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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

#41

Post by crucialfelix »

JonnieCache wrote: post #4
magnusson wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha! I dunno, what occurs to me is how cool it is that we can still get so much use out of MIDI, a standard adopted in 1983.

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

The thing about OSC is that its kind of too Open - its really a raw layer that various protocols similar to MIDI could run on top of, but the standard itself only defines how messages and types are structured.

It doesn't specify anything like pitches, tempos, control messages, envelope triggers. (In fact why is it even called "Sound Control" ? There's nothing specific to sound in it.)

It isn't a standard there that let's people just plug things into each other. Each program that uses it has completely different APIs.

I think there needs to be an initiative from developers and manufacturers to make establish standards that run on top of OSC to make it useful.

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

#42

Post by NHQ »

magnusson wrote: post #19
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…

It would be most excellent if you turned that MIDI mapping code into it's own module.

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

#43

Post by magnusson »

NHQ wrote: post #42
magnusson wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It would be most excellent if you turned that MIDI mapping code into it's own module.

Hm, yeah, that would be a cool thing to publish separately. The MIDI mapping code is pretty much isolated to these two objects [1] [2], but I'd have to do a little thinking about how people would want to use it, and separating it from Backbone would take some work.

[1] https://github.com/stevengoldberg/juno106/blob/master/js/vie...

[2] https://github.com/stevengoldberg/juno106/blob/master/js/mod...

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

#45

Post by magnusson »

teh_klev wrote: post #44

Due this and the other web synth Show HN [0] I have lost a couple of hours of my day. Thanks for the fun :) [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9640218

Yes! Tis truly an exciting time to be playing synthesizers on the web!
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