Show HN: merely.xyz/waves – online waveform generator (merely.xyz)

2 points by merelysounds 3y ago ↗ HN

I’d like to share my recent project, which is a waveform generator that resembles a spirograph: https://merely.xyz/waves .

This might be especially interesting for fans of synthesizers (you can export the sounds/waveforms!), math, but also for anyone who enjoys pretty shapes.

Here is a quick video demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCjCaQWOCE4 .

The app works online and should work on both desktop and mobile devices. It’s still in early stages and it could use more features (or bug fixes...). If people find this useful, I'd like to continue working on it.

I’ve recently added frequency modulation, which was exciting and a bit mind bending; it opens new territories, both sonically and visually. Announcement plus demo: https://twitter.com/MerelySounds/status/1564698369632632832 .

Thanks for checking this out, hope you enjoyed it. If you have any feedback, questions or a feature request, I’d love to hear it.

1 comment

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merelysounds 3y ago ↗

I had fun building this also because of the project's stack. It's extremely simple, it's mostly a static page with React. It's small enough to use in-browser Babel and a single (messy) JS file. For production releases I transpile and minimize the JS, but at this point it feels optional and I like having the option of skipping the build process completely.

Doing audio with web technologies can get tricky, there are compatibility and performance considerations. Because of that I also opted against real time audio. I'm mostly targeting wavetable synthesizers so I can live with just exporting to .WAV files. A nice side effect is that because there's no immediate audio feedback, the visuals receive more of the user's attention.

All this simplicity lets me work on the project faster and add new features quicker, which made this more enjoyable.