Howler.js – JavaScript audio library for the modern web | Hacker News Reader

Howler.js – JavaScript audio library for the modern web

howlerjs.com

257 pointsglassworm18 comments

I had a good experience with Howler.js v1 a few years ago and built a library that joined musical pieces together in semi-random order for a game. The system is still running on eyewire.org today.

I haven't studied v2's differences in depth, but in v1 I made a few customizations to add timers, chained cross fades, smooth muting, and perceptual volume control (i.e. takes into account the logarithmic response of hearing).

https://github.com/seung-lab/howler.js/commit/fe445afd12cc7b...

https://github.com/seung-lab/sonic-shuffle/blob/master/js/So...

https://github.com/seung-lab/sonic-shuffle/blob/master/js/Mu...

Anyways, thanks Howler team, you made one of my projects much easier to do!

EDIT: Removed an inaccuracy, it's been a while since I looked at the code.

Makes working with audio great again: works in just about every browser I've come across, including in the Chromecast. Highly recommend it.

This is also a perfect example of how to showcase your project. Clean, understandable text, plenty of different examples, and a link to sample code.

Doesnt work on IE11 or Edge

edit: maybe its company policy:

new Audio() gives Permission denied

It definitely works on IE11 and Edge. If your computer is blocking the Audio tag then no it won't work in IE11 as there is no Web Audio, but Edge should work unless Web Audio is getting blocked as well.

FYI, if you've built something with howler.js and want to add it to our showcase (https://howlerjs.com/showcase/), simply go to https://github.com/goldfire/howlerjs.com#contributing and open a PR with your site added.

I first knew of this and started using it, after seeing it working in the html5 game https://airma.sh . It's a very nice library!

Fun game!

Been using this in production flawlessly! Big thanks to the maker(s).

Looks really cool, but the spatial audio proved to be underwhelming, even when I stood at a 90 degree angle to the audio source, it still sounded (mostly) in my other ear, and in general didn't match the position I'd expect from the game UI. Am I misunderstanding the point, or are my expectations too high?

The spatial audio demo only works relative to distance, not position. If you stand next to a speaker and spin around, the audio remains the same.

It also confused me, they should probably have done something in 2D instead.

Yeah, I've been meaning to make a better spatial audio demo, I've just been swamped lately. The capabilities of the spatial audio are actually pretty impressive with Web Audio (and thus in howler as well).

I've used Howler on a few sites to make media players for small-time artists' sites. It's pretty neat.

Does anyone know if there have been notable changes since the v2 rewrite[1], or have thoughts on how it compares to alternatives?

[1] https://goldfirestudios.com/blog/143/Howler.js-v2.0-Released

We've been making steady improvements since 2.0 as you can see in the changelog: https://github.com/goldfire/howler.js/releases. Once I get a little more free time, I'm planning on adding and merging in some exciting new plugins and adding some highly requested features for the 2.1 and 2.2 releases (hopefully before the end of the year).

Nice to see this here! It's my go-to library for doing anything generally sound-related on the web, and it seems to work pretty well for most simple use-cases. I haven't had the cause to use it for anything complex though.

This is a neat idea, and could prove useful. I'll be sure to dig in a little.

What about audio recording?

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