r/webaudio

I see a lot of web-based audio tools here. They all sound good and look pretty nice.

But they all have the same problem: how do you use them in real life? No one needs to open a tiny app in a browser and pretend to play the piano.

Most desktop music apps support the VST API. You can create a VST plugin from your music app and use it in any DAW to create real music.

The web apps doesn't have public APIs for music plugins. Bandlab and Soundtrap also don't support custom plugins.

My solution:

Soon, I'll publish my own API for custom plugins. I'll release my own sequencer that will support the plugin API.

Anyone interested in a web API for working with audio and plugins?

Feel free to ask any questions or make suggestions.

Hey r/webaudio — following up on the DreamRack post here a few weeks ago. That one was from my other account, u/chrisgr99. Going forward I'll be posting as u/themetameta.

This is a new module rather than a re-introduction. It imports the Strudel package, so Strudel's own superdough voices play alongside voices you patch yourself in the rack. Routing lives in the pattern itself — .rack(1) and .rack(2) send parts out to voice tabs, while parts that name a sound instead of a jack stay inside Strudel and play from its sample engine on the same clock.

Each of the eight note outputs carries a full polyphonic pattern down a single composite cable, every note carrying its own pitch, level, duration, pan and timbre. At the far end a Voice In module unpacks it and gives each note a voice, turning those properties into control voltages. Everything downstream of Voice In is duplicated per sounding note — you draw one oscillator, and as many run as there are notes.

Two things had to land before this could work: tabs, which I'd listed as "coming soon" last time, and per-note polyphony.

Five-minute walkthrough: https://youtu.be/-zu7oc7BWHI

Run it: https://dreamrack.dreamerdevelopment.app/

Source: https://github.com/chrisgr99/DreamRack

Still alpha, and this is the first time it's been in other people's hands — feedback and bug reports welcome.

How to use web audio applications in real life

New Strudel module for DreamRack — one pattern driving both Strudel's own voices and eight polyphonic rack voices