The Web Audio API lets you create and synthesize audio right in your web browser. Explore the world of coding using the JavaScript language in this made-for-musicians course, by coder and musician Gregg Fine!
Gregg Fine, founder and principal composer of Hidden Tiger Music, is an award-winning guitarist, multi-instrumentalist and veteran composer of music for advertising.
If you have little or no coding experience, the Web Audio API (Application Programming Interface) may look like rocket science to you, but don't worry. Besides being an amazing multi-instrumentalist, Gregg Fine is also an excellent coder and teacher. (If you've watched his Music Theory courses you know exactly what we mean.) In this introductory course, he will show you step-by-step the rudimentary of coding with the Web Audio API.
Gregg starts by defining exactly what is the Web Audio API and what you can do with it. You learn how to access the dev tools in your browser of choice and how to install your code editor, the free open source Visual Studio Code editor. You then learn about the three main technologies used in web development: HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
Next, you are introduced to the Web Audio API's AudioContext object, you learn important web terminology, and you start to experiment with some JavaScript code. You then discover how to create an oscillator and connect it to a destination, and trigger it with a button. Gregg shows you how to tweak your code to adjust the volume, waveform and frequency of your sound. Finally, you learn how to create a filter to manipulate your synthesizer sound and how to trigger the sound with a keyboard.
So join coder, musician and trainer Gregg Fine in this Coding For Musicians course, and start coding with the Web Audio API!
Very good course to learn some basics about javascript and html and css. The instructor does a good job to explain most things and gives exactly the right amount of time to follow and understand the steps involved here for building a basic synth with code.
My only complaint here is that at two points in the course he does not explain the code used and just wants us to copy the code he wrote on his screen. I am sure he did not want to overcomplicate the course but to me it seemed like these are rather two shortcuts to complete the course and not make it too long in creation. I would think to explain the rest of the code it would have taken up to another hour of videos inside the course but I would really love to understand this.
Also, after finishing the course, I also wish we could also learn how to create more buttons etc to manipulate the code insed the browser. So at the end of the course, even though it is greatly structured and explained, I feel there could be more content here, Or maybe a part 2 is missing to get deeper into the code and to be able to alter the code more after all from the browser.
(1)
Harry Grant wrote on January 3, 2021
Unique idea but for non coder is it worth the slog to the end result? Lots of tedium. Being now I am the first kid on my block to make synthesiser sounds on my own browser keyboard only and lame ones at that. I use Logic and Dreamweaver and cant pretend to be unique in that. I 'd prefer to distinguish my self from my fellow hellhounds, bless them, down at the digital crossroads..
I want to design a cool unique customizable music player for my singer songwriter site and other cool visual and musical tie ins too possibly. Make a course about that perhaps and let me copy paste the initial codes too. The course is well presented & articulate and no complaints otherwise. cheers HarryGrant.io (pre-dev)
(2)
EarsRAwesome wrote on December 21, 2020
This course was stellar all around. Great voice and ways of explaining. Thanks!