Introducing the Web Audio Editor in Firefox Developer Tools
hacks.mozilla.org
hacks.mozilla.org
The continued envelope-pushing going on at Mozilla with regards to audio in the browser has been great to watch unfold. Part of what made the web browser so interesting to me was that I could easily build things in it using a text editor. I didn't need to buy a compiler or a textbook, because I could look at an interesting website and peek under the hood. It's been a gateway into other more complicated realms of software production for me, and it's exciting to see audio signal processing tools coming into the fold as well.
Sorry but in terms of holding the tempo the browser is still not accurate.Audio Synthesis is only one part of the problem.Flash is bloody accurate in term of sequencing and playing sounds at the right time.The browser is just not.that's why Flash sequencers are possible,but WebAPI ones arent.
As an aside, the drum sounds themselves are generate using the web audio api.
Also, you might want to go a bit easier on history.pushState() :-). I had a heck of a time getting back here.
I'm not even switching tabs.
Doesn't appear to even display in IE11, although to be fair, I just opened my DR-110 up and, while it renders, and most of the buttons are functional, the knobs are not, and no audio plays back.
Playback of beatpetite seems steadier in Chrome, but as I typed that, I got an audio hiccup. The visuals are noticeably jerky. Again comparing to my DR-110, it's pretty clear I'm using a different approach to the audio playback because I'm getting seriously weird glitches on my playback. And the CSS buttons don't quite line up on mine in Chrome the way it does in the other two browsers.
I wouldn't spend too much time chasing a solid tempo down. That's essentially out of your control.
Yeah, I think Firefox isn't quite up to the job yet. But I think Chrome's performance is indicative that it is possible.
I'm using the technique described in this article, but with a web worker, meaning that the clock doesn't stop when changing tabs.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2268276/what-are-the-key-...
With Web Audio, you can't ask for mic permissions without listening indefinitely, using up battery. You can't process audio offline with the exact same API, you have to send a 0 gain signal to the speakers and do it slowly, real-time. Want complex-valued FFTs for adaptive frequency domain filters? Sorry, all you get is a toy magnitude spectrum with shitty exponential smoothing. This isn't envelope pushing in the slightest, and I don't understand why people are impressed by this. Except of course that web developers are easily amused.
In all this HTML5 malarkey, WebGL is the only API that managed to avoid "not invented here" syndrome, and even that is years behind what is considered normal on mobile, with essential extensions still waiting for approval.
Are we supposed to be impressed by the audio capabilities of 15-20 years ago simply because now you get to do them in single-threaded JavaScript, with annoying black box async APIs, shitty number types and no serious high resolution timing control? Go build a web audio API based audio player with real-time effects that can play skip-free for hours on a busy mobile device. Then I'll be impressed.
If you're coming from the angle of an Ableton user waving that kind of attitude around, why on earth would you even bring up Garageband, the novelty of which was solely in that it was baked into the operating system. It otherwise was far behind the capabilities of any number of DAWs you, I, or any number of folks here could list.
If you want envelope-pushing audio generation and processing, obviously that's not going to happen in a contemporary web browser. However, reducing developmental roadbloacks so that curious people can more easily dip their toes into the realm of audio DSP is always a wonderful development.
My own personal path went from Screamtracker (free) to Impulse Tracker (free) to Rebirth (affordable) to hardware synthesizers to drums, guitars, amplifiers, modifying analog drum machines, microphones... If it weren't for the taste that I got from an inexpensive gateway (Screamtracker) I wouldn't have plonked down for a cutting-edge Dave Smith Instruments Tempest a couple of years ago. Learning how to do things like flanging, chorus, and delays in the limited environment of mid-90s tracker software helped lay a foundation of understanding for the tools I came to use in the future. I do not still use Screamtracker when I'm recording music, but I continue to build upon what I learned because of Screamtracker.
If you're not impressed by this development because you want to push envelopes, please go back to the music you're making in Ableton and Garageband, which I'm sure is incredible.
Sandboxes are cute, but they are a shitty choice to build the platform of the future on.
I just don't understand why people ignore this elephant in the room.
However, maybe the kid who's poking around with it on his computer today will be the one who expands on what they learn in that sandbox, and years down the road, sends you a resume that in addition to the typical work/school history, has the kind of exploration-driven side-projects on it that differentiate that resume from the rest of them.
It never had a proprietary API, their proposal for WebAudio just lost out to the Chrome proposal and the latter was standardized.