Systems Music

This blog post from Tero Parviainen is one of my favourite posts about the Web Audio API. In it Tero recreates three classic pieces of Generative Music from Steve Reich (“It’s gonna rain”) and Brian Eno (“Discreet Music” and “Ambient 1: Music for Airports”). Calling it a blog post is a bit of an injustice as the code and systems that generate the music are embedded right next to the text itself. Tero also does a fantastic job of explaining some fundamental concepts to working with the API too - including sequencing, sampling and constructing node graphs, so there’s something in there for everyone. I highly recommend taking the time to read and play with this post.

Make Dope Beats with ReactJS

In this tutorial Ken Wheeler shows you how to combine Web Audio and the ReactJS framework to make a classic drum machine. I’m not very familiar with the framework but the concept of linking UI elements to the underlying audio graph in a declarative way seems to be a really good fit for audio applications.

Learn Web Audio from the Ground Up

If you enjoyed Tero Parviainen’s Systems Music tutorial but found it a little advanced try Tero’s introductory blog post series “Learn Web Audio from the Ground Up”. The first 4 parts cover an introduction to the API, and the basics of creating sound by changing its pitch and volume.

Work begins on AudioWorklet implementation in Chrome

The specification of the AudioWorklet, the node type that will allow custom javascript code to be used to process audio in a way that is much more performant than the deprected ScriptProcessor node, is nearing agreement. The Google Chrome team have announced their intention to implement and while this addition to the API is a way away from production, you can get a feel for its capabilities by reading some of the example code.

Bring the Beat Remixer

Caribbean telecoms company Digicel’s summer campaign involves an exclusive Machel Montano track “Bring the Beat” and a web-audio powered remix tool that lets you create and share your own mix of the song.