Re: Thoughts and questions on the API from a modular synth point of view

A couple of responses inline.  Chris Rogers will probably want to comment
on some of these, but he's on vacation right now.

On Sat, Jul 14, 2012 at 8:50 PM, Peter van der Noord
<peterdunord@gmail.com>wrote:

> I'm currently working on a graphical interface for the Web Audio API,
> allowing the user to easily create graphs (and easily save/load them). I've
> made a modular synthesizer in Flash (www.patchwork-synth.com) before this
> and it seemed like a challenging idea to do this in js.
>
> I have some questions and thoughts about the draft i read on w3.
>
> - Is it possible to check if an AudioParam runs at a-rate or k-rate?
>

I presume you mean "live", i.e. a programming test.  No - but they are
detailed that way in the spec.


> - Is it possible to check how many channels a certain output has? It seems
> that a signal can have any amount of channels, is there a way to find how
> many a certain output generates?
>

Connect an AudioSplitterNode and see how many outputs it gets assigned.  Do
you have a scenario where this is interesting?


> - Can the number of inputs/outputs on a ChannelMixer/ChannelMerger be
> changed on the fly?
>

No.


> - Is this the final design for how disconnecting will work? It seems a bit
> impractical to only be able to disconnect a whole output. When it has
> multiple connections, they are all gone (i assume that's how it works)
>

There's another thread about this; I'll respond on that thread.


> - Will it be possible in the future to retrieve the full graph from the
> audiocontext? It looks like it doesnt give any info on it.
>

Keeping in mind that parts of the graph may be conveniently
garbage-collected, I'm not sure it would be a good idea to do this naively.
 Did you have a particular scenario in mind?


> - Doesn't the oscillator have the option to play from a buffer? It seems
> to have a wavetable, but i have no idea what that is (contains IFFR data?).
>

No.  Oscillator is specifically for

Note there are two usages of the term "Wavetable".  One of them - the one
referenced by the current Web Audio specification - is wavetable synthesis (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wavetable_synthesis) - an additive synthesis
technique that lets you specify coefficients on a (potentially large)
number of harmonic overtones to a fundamental frequency and waveform.  Said
a little differently:  you specify how much of each overtone in Fourier
series gets mixed together to create the single cycle waveform.

Unfortunately, this term got confused with a single-cycle-table-lookup
sample playback in the early nineties.  Although wavetable synthesis will
frequently pre-compute the waveform from the harmonic series coefficients
and play back a looped single cycle sample, that's not the point.

If you want to have an oscillator that plays from a buffer, a la a
single-cycle sample playback engine, it's quite easy - just create a
buffer, put a single cycle in it, and use an AudioBufferSourceNode to loop
that cycle.

- Is there a way to retrieve the params of a module?
> - is there a way to retrieve more info about an audioparam? (name,
> description)
> - It looks like the JavaScriptAudioNode has an unchangable number of
> inputs and output. This freaks me out :) Is it going to stay this way?
> - The ability to create ramps on an audioParam seems nice, but i have the
> feeling it's in the wrong place. Wouldn't that ability be better suited in
> a separate module, and triggerable by a GATE_ON signal  (a concept idea i
> describe below). Give it a curve type setting (LIN, EXP), audioparams for
> the time, and you'd be able to control nodes/params in a much more flexible
> way.
> - Can't i add Audioparams on a javascript audio node?
>

I'll leave these questions for someone else.


> - Can't i pause/resume the whole system?
>

No.  Also see other thread in a couple minutes, when I respond there.  :)


> And a final thing: would it be an idea to replace the calling of certain
> methods on certain audioobjects with a few logic-based signal
> interpretations? For instance, let's say a signal that:
> - crosses though 0 from negative to positive is called GATE_ON
> - a signal that goes through 0 from pos to neg is called GATE_OFF
> - a signal >0 is GATE_HIGH
> - a signal <=0 is GATE_LOW
>
> This way, you can have audioparameters that respond to those
> states/events. For example:
> - the AudioBufferSourceNode can have a 'control' parameter that starts the
> signal whenever it gets a GATE_ON, instead of a noteOn() command.
> - the oscillator can play if it gets a GATE_HIGH, instead of (again) the
> noteOn() command.
> - you can start envelopes on GATE_HIGH evens
>
> This gives you *a lot* more flexibility and fun towards triggering certain
> actions, and allows you to create nice sequencers. I really don't see how
> to implement the calling of methods to start something into a
> continuous-signal based graph.
>

Can you detail for me why you'd be more interested in driving such gates
from an a-rate or k-rate style parameter?  I can understand what you're
asking for and how it would work, I'm just trying to think of when I'd want
to do it that way.

-C