Web Audio Modules v-0-2 WASM & AudioWorklet

TL;DR check out WAMs ->> VST for the web! ➡️  https://webaudiomodules.org

I had a great time at JUCE ADC2017 in London. Rather unexpectedly I ended up introducing WAMs (Web Audio Modules) in the conference finale "open mic night" to an audience of industry people who were all probably a bit more interested in having a beer.

WAMs is an SDK/API that I worked on with Jari Kleimola over two years ago which is the equivalent of VST for the web. We published a paper on this work at the SMC conference in Maynooth in 2015. The week before the ADC2017 in London Google released the first incarnation of the "audio worklet", which is a much anticipated technology that is a game changer for web audio - allowing custom DSP code to run smoothly on a webpage. Jari got WAMs working in Chrome Canary (the experimental version of Chrome), and the performance is vastly better than previous versions, meaning we can continue this work. Although it's early days, this is clearly the way things are going and in 5 or 10 years time I expect many of us will be making music in the browser with chrome books (or something similar) rather than MacBooks.

As people who care about plug-ins (perhaps a little too much) we would like to make a community controlled open API that is sensible and flexible enough for a variety of use cases. Historically audio plug-in formats have been controlled by the DAW vendors, and this shift in technology provides an opportunity to change that. In that regard we are hoping to get lots of feedback from various parties so that we can make WAMs amazing before everyone gets stuck with something that's not quite right.

More info including API documentation is available here:

➡️  https://webaudiomodules.org/developers

Original 2015 SMC paper here:

➡️  http://smcnetwork.org/node/1936

You can try a version of VirtualCZ in the browser here:

➡️  https://webaudiomodules.org/wamsynths/

And (for the brave) you can try a JUCE plug-in ported to WAM (using v-0-2 in Chrome Canary) here:

➡️  https://webaudiomodules.org/uncategorized/obxd-wasm/

If you're interested in this stuff, please get in touch!

Thanks for reading!

Oli

Sonic Species & Pogo - Numinous 3D Binaural Mix, 360 videos & VR Website

I recently made a 3D binaural mix of my friend Joe Markendale a.k.a Sonic Species' epic psytrance release on Nano Records with DJ Pogo - Numinous. Grab a google cardboard and transport yourself to the amazing 25 channel surround sound SPIRAL studio at the University of Huddersfield, UK to listen to the track in 3D (headphones are essential!). You can also listen to the mix in VR at http://numinous3d.com ! Will be releasing some plug-ins i made for this project for free soon.

Get the original track at beatport: http://bit.ly/Numinous1

Check out the VR website: http://numinous3d.com
Youtube 360 version: https://youtu.be/qUTNqWWIF0k
FB360 version: https://goo.gl/XV9Kvw
Soundcloud: https://goo.gl/1NPA3a

Open source headphone spatializer plug-in for podcasters

A plug-in I worked on for the University of Salford, has been released.

SpatialPodcast v1

The University of Salford’s SpatialPodcast plug-in is designed for podcasters wishing to add more dimensional sound to their recordings. It will help podcasters create spatial audio for headphone listening without needing to understand some of the more complex binaural plug-ins available. Intended for audio producers willing to experiment, but limited by their audio knowledge, the plugin uses a mixture of binaural and non-binaural processing to produce a more spatial sounding headphone mix.

Visit Trevor Cox's blog to read more, download the plug-in, and listen to audio examples.

https://acousticengineering.wordpress.com/headphone-spatialiser-for-podcasts/

The source code is available here:

https://github.com/TrevorJCox/Headphone-Spatialiser

Yes. I used JUCE not IPlug!

Evolution of wdl-ol (Gource Visualization)

someone made a cool visualisation of the development of WDL-OL

ICSA 2017 @ IEM Graz

I was very lucky this year to attend the ICSA in Graz, Austria, hosted by the VDT and IEM - one of the world's centres of excellence for spatial audio research, both artistically and technically. They also do a lot of great work on open source project such as puredata. As well as attending the conference, I also took part in the summer school (my second summer school this summer!). This was a fantastic experience, and I learnt a lot about High Order Ambisonics. The IEM guys have developed some nice techniques and free tools for working with HOA, making mixing in 3D using HOA viable.

http://vdt-icsa.de/

When I got back to Huddersfield I did a workshop explaining what I learnt to my colleagues in the music and computing/engineering departments.

HOA workshop in SPIRAL @ Huddersfield Uni - Ambix/MCFX/MrHeadTracker

Sounds in Space 2017

Video of my slightly disastrous presentation at sounds in space 2017 at Derby university (I had problems with the slides due to technical issues with the audio interface). Binaural audio, so use headphones. More info here http://soundsinspace.co.uk/ and here https://www.brucewiggins.co.uk/?page_id=881