Instant Audio Processing with Web Audio

Chris Khoo

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781782168799
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Open Source Programming
• Index: Computer Science

In Detail

Web Audio is an upcoming industry standard for web audio processing. Using the API, developers today can develop web games and applications with real-time audio effects to rival their desktop counterparts.

Instant Audio Processing with Web Audio How-to is your hands-on guide to the Web Audio API. Using clear, step-by-step exercises, this book explores the API and how to apply it to produce real-time audio effects such as audio stitching, audio ducking, and audio equalization.

This book is an in-depth study of the Web Audio API. Through a series of practical, step-by-step exercises, this book will guide you through the basics of playing audio all the way to the task of building a 5-band audio equalizer.

Along the way, well learn how to utilize Web Audios scripting functionality to build real-time audio effects such as audio stitching and ducking. Then, well use this knowledge to build a basic audio layer step-by-step which can be used in our web applications/games.

With its in-depth coverage of the Web Audio API and its practical advice on various audio implementation scenarios, Instant Audio Processing with Web Audio How-to is your ultimate guide to Web Audio.

Approach

Filled with practical, step-by-step instructions and clear explanations for the most important and useful tasks. A concise, recipe-based approach to use Web Audios automation functionality to produce interesting audio effects such as audio stitching and ducking.

Who this book is for

This book is designed for developers with some HTML and JavaScript programming experience who are seeking to learn about Web Audio. Experience with AJAX and web server installation/configuration is a plus but is not a necessity in order to follow the content of the book.

Instant Audio Processing with Web Audio

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Instant Audio Processing with Web Audio

Copyright © 2013 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: August 2013

Production Reference: 1220813

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Livery Place

35 Livery Street

Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-78216-879-9

www.packtpub.com

Credits

Author

Chris Khoo

Reviewer

Alex Libby

Acquisition Editor

James Jones

Commissioning Editor

Harsha Bharwani

Technical Editor

Veena Pagare

Project Coordinator

Suraj Bisht

Proofreader

Joanna McMahon

Graphics

Abhinash Sahu

Production Coordinator

Nitesh Thakur

Cover Work

Nitesh Thakur

Cover Image

Sheetal Aute

About the Author

Chris Khoo has been an avid programmer since his first encounter with the personal computer in the 80s. Since then, he's evolved from a nerdy hobbyist programmer into a full-fledged software developer with over 15 years of industry experience in developing games at companies including Microsoft, Disney, Electronic Arts, and Nexon. To date, he has shipped over a dozen console, mobile, and online games including the FIFA series, the SSX series, Def Jam: FFNY, Tom and Jerry Online, and Hyper Grav. His unique combination of AAA console game programming experience and web development experience makes him uniquely qualified to pen a practical study of implementing audio using the Web Audio API.

Chris presently resides in Vancouver, BC, with his wife and two children. He is the founder and primary developer at Wappworks Studio, a 3-man indie game studio dedicated to online and mobile web games. When he's not busy at work, Chris enjoys playing board games and helping out with praise and worship at his local church.

I would like to send a giant heartfelt thanks to my wife, Joanne, and my two kids, Michelle and Michael, for allowing me to give up my family time in pursuit of an authoring career. I would also like to thank my business partner and confidante, Chris, for his patience and advice. Finally, I want to thank God for all His blessings and for giving me peace and comfort as I've frantically juggled my personal, work, and authoring roles.

About the Reviewer

Alex Libby's background is in IT support—he has been involved in supporting end users for the last 15 years in a variety of different environments, and currently works as a Technical Analyst, supporting a medium-sized SharePoint estate for an international distributor based in the UK. Although Alex gets to play with different technologies in his day job, his true love has always been the Open Source movement, and in particular, experimenting with jQuery, CSS3, and HTML5. To date, Alex has written several books for Packt, including ones on HTML5 technologies and others on jQuery tools. In his free time, Alex enjoys helping out at the local amateur theatre. He also enjoys cycling and photography.

www.PacktPub.com

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Preface

Web Audio is a new audio API proposed by World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to address the shortcomings of the existing HTML5 Audio API. This new API allows developers to perform advanced real-time audio processing/mixing that is just not possible with current standards.

In this book, we'll explore Web Audio's audio processing functionality through a series of recipes. We'll also apply our learning towards building an audio system. By the end of the book, we will have a clear grasp of the Web Audio API, its design philosophy, and how to utilize it to put together a plethora of audio effects.

Web Audio is a fairly new API. As a result, many browsers do not yet support it. The list of web browsers which currently support it is a short one; they are Chrome for PC and Mac (v10 or higher), and Safari for PC and Mac (v6 or higher).Firef...

Table of contents

• Instant Audio Processing with Web Audio