The recent builds of firefox have included support for realtime synthesis through javascript, and I though I would get in on the fun and build a toy with them. I of course went overboard, and decided to make something that you could actually use to write music with, and implemented a tracker. To note, this is a prototype, and rather than discarding it without showing it to world, I have posted it here for people to play with, and potentially dissect.

Before we go further down the road of what the specific features are, and why it is cool, here is a quick video that should explain it a little bit if you are still unclear:

html 5 tracker from jonbro on Vimeo.

If you want to play with it yourself, first go grab a beta of firefox 4, then head over to the app. You will need to log in with your google account, it allows for saving your songs as you work on them.

The tracker currently allows for 8 channels of monophonic patterns, and each channel controls a synth that has either sine or noise waves, with a simple AD volume envelope.

The worlds worst help file follows:

• arrow keys navigate
• enter goes down one screen, escape back up one screen
• the bottom two rows of keys are used for entering notes, like a piano keyboard
• places that seem to take numbers, try typing numbers into them, it should work
• not everything that is on screen is actually implemented
• spacebar stops and starts the song
• / goes down one octave, ’ goes up one octave

update

I put the source code for this project onto github, in case anyone wants to play with it.