5 ms·

Hi, I work at Mozilla doing audio programming for Firefox, I see in your about page that you have issues with the Web Audio API, ping me (same nick a bit everyw

Hi, I work at Mozilla doing audio programming for Firefox, I see in your about page that you have issues with the Web Audio API, ping me (same nick a bit everywhere on the web, and also @mozilla.com) and we'll answer any question or fix any issue you have. Lots of things have happened in the audio space on the web since 2018! In particular, low latency (like native roundtrip latencies, so <10ms easy, but depending on the OS) no-jitter/real-real-time audio programming is now something that developers can do. Lock-free/wait-free programming and SIMD are coming in the next weeks/months. Very cool project in any case, I'll use it when I need to quickly do very high zoom on wave forms to debug things for Firefox.

kiviuq 6y ago
When can have we web midi (and no not sysex ;) Sooooo?
- jacquesm 6y ago
  Seconded, web midi is a big showstopper for Mozilla and should have more priority than the various bells and whistles that Mozilla does seem to prioritize but that ultimately are not part of a browser. Not being able to use Midi from FireFox means that for a whole raft of possible applications Chrome is the only option, which is a real pity. Please, please, pretty please, give web midi a higher priority.
  - TremendousJudge 6y ago
    Curious, what applications need web midi?
    - jacquesm 6y ago
      Just one example: https://sightreading.training/ https://sightreading.training/
      - TremendousJudge 6y ago
        wow that's a pretty cool app
    - Uninen 6y ago
      Most music-related applications wanting to offer generic hardware support and hackability. Midi is an amazing standard. It allows you to hook up a synthesizer from the early 80s to your 2020 laptop (via a midi-capable audio interface) and control almost anything in your modern DAW (Digital Audio Workstation). And if your Web browser has support for it, control a software synth or any application as well. In addition to just musical instruments, a huge number of different hardware still use midi. I'm personally interested in DJ-world where things like DJ- and light-controllers use midi and therefore are very easily remappable and very hackable (if the sw is built correctly). I've wanted to build some DJ-related sw myself that would work via browser but the fact that currently only Chrome supports the standard has so far kept me off it. I'd very much like to see Firefox supporting Web midi.
      - TremendousJudge 6y ago
        Right, I understand what MIDI is for, but usually music software has these real-time requirements on performance and the browser runs javascript, so... What are the applications for web midi? People aren't mixing their music on the browser nowadays, right?
        dharma1 6y ago
        You could have a whole DAW in the browser. There are already some web based synths
        robbrown451 6y ago
        I haven't seen significant problems from javascript being too slow on things that use web MIDI. Here is a web based "piano karaoke" app that runs quite well in browsers that support MIDI (and since it syncs with YouTube videos, it really kind of has to run in a browser vs native) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NV6rdmdZnkA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NV6rdmdZnkA Get in touch if you want to beta test it and let me know if you think it is fast enough on your set up, etc. Hoping to put it on "Show HN" soon. rjbrown at gmail More about it at https://pianop.ly/portfolio/ https://pianop.ly/portfolio/
        wheels 6y ago
    - robbrown451 6y ago
      Mine, for one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NV6rdmdZnkA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NV6rdmdZnkA (piano karaoke that overlays and syncs with youtube videos)
  - codemonkey-zeta 6y ago
    The use of the phrase "bells and whistles" seems pretty ironic here.
    - colecut 6y ago
      When you think of the web as a platform to be used for audio applications, it seems like a reasonable feature
      - qppo 6y ago
        The thing is that "the web" doesn't make sense as a platform for audio applications when to build upon it you need to throw away realtime safe subroutines. Realtime audio rendering is a soft realtime problem. If the web audio APIs don't have methods for guaranteeing deadlines for rendering audio, it's only possible to build toy audio applications. I'm aware of things like bandlab and such. They're still toys and too limited for serious work, where the money is.
- severak_cz 6y ago
  you can actually use it today - there is a plugin for it which adds Web MIDI API to Firefox - https://jazz-soft.net/download/web-midi/ https://jazz-soft.net/download/web-midi/ I have tried some Web MIDI demos (and online CSound IDE) this way.
jcelerier 6y ago
Will we get jack support back on Linux one day ? :/
- pseudosavant 6y ago
  The mess with audio servers is one of the main reasons I could never stand Linux as my primary laptop OS. Jack, ALSA, OSS, Pulse, etc. Far too often the answer to my problem was that it didn't work on that specific audio server, or that I needed to compile my own server/kernel/app from source. Easily, reliably, and quickly playing audio is table stakes for Windows and Mac OS. They've been doing it for years. But instead of improving one or two audio APIs, on Linux it is time for a new audio server that will, but doesn't, solve all of the problems of every predecessor.
  - jcelerier 6y ago
    > Easily, reliably, and quickly playing audio is table stakes for Windows and Mac OS. They've been doing it for years. But instead of improving one or two audio APIs, on Linux it is time for a new audio server that will, but doesn't, solve all of the problems of every predecessor. I mean, I have currently 5 soundcards on my desktop computer, 1 pro over PCIe, 2 pro over USB, 1 standard HD Audio and 1 output in my screen's HDMI, and I can assure you that even on windows it's definitely not a smooth ride between WASAPI, ASIO, MME, WDMKS... things crash or get stuck routinely, and I sometimes get random loud buzzes or no sound until I reboot. With my band we had tons of issues with a M-Audio card on windows fixating itself on the wrong sampling rate as soon as a desktop music playing was launched (this includes web browsers), entirely preventing playback on Ableton Live for instance. It's barely better on macOS, e.g. look at that shit: https://github.com/OSSIA/score/issues/778 https://github.com/OSSIA/score/issues/778. macOS also sacrifices some low-latency when comparing the same hardware on it versus Linux (with raw ALSA or JACK) and Windows with ASIO.
    - rectang 6y ago
      What exists as far as open source digital audio interfaces? Meaning only digital i/o — no analog. It seems like a relatively contained problem to take multiple streams of PCM audio into a computer, locked to word clock. Then the hard, fiddly aspects of analog design can be left to high-quality outboard converters which speak MADI or whatever. I say "contained" because I don't want to minimize the difficulty of getting such a design right, but it seems like you only have to get it right once.

kiviuq 6y ago

When can have we web midi (and no not sysex ;) Sooooo?

jacquesm 6y ago
Seconded, web midi is a big showstopper for Mozilla and should have more priority than the various bells and whistles that Mozilla does seem to prioritize but that ultimately are not part of a browser. Not being able to use Midi from FireFox means that for a whole raft of possible applications Chrome is the only option, which is a real pity. Please, please, pretty please, give web midi a higher priority.
- TremendousJudge 6y ago
  Curious, what applications need web midi?
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    Just one example: https://sightreading.training/ https://sightreading.training/
    - TremendousJudge 6y ago
      wow that's a pretty cool app
  - Uninen 6y ago
    Most music-related applications wanting to offer generic hardware support and hackability. Midi is an amazing standard. It allows you to hook up a synthesizer from the early 80s to your 2020 laptop (via a midi-capable audio interface) and control almost anything in your modern DAW (Digital Audio Workstation). And if your Web browser has support for it, control a software synth or any application as well. In addition to just musical instruments, a huge number of different hardware still use midi. I'm personally interested in DJ-world where things like DJ- and light-controllers use midi and therefore are very easily remappable and very hackable (if the sw is built correctly). I've wanted to build some DJ-related sw myself that would work via browser but the fact that currently only Chrome supports the standard has so far kept me off it. I'd very much like to see Firefox supporting Web midi.
    - TremendousJudge 6y ago
      Right, I understand what MIDI is for, but usually music software has these real-time requirements on performance and the browser runs javascript, so... What are the applications for web midi? People aren't mixing their music on the browser nowadays, right?
      - dharma1 6y ago
        You could have a whole DAW in the browser. There are already some web based synths
      - robbrown451 6y ago
        I haven't seen significant problems from javascript being too slow on things that use web MIDI. Here is a web based "piano karaoke" app that runs quite well in browsers that support MIDI (and since it syncs with YouTube videos, it really kind of has to run in a browser vs native) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NV6rdmdZnkA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NV6rdmdZnkA Get in touch if you want to beta test it and let me know if you think it is fast enough on your set up, etc. Hoping to put it on "Show HN" soon. rjbrown at gmail More about it at https://pianop.ly/portfolio/ https://pianop.ly/portfolio/
      - wheels 6y ago
  - robbrown451 6y ago
    Mine, for one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NV6rdmdZnkA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NV6rdmdZnkA (piano karaoke that overlays and syncs with youtube videos)
- codemonkey-zeta 6y ago
  The use of the phrase "bells and whistles" seems pretty ironic here.
  - colecut 6y ago
    When you think of the web as a platform to be used for audio applications, it seems like a reasonable feature
    - qppo 6y ago
      The thing is that "the web" doesn't make sense as a platform for audio applications when to build upon it you need to throw away realtime safe subroutines. Realtime audio rendering is a soft realtime problem. If the web audio APIs don't have methods for guaranteeing deadlines for rendering audio, it's only possible to build toy audio applications. I'm aware of things like bandlab and such. They're still toys and too limited for serious work, where the money is.
severak_cz 6y ago
you can actually use it today - there is a plugin for it which adds Web MIDI API to Firefox - https://jazz-soft.net/download/web-midi/ https://jazz-soft.net/download/web-midi/ I have tried some Web MIDI demos (and online CSound IDE) this way.

jcelerier 6y ago

Will we get jack support back on Linux one day ? :/

pseudosavant 6y ago
The mess with audio servers is one of the main reasons I could never stand Linux as my primary laptop OS. Jack, ALSA, OSS, Pulse, etc. Far too often the answer to my problem was that it didn't work on that specific audio server, or that I needed to compile my own server/kernel/app from source. Easily, reliably, and quickly playing audio is table stakes for Windows and Mac OS. They've been doing it for years. But instead of improving one or two audio APIs, on Linux it is time for a new audio server that will, but doesn't, solve all of the problems of every predecessor.
- jcelerier 6y ago
  > Easily, reliably, and quickly playing audio is table stakes for Windows and Mac OS. They've been doing it for years. But instead of improving one or two audio APIs, on Linux it is time for a new audio server that will, but doesn't, solve all of the problems of every predecessor. I mean, I have currently 5 soundcards on my desktop computer, 1 pro over PCIe, 2 pro over USB, 1 standard HD Audio and 1 output in my screen's HDMI, and I can assure you that even on windows it's definitely not a smooth ride between WASAPI, ASIO, MME, WDMKS... things crash or get stuck routinely, and I sometimes get random loud buzzes or no sound until I reboot. With my band we had tons of issues with a M-Audio card on windows fixating itself on the wrong sampling rate as soon as a desktop music playing was launched (this includes web browsers), entirely preventing playback on Ableton Live for instance. It's barely better on macOS, e.g. look at that shit: https://github.com/OSSIA/score/issues/778 https://github.com/OSSIA/score/issues/778. macOS also sacrifices some low-latency when comparing the same hardware on it versus Linux (with raw ALSA or JACK) and Windows with ASIO.
  - rectang 6y ago
    What exists as far as open source digital audio interfaces? Meaning only digital i/o — no analog. It seems like a relatively contained problem to take multiple streams of PCM audio into a computer, locked to word clock. Then the hard, fiddly aspects of analog design can be left to high-quality outboard converters which speak MADI or whatever. I say "contained" because I don't want to minimize the difficulty of getting such a design right, but it seems like you only have to get it right once.