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Comment by donbrae | Hacker News Reader

Or as the developer you can play some silent audio in the background via an `<audio>` element: https://github.com/donbrae/onscreen-piano-keyboard/blob/main.... This will ensure the Web Audio API produces sound even with the ‘silent’ switch active.

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I hit this on https://ambiph.one - my solution ended up being similar (use an <audio> element) but because I also wanted audio to play in the background and when the screen is off there's an extra step of tricking Safari into thinking it's playing a livestream, since apparently that's the only kind of audio Apple thinks should be allowed to play in the background.

Coincidentally someone asked me about this the other day so I put together a minimal demo here in case it's useful to anyone: https://codepen.io/matteason/pen/VYwdzVV

Interesting, i already do something similar and never had a chance to check if it really works. Here is my code:

var buffer = dm.audio.createBuffer(1, 1, dm.samplerate); var source = dm.audio.createBufferSource();

source.buffer = buffer; source.connect(dm.audio.destination);

if (source.start) { source.start(0); } else { source.noteOn(0); }

I believe you need to use the audio element specifically. The Web Audio API is subject to different restrictions than the audio element. I used a similar approach on Audjust: https://www.audjust.com/blog/unmute-web-audio-on-ios/

(nice site you created btw! I love seeing audio stuff for the web)

Thanks mate! I'll implement your solution:)

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