Re: Making Web Audio APIs More Competitive with native

Chris,

Thank you for the quick and thoughtful response.  At a lunchtime discussion 
at the recent W3C plenary, I was led to believe that on current course and 
speed the Web APIs would likely not have the low-latency >2 channel 
capabilities I suggested.  I'm delighted to hear from your note that they 
probably will.

As I tried to say in my first note, I claim no expertise in the low-level 
details of any of these APIs.  So, I'll respectfully decline your request that:

 > it would be helpful to have some concrete suggestions for improving the
 > API.

on the grounds that I'm not specifically aware of any shortcomings, and 
don't necessarily have the expertise to suggest improvements even if there 
were problems.  I just want to know that you all are aiming for function 
competitive with native, and it seems you are.

I don't know whether any future standardization activities relating to 
these APIs will go through a formal requirements setting process, but if 
so, I do recommend that the multi-channel DAW use case be considered.

Thank you again.

Noah


On 12/8/2010 1:37 PM, Chris Rogers wrote:
>   Hi Noah, thanks for your input.
>
> On Wed, Dec 8, 2010 at 8:13 AM, Noah Mendelsohn <nrm@arcanedomain.com
> <mailto:nrm@arcanedomain.com>> wrote:
>
>     Doug Schepers noticed some comments I had made on another list, and
>     encouraged me to post them here.
>
>     Basically, I'd like to suggest that a goal be set of making Web Audio
>     APIs comparable in capability with OS-native APIs such as Core Audio
>     [1], ASIO [2], or maybe Direct Sound [3].
>
>
> I'm very familiar with these APIs.  I worked at Apple for seven years and,
> with my team-mates, was very involved in the design and implementation of
> the Core Audio (and related) APIs.  You may find a similarity between the
> web audio API I'm proposing and the Audio Units architecture which is used
> as the audio plugin model for Mac OS X.  Audio Units are used in many
> third-party desktop audio applications.
>
>
>     Stated differently, I think a goal should be to enable the creation of
>     DAW software, if not quite at the Pro Tools [4] level, then at least as
>     capable and robust as REAPER [5], using Web client technologies.
>       Similarly, it should be possible to implement audio mixing
>     applications to control live performance with professional quality.
>
>     I am not deeply expert in the details of any of the native APIs used
>     for such DAWs, but even as a novice, I can see certain technical
>     characteristics that should be enabled:
>
>     * In the case where a multichannel digital audio interface such as MOTU
>     [6]. M-Audio [7], Presonus [8], etc. is available, then Javascript
>     should be able to get at all the streams.
>
>
> There is nothing about the web audio API which would prohibit this.
>
>
>     * It should be possible to get at the full resolution that the device
>     supports (e.g. 24 bit 192Khz 16 track sampling)
>
>
> The web audio engine uses 32bit floating-point data for internal processing
> just as many pro desktop audio applications do.  These streams are
> available for processing in JavaScript, again at 32bit float resolution.
>
>
>     * Simultaneous recording from some channels while driving playback on
>     others.
>
>
> I haven't added audio input (for recording) into the specification yet, but
> as I've already responded in a previous email, the API is designed to be
> extendible to support this.
>
> * Low latency is essential: it should be possible to sync all record and
> playback streams with very little time skew.
>
> Achieving the lowest possible latency has been a top priority in the system
> I'm proposing and I have a section in my specification where I discuss it:
> http://chromium.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/samples/audio/specification/specification.html#Performance-section
>
>
>
> There may be other features needed.  My point is that the capabilities
> described above are widely available with commodity hardware and audio
> software on laptop-grade personal computers.  If the Web doesn't have the
> same capabilities, then it will be a 2nd class platform for audio
> applications.  The demos I've seen of early implementations of Web audio
> APIS are very cool, but they seem to target a much simpler use case, I.e.
> of filtering or imaging simple stereo streams as they are played by the
> browser.  Those don't seem to me to be sufficiently demanding if the Web is
> to be appropriately competitive with OS-native capabilities.
>
>     The demos I've created were intended to be simple to illustrate the
> basic concepts of the API.  Keep in mind that most of my time has
>     been spent implementing the engine itself, so I haven't had time to
> create more elaborate demos.
>
>
>
> I do understand that the use of a language like Javascript may, at a given
> point in time and on a particular platform, limit the performance that can
> be achieved.  Still, my intuition is that modern systems are fast enough to
> build a respectable DAW using Web technologies, and in any case the APIs
> should be designed from the start to scale to such applications.
>
> Noah, I would be interested in specific aspects of the API which you feel
> limit the possibility of creating such applications.
> I've created a complete specification:
> http://chromium.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/samples/audio/specification/specification.html
>
> And it would be helpful to have some concrete suggestions for improving the
> API.
>
> Best Regards,
> Chris
>

Received on Thursday, 9 December 2010 02:52:41 UTC