    i can’t find any folder names iTunes plugins

  14. Jonathan says:

    Hey – just thought I’d add my bit…

    I’m a total noob to mac, and I’m on Lion.

    I had to navigate to the library by ‘go to folder’ but dropped it in fine.

    iTunes launched with the error ‘unable to launch in 64bit mode – please run iTunes in 32bit mode’.

    It’s working fine now :)

    Thanks!!!

    • Tomato says:

      how to change that?
      form 64bit to 32bit?
      I have this problem too.. but i can’t find where to change that bit :(

    • Cole says:

      I need a little help.. I have a MBP Retina 15″ and I was able to place the bundle in the plug in folder and everything. I also changed it to 32bit but it still isnt showing up in the visualizers menu. Ive tried quitting out of itunes and starting it back up along with having the bundle open with itunes and nothing seems to get it to pop up. Do I just have to live with the fact that my Macbook cant do this? Please help!!

      Thanks!

  15. Rick Maahea says:

    from what I’m gathering, something with the 6.2 MBPs, or snow leopard, or iTunes 10+, or a combination of two or all three is stopping this plug-in from working. I’m not an idiot when it comes to mac, and I’ve installed a few other plug-ins since i first tried ispazz, and it seems to me that it is the only one thats having any trouble. I of course installed it correctly, and it just isnt happening. I’m beginning to suspect leaving it in the zip folder would be just as effective as extracting. I do wonder about possibly placing it into a .DMG…i doubt it would do anything…but i guess it wouldn’t hurt to try.

  16. Joe says:

    Honestly i’ve followed these set my set instructions and its still not working. Can someone please explain step-by-step instructions but I would love to see my wonderful MacBook Pro keyboard light up with my itunes.

    • Nick says:

      While playing your iTunes song, got to view then select Visualizer with the drop-down arrow and click backlight visualizer. Navigate to Show Visualizer and click on that.

  17. […] I’m totally taking the credit if we get glowing keyboards back on the Air. stLight.options({ […]

  18. Hi says:

    I need help. I installed it and put it into the folder ‘itunes plugin’ which you asked me to but it doesnt work.
    And my MBP “15-inch” was just bought 4months ago off the official shelves?

    And all the visualizer did was let my backlights light up. No dancing no nothing, its like I might as well just on my backlights when im playing music. :(

  19. yapo says:

    got macbook pro, works perfectly, one of the best plugins ever!!!!

  20. amy says:

    does this work for a macbook? (i have a white one) not the pro just a mac book. does it work for this macbook to?

  21. […] is brought to you by the same developer that made the iTunes plugin that allows your MacBook Pro keyboard lights to dance to music, which is another fun Mac novelty to play around […]

  22. rob says:

    There is no way to “wear out” the “bulb” in your keyboard, because the backlighting is LED, not lightbulbs. They don’t last forever, but they last many (15 or so) years, and die as a result of age, not use.

  23. Djtim546 says:

    This sucks to be honest not that cool

  24. […] I have the 13 inch macbook pro and just got the plug in that lights up your keyboard in sync with your music in itunes. I heard a rumor this wears out your bulb in the keyboard. is this true? here is where i got it from Make your MacBook Pro Keyboard Lights Dance to Music! – OS X Daily […]

  25. xotelo says:

    great , i restore it thnx so much.
    so, any MBP 13″ user with the same problem?

  26. dilbert says:

    you can reset your smc if your keyboard lights stop working and it resets the functionality

    it sounds like you just turned them off though, go to the keyboard control panel

  27. xotelo says:

    in fact a just found that maybe this thing already shut down or messed up my keyboard

    NOW IT DOES NOT ILUMINATE AT ALL!

    any help please.

  28. xotelo says:

    i found that it only desactivates my keyboard lights when shutting itunes down.

    please some help this thing seems so cool to just give up on installing it

    thanx!

  29. xotelo says:

    i got a mac book pro 13 ” aluminum unibody, and well IT DOES NOT work.

    i tried droping it but it does no work.
    any ideas?

    any aditional configurations on keyboard settings?

    is there any acces to some kindof menu of this plug in?where can i access it?

  30. Christian says:

    Is there anyway to have just a regular visulizer play along with the dancing keyboard???

  31. Anne Nonymouse says:

    It works on a G4 PowerBook, too.
    PowerPC chips ro0l!

  32. Chromeo says:

    Alex, ~/Library is just the Library directory in your home folder, the ~ is just a way to say your home directory, which is the default Finder window in Mac

  33. Alex says:

    Im brand new on a mac so how do you get to ~/Library/iTunes/iTunes Plug-ins/ in snow leopard?

  34. killme says:

    i have a macbook alluminum and it works perfect for both screen and keyboard. so it DOES WORK for mb & mbp

  35. […] клавиатуры, Ñто не ÐµÐ³Ð¾ проблемы. Ðо, еÑли Ñудить по комментариÑм, плагин работает корректно. Ð’ общем, была Ð±Ñ‹ у Ð¼ÐµÐ½Ñ […]

  36. tech4eleven says:

    ya pretty much useless. but rather cool that it CAN be done.

  37. gilly says:

    BTW – didn’t think it would work, but you wrote ‘MacBook’ so I thought it didn’t hurt to check. Not working on mine. The option in the pulldown is there, but nothing happens on select. Methinks there is no backlight on MacBook’s only MacBook Pro’s.

    • DAMO says:

      If your computer had a back lit keyboard you would know, plus not being rude or anything put a macbook is basically your pov pack version of a mac its your everyday computer not designed for handling intensive programs

  38. j says:

    @cs, did you unzip it first? you need to move the .bundle file that is within the zip file into your plugins directory

  39. cs says:

    Honestly, I’m lost. I’ve downloaded the plugin and added it to the whole library thing, but it’s not an option in my visualizer. =S

  40. DogsRULE says:

    my lights are dancing this is awesome it’s like a PARTY IN MY MAC

    • vanessa says:

      omg i knw this is a super late reply, but how did you get it to work ?

    • michael says:

      Hi, i tried installing iSpazz however it seems that my iTunes wont work with it as i have a 64bit Macbook Pro 2012, when i run iTunes in 32Bit mode the program doesn’t start. Is there a 64bit version or another way of installing it? Thanks for your help. mx

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