Recreating the sound of night vision googles

The popular video game Splinter Cell allows the player to wear a pair of night vision goggles. When they power up they make a distinctive sound. In this article Ed Ball recreates the sound using the Web Audio API. What’s interesting about this is not the recreation of the sound itself per-se, but rather the approach Ed takes to first analysing the sound to recreate in the frequency and time-domain and then showing how to use that analysis to inform the Web Audio code you need to write. This technique, known as resynthesis has many useful applications.

Sampulator

The sampulator is a sample-based instrument with a loop sequencer - ideal for making short grooves and beats. It comes pre-loaded with a sample pack and features several pre-made tunes to give you inspiration. An interesting innovation is the shop where you can purchase new samples.

Elements of Dance Music

Paul Adenot is the lead developer of the Web Audio API in Firefox. He’s also a talented computer musician. In this video from JSConf.Asia 2015 he combines the two talents to make a techno track from scratch using the synthesis capabilities of the Web Audio API. Paul concentrates on the timbre of the music rather than the melody or rhythm in the talk - which means a lot of synthesis techniques, filtering and effects. There’s a lot to learn from this video and the code on github.

Creating Virtual MIDI Ports On OSX for Web MIDI

If you a keen to play with the Web MIDI API, or want to try out some Web MIDI-powered applications but don’t have access to a MIDI controller, this article shows you how to use virtual MIDI ports and devices on OSX. You’ll end up with a virtual on-screen “keyboard” that emits the correct MIDI messages.

Audio glitches with a terminal

If you’re looking for some weird and wonderful sounds, look no further than the innards of your own laptop. Using some command-line utilities you can generate noises from the contents of databases and log files, or from the chatter on your local network.