SynthJS

Inspiration

We were all interested in the intersection between music and technology, but noticed that many of the tools used to create music with technology were prohibitively expensive. As well as that, they often had clunky, obtrusive interfaces that scared away would be users.

What it does

Our web application provides the user with three programmable oscillators that are able to play using either their keyboard or their mouse. The GUI is intentionally minimalist to facilitate ease of use and no prior knowledge to get started.

How we built it

We used a simple node.js backend and AWS EC2 server to host the web application. The web application is built using a combination of standard ES6 javascript, jQuery, and the built in Web Audio API.

Challenges we ran into

Some challenges we ran into included capturing keyboard input to use as a piano keyboard, creating an interactive keyboard that can interface with the mouse, as well as various difficulties in ensuring high quality audio.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We were able to work effectively as a team, and accomplish what we set out to within the allotted time.

What we learned

We were also able to go from knowing nothing about audio synthesis to building our own synthesizer web app. Along the way we also widened our knowledge of javascript and jquery.

What's next for SynthJS

We want to include the ability to make custom wavetables, and add various effects to the oscillators. These effects would include frequency cutoff filters, equalization, and mono/portamento modes.

Built With

• node.js
• web-audio-api