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Show HN: The first websynth that's 100% mappable to a MIDI controller

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Re: Show HN: The first websynth that's 100% mappable to a MIDI controller

#11

Post by magnusson »

nutate wrote: post #9
JonnieCache wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MIDI is well past its prime. It places unnecessary limitations on musical expression. I'd like to see browsers (and instruments) adopting Open Sound Control. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Sound_Control

One could argue that it places necessary limitations on musical expression that allowed it to flourish. Defining scales, etc in the protocol left some issues w/ microtonal stuff. The timing protocol is a bit squidgy for beat matching, but if you look at OSC everyone creates their own namespace and instead of one protocol you have a bunch of devices with different mapping conventions. I would say the 0-127 range of co…

Re the 0-127 range, you may be familiar with this, but many devices are capable of sending 14-bit MIDI messages by combining 2 different MIDI CCs, allowing for much finer control. 106.js supports both 7 and 14-bit messages.

Re: Show HN: The first websynth that's 100% mappable to a MIDI controller

#12

Post by BFay »

nutate wrote: post #9
JonnieCache wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MIDI is well past its prime. It places unnecessary limitations on musical expression. I'd like to see browsers (and instruments) adopting Open Sound Control. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Sound_Control

One could argue that it places necessary limitations on musical expression that allowed it to flourish. Defining scales, etc in the protocol left some issues w/ microtonal stuff. The timing protocol is a bit squidgy for beat matching, but if you look at OSC everyone creates their own namespace and instead of one protocol you have a bunch of devices with different mapping conventions. I would say the 0-127 range of co…

I think you really nailed that - OSC is a useful protocol, and it's definitely been used important in computer music (Supercollider for example uses OSC as the protocol for messages from the language to the server).

But the beautiful thing about MIDI is how plug-and-play it is, because of the one standard. You can plug one keyboard into another and boom, you have an instant controller. I can't see that functionality in OSC's future.

0-127 is really limiting though - I've tried using faders where 0 is no volume, and 127 is max volume, and it just doesn't feel like there is enough resolution to fine-tune things.

Re: Show HN: The first websynth that's 100% mappable to a MIDI controller

#13

Post by nutate »

magnusson wrote: post #11
nutate wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One could argue that it places necessary limitations on musical expression that allowed it to flourish. Defining scales, etc in the protocol left some issues w/ microtonal stuff. The timing protocol is a bit squidgy for beat matching, but if you look at OSC everyone creates their own namespace and instead of one protocol you have a bunch of devices with different mapping conventions. I would say the 0-127 range of co…

Re the 0-127 range, you may be familiar with this, but many devices are capable of sending 14-bit MIDI messages by combining 2 different MIDI CCs, allowing for much finer control. 106.js supports both 7 and 14-bit messages.

Wow, looking at that it looks like my old (lost?) Peavey PC-1600 could send 14 bit messages. In the end I think a lot of the problem is also fixable with better interpolation and mapping, but I've definitely ended up sitting in the range I want on a synth mapping, but getting clicks when I touch a knob. Pretty interesting to think 14 bit midi has been around for so long but it hasn't really taken off. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NRPN whenever I go into the midi standard I end up finding neat stuff. These days USB MIDI and bluetooth MIDI have also kept it alive while OSC is still lost in a web of standards all different, great for communicating when one dev is on the send and receive side, but bad for easy interop.

Re: Show HN: The first websynth that's 100% mappable to a MIDI controller

#14

Post by JonnieCache »

nutate wrote: post #9
JonnieCache wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MIDI is well past its prime. It places unnecessary limitations on musical expression. I'd like to see browsers (and instruments) adopting Open Sound Control. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Sound_Control

One could argue that it places necessary limitations on musical expression that allowed it to flourish. Defining scales, etc in the protocol left some issues w/ microtonal stuff. The timing protocol is a bit squidgy for beat matching, but if you look at OSC everyone creates their own namespace and instead of one protocol you have a bunch of devices with different mapping conventions. I would say the 0-127 range of co…

I love how its so simple you can bit bang it, but yeah, 128 values ain't enough. 14 bit midi is a dodgy hack. When you get used to turning knobs on analog gear, using midi to control complex modern digital synths feels barbaric.

(TBF if I think 14 bit midi is a hack then I should really be against OSC)

Re: Show HN: The first websynth that's 100% mappable to a MIDI controller

#15

Post by JonnieCache »

Just had a play with this. Very nice! The real juno lets you turn on both choruses at the same time though :)

(Also I cant seem to get the release to work on the envelope.)

If anyone is interested in an accurate emulation of this classic synth, heres one that sounds largely identical to the real thing and is very reasonably priced: http://kunz.corrupt.ch/products/tal-u-no-lx

Re: Show HN: The first websynth that's 100% mappable to a MIDI controller

#16

Post by magnusson »

JonnieCache wrote: post #15

Just had a play with this. Very nice! The real juno lets you turn on both choruses at the same time though :) (Also I cant seem to get the release to work on the envelope.) If anyone is interested in an accurate emulation of this classic synth, heres one that sounds largely identical to the real thing and is very reasonably priced: http://kunz.corrupt.ch/products/tal-u-no-lx

In Firefox the envelope release is broken, and overall performance seems worse compared to Chrome, for reasons I haven't really bothered to investigate deeply. It mostly works in Safari, but Safari does something different with garbage collection of audio nodes, so the note-stealing behavior doesn't work right.

Basically, use Chrome for now if you want it to play nice. WebMIDI is only supported in Chrome anyhow.

Also, 100% agreed on TAL U-NO-LX, it's one of my favorite plug-ins and the price is great!

Re: Show HN: The first websynth that's 100% mappable to a MIDI controller

#17

Post by Netcob »

Not sure if 1024x768 is a good minimum resolution. I have an 13" ultrabook with a FHD screen, so thanks to the high DPI settings websites think it's 720p (so it won't load for me). Also few screens use 1024x768... 720p is more common, as is 1024x600 for some devices like tablets and netbooks.

Re: Show HN: The first websynth that's 100% mappable to a MIDI controller

#19

Post by magnusson »

AlfaWolph wrote: post #18

I thought Soundtrap [1] was able to accept MIDI input as well. Is the "100%" the distinction here? [1] https://www.soundtrap.com/

There are lots of websynths that respond to MIDI note messages, and I've seen some that respond to CCs as well -- e.g. the midi-synth [1] by Chris Wilson (editor of the WebAudio and WebMIDI specs) -- but in that case, the CC messages are hardcoded to the UI. (It also doesn't support 14-bit messages.)

In 106.js, every UI control is arbitrarily assignable to any MIDI CC message, so you can map it to your device however you like. That's a feature I'm used to ("MIDI learn") from desktop DAWs, but haven't seen in any other websynths yet.

You won't be able to see the UI for this feature at all unless you've got a MIDI controller plugged in, though.

[1] https://github.com/cwilso/midi-synth

Re: Show HN: The first websynth that's 100% mappable to a MIDI controller

#20

Post by padenot »

magnusson wrote: post #16
JonnieCache wrote: post #15

Just had a play with this. Very nice! The real juno lets you turn on both choruses at the same time though :) (Also I cant seem to get the release to work on the envelope.) If anyone is interested in an accurate emulation of this classic synth, heres one that sounds largely identical to the real thing and is very reasonably priced: http://kunz.corrupt.ch/products/tal-u-no-lx

In Firefox the envelope release is broken, and overall performance seems worse compared to Chrome, for reasons I haven't really bothered to investigate deeply. It mostly works in Safari, but Safari does something different with garbage collection of audio nodes, so the note-stealing behavior doesn't work right. Basically, use Chrome for now if you want it to play nice. WebMIDI is only supported in Chrome anyhow. Also…

Yeah we're fixing this as we speak (I work on Web Audio API at Mozilla), it should work fine in Nightly in a couple weeks, worst case.
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