5 ms·

Whistle Synth Mac App

90 points by luu 1mo ago

comradesmith 1mo ago
It seems like it will be fun but my headphones just come in under the activation threshold, but I can't see a way to add some input gain
- jefftk 27d ago
  Try setting the gate to a higher number?
n738 27d ago
This is something I think about making every time I sit in front of my PC - thank you and I look forward to trying it!
cousin_it 27d ago
The first time I saw it, I thought about playing a drumkit and whistling a bassline at the same time, with someone else on guitar and vocals, making a full rock sound with two people. But then I was too lazy to try it.
- embedding-shape 27d ago
  There been some people doing the whole "one man band" thing with a back pack drum, guitar and harmonica. I bet someone crazy enough could do one instrument per limb + harmonica and maybe even a theremin with some remaining appendage too.
  - cousin_it 27d ago
    I think looking cool matters a lot in live music, maybe even more than the actual music. Blowing into a harmonica while carrying a backpack full of cutlery looks really dorky. But two people with drums+whistling and guitar+vocals can be made to look cool.
    - jefftk 26d ago
      This is why I love playing for contra dancing: no one cares what the musicians look like.
    - isomorphic 26d ago
      Laurie Anderson, with some of her bespoke live MIDI instruments (no actual cutlery AFAIK), got pretty close.
mattmar96 27d ago
Sweet!
markking 27d ago
[dead]
azornathogron 27d ago
Sounds a bit like imitone https://imitone.com/ https://imitone.com/ (I have no affiliation) FYI, Imitone has a patent, I don't know what it covers or claims though.
- jefftk 27d ago
  The relevant patent is from 1986, long expired: https://www.jefftk.com/p/ugo-contis-whistle-controlled-synthesizer https://www.jefftk.com/p/ugo-contis-whistle-controlled-synth...
  - joemi 27d ago
    In case you haven't seen it, Imitone's patent is US20170098112A1 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US20170098112A1/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US20170098112A1/en). This one's from 2017 and is still active, and it's for a periodicity analysis system. Hopefully it's not directly relevant to your synth.
    - jefftk 27d ago
      That patent is about a particular way of implementing a low-latency pitch tracking algorithm. My tool uses a different pitch tracking algorithm based on zero crossings. It's much simpler and far from novel. A big difference is that Imitone works well with singing, whereas my algorithm only does a good job with whistling. On the other hand, my algorithm is lower latency when given a whistle as input.
admash 27d ago
How feasible would it be to add MIDI out support to this? I often find my improvised melodies are more interesting when I whistle them, so this would be a handy feature.
- jefftk 27d ago
  I wouldn't expect MIDI to be a good fit, and when I experimented with it a few years ago I wasn't able to get anything I liked. Pitch and volume are continuous, and while this can be encoded in MIDI it's awkward. If you send too many updates you can overwhelm the synth, and if you slide a single note too far it will re-trigger the note. Also when the sound starts you know "there's whistling" before you have a great estimate of the pitch, but MIDI wants to know the initial tone (and many voices have tuned onsets). But if you want to try it, checking out https://github.com/jeffkaufman/whistle-synth https://github.com/jeffkaufman/whistle-synth and asking Claude or Codex to add MIDI support would probably work!
  - PaulDavisThe1st 26d ago
    there's the artinoise re.corder which is blown and fingered but only generates MIDI (via bluetooth).
    - jefftk 26d ago
      Fingering helps a lot: it means you get a very reliable indication of which note is intended, and there are no multi-step slides.
bonestamp2 27d ago
Very cool idea. It would be nice if you could enable your camera and then control mod/pitch with head up/down left/right motions.
maybelsyrup 26d ago
This is gonna accidentally activate some old forgotten MKULTRA code-key in some poor fella’s amygdala and bang!, they’ve Manchurian Candidated Sonic the Hedgehog
tgies 26d ago
Reminds me of this thing where I was trying to make a three-formant speech synthesizer, like a really simplified DECtalk, track my own voice: https://x.com/me_irl/status/2075472573627093145 https://x.com/me_irl/status/2075472573627093145

90 points by luu 1mo ago

It seems like it will be fun but my headphones just come in under the activation threshold, but I can't see a way to add some input gain

jefftk 27d ago
Try setting the gate to a higher number?

n738 27d ago

This is something I think about making every time I sit in front of my PC - thank you and I look forward to trying it!

cousin_it 27d ago

The first time I saw it, I thought about playing a drumkit and whistling a bassline at the same time, with someone else on guitar and vocals, making a full rock sound with two people. But then I was too lazy to try it.

embedding-shape 27d ago
There been some people doing the whole "one man band" thing with a back pack drum, guitar and harmonica. I bet someone crazy enough could do one instrument per limb + harmonica and maybe even a theremin with some remaining appendage too.
- cousin_it 27d ago
  I think looking cool matters a lot in live music, maybe even more than the actual music. Blowing into a harmonica while carrying a backpack full of cutlery looks really dorky. But two people with drums+whistling and guitar+vocals can be made to look cool.
  - jefftk 26d ago
    This is why I love playing for contra dancing: no one cares what the musicians look like.
  - isomorphic 26d ago
    Laurie Anderson, with some of her bespoke live MIDI instruments (no actual cutlery AFAIK), got pretty close.

mattmar96 27d ago

Sweet!

markking 27d ago

[dead]

azornathogron 27d ago

Sounds a bit like imitone https://imitone.com/ https://imitone.com/ (I have no affiliation) FYI, Imitone has a patent, I don't know what it covers or claims though.

jefftk 27d ago
The relevant patent is from 1986, long expired: https://www.jefftk.com/p/ugo-contis-whistle-controlled-synthesizer https://www.jefftk.com/p/ugo-contis-whistle-controlled-synth...
- joemi 27d ago
  In case you haven't seen it, Imitone's patent is US20170098112A1 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US20170098112A1/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US20170098112A1/en). This one's from 2017 and is still active, and it's for a periodicity analysis system. Hopefully it's not directly relevant to your synth.
  - jefftk 27d ago
    That patent is about a particular way of implementing a low-latency pitch tracking algorithm. My tool uses a different pitch tracking algorithm based on zero crossings. It's much simpler and far from novel. A big difference is that Imitone works well with singing, whereas my algorithm only does a good job with whistling. On the other hand, my algorithm is lower latency when given a whistle as input.

admash 27d ago

How feasible would it be to add MIDI out support to this? I often find my improvised melodies are more interesting when I whistle them, so this would be a handy feature.

jefftk 27d ago
I wouldn't expect MIDI to be a good fit, and when I experimented with it a few years ago I wasn't able to get anything I liked. Pitch and volume are continuous, and while this can be encoded in MIDI it's awkward. If you send too many updates you can overwhelm the synth, and if you slide a single note too far it will re-trigger the note. Also when the sound starts you know "there's whistling" before you have a great estimate of the pitch, but MIDI wants to know the initial tone (and many voices have tuned onsets). But if you want to try it, checking out https://github.com/jeffkaufman/whistle-synth https://github.com/jeffkaufman/whistle-synth and asking Claude or Codex to add MIDI support would probably work!
- PaulDavisThe1st 26d ago
  there's the artinoise re.corder which is blown and fingered but only generates MIDI (via bluetooth).
  - jefftk 26d ago
    Fingering helps a lot: it means you get a very reliable indication of which note is intended, and there are no multi-step slides.

bonestamp2 27d ago

Very cool idea. It would be nice if you could enable your camera and then control mod/pitch with head up/down left/right motions.

maybelsyrup 26d ago

This is gonna accidentally activate some old forgotten MKULTRA code-key in some poor fella’s amygdala and bang!, they’ve Manchurian Candidated Sonic the Hedgehog

tgies 26d ago

Reminds me of this thing where I was trying to make a three-formant speech synthesizer, like a really simplified DECtalk, track my own voice: https://x.com/me_irl/status/2075472573627093145 https://x.com/me_irl/status/2075472573627093145