Issue 72: Best of 2016

Here is a collection of my favourite Web Audio and Web MIDI projects, tutorials and libraries from 2016.

Applications

Chrome Music Lab: A collection of playful explorations of music theory designed for children.
Polyrhythm: I loved this interactive exploration of polyrythmic rhythms. Mesmerising but also educational.
Circuit Components from Novation: Novation were one of the major music technology manufacturers to embrace Web MIDI this year with Circuit Components, their web-based tool to enhance their Circuit synthesiser.
Gregorian Voices: Stéphane Pigeon has built some beautiful background noise generators this year, perfect for relaxing or drowning out the sounds of a noisy office. I loved this Gregorian Chant generator.
scribble.audio: Kyle Stetz blends innovative audio ideas with beautiful interfaces, such as in Scribble, his keyboard-cum-sketchpad.
loopjs: Loop Drop is a stand-alone music making application from Matt McKegg built with Web Audio and Electron. Matt has performed at numerous conferences and festivals this year using this software.
Djenerator: A metal breakdown generator: algorithmic composition meets heavy metal in this seriously-impressive mashup.
Music Eclipticalis By Brian Foo: Generate music from star maps in the style of John Cage’s Atlas Eclipticalis.

Canopy: Google Web Audio developer Hongchan Choi’s Canopy tool is my go-to for debugging, evaluating and playing with Web Audio code.
Omnitone: Spatial audio on the web: The growing interest in VR on the web requires powerful tools for spatial audio. Omnitone delivers these in the form of a library for binaural sound.

JavaScript Systems Music: Learning Web Audio by Recreating The Works of Steve Reich and Brian Eno: A wonderful article from Tero Parviainen on recreating the sounds and composition techniques of Steve Reich and Brian Eno using Web Audio.
Avoiding Clicks: Probably the most frequently asked technical question I encounter is “how do I avoid clicks and popping sounds when working with Web Audio”. This article tells you all you need to know.
Beat Detection Using JavaScript and the Web Audio API: A practical and well-written tutorial from Joe Sullivan that takes you beyond the basics of Web Audio by showing you how to detect beats in music.
Clapping Music, featuring Soledad Penadés: This in-depth tutorial from Peer to Peer screencasts featuring Mozilla’s Soledad Penadés is a great introduction to the Web Audio API.

Paul Adenot: Elements of Dance Music: A virtuoso talk from Paul Adenot, lead developer of the Web Audio implementation at Mozilla. Paul builds a techno song from scratch, in real time, using the Web Audio API.
Tools For Thought: A wonderful animated explanation of mathematical transformations, including the Fourier Transform, visualised and turned into sound using WebGL and Web Audio.
Unexpected Musical Instruments: Attending SudWeb was one of my highlights of the year. I had a great time and gave this talk on scratching, circuit bending, computer music and the Web Audio API.