Buffa, Michel; Alexandraki, Chrisoula; Lebrun, Jerome; Roberts, Charlie
Page: 736
The authors present Euterpe, a prototyping web framework designed to facilitate the deployment of interactive music systems on the web. Utilizing the web's natural cross-platform compatibility, Euterpe enables widespread accessibility to these systems, potentially maximizing their impact. One of the authors' main goals is to reduce the burden on developers by providing support in handling the JavaScript aspects of implementation. Although developers still need to write JavaScript for their core algorithms, Euterpe assumes the responsibilities of receiving both audio and MIDI real-time input streams, synchronizing them, and sending them to the core algorithm in a structured fashion. Additionally, the authors offer pre-built functionalities for input and output data visualization. To showcase the capabilities of Euterpe, the authors conduct case studies on the deployment of "BachDuet" and "JazzImprov," two neural network music improvisation algorithms that were previously inaccessible to the general public. Through these case studies, valuable feedback is gathered from both end users who interacted with BachDuet and the independent developer who created JazzImprov. Euterpe is open-sourced at https://github.com/yongyizang/Euterpe.
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Since 2012 and the advent of the Web Audio API, the development of computer music applications within web browsers has become feasible. Recent improvements in this API and other advancements in web browser technology have significantly expanded the possibilities for new developments. Thanks to theWebAssembly and AudioWorklets APIs, code written in low-level languages (C/C++, Rust, . . .) orDomain Specific Languages can nowbe encapsulated and executed within browsers. Furthermore, using theWeb Components API, it is now possible to produce interoperable Web Audio plugins. This article reviews seven years of work toward real-time, lightweight, low-latency, perceptually faithful browser-based simulations of tube guitar amplifiers. Summarizing previous conference presentations, this article provides details on themilestones and many issues that had to be dealtwith during development to achieve these pioneering demonstrations of the potentialities of theWeb Audio API.Most of the simulations are provided as open-source and freely available. Recently, some versions were licensed and integrated into a well-known commercial Digital Audio Workstation. During these years, several user tests have been conducted with professional guitarists who all positively evaluated these simulations and favorably benchmarked them against the few available commercial browser-based competitors.
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Artists and composers have explored the potential of mobile phones to enable audience interaction in live music concerts for the last two decades.However, studies of the compositional process and the systems' use by audience members remain scarce. This paper presents the design of three interactive modes for audience participation that invite audience members to influence both musical parameters and stage lighting of an electronic live music performance. Analysis of log data from the concert reveals users' interaction preferences and suggests five different types of participatory user behaviors, which are supported by results of a postconcert questionnaire. Finally, the paper considers design aspects for audience participation and proposes ideas for future implementations of distributed music systems.
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Computers are a powerful technology for music playback: as general-purpose computing machines with capabilities beyond the fixed-recording playback devices of the past, they can play generative music with multiple outcomes or computational compositions that are not fully determined until they are played. However, there is no suitable platform for distributing generative music while preserving the spaces of possible outputs. This absence hinders composers' and listeners' access to the possibilities of computational playback. In this paper, the authors address the problem of distributing generative music. They present a) a dynamic format for bundling computational compositions with static assets in self-contained packages and b) a music player for finding, fetching, and playing/executing these compositions. These tools are built for generality to support a variety of approaches to making music with code and remain language-agnostic. The authors take advantage ofWebAssembly and related tools to enable the use of general-purpose languages such as C, Rust, JavaScript, and Python and audio languages such as Pure Data, RTcmix, Csound, and ChucK. They use AudioWorklets and Web Workers to enable scalable distribution via client-side playback. And they present the user with a music player interface that aims to be familiar while exposing the possibilities of generative music.
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In this paper, the authors present two related libraries, web-audio-api-rs and nodeweb-audio-api, that provide a solution for using the Web Audio API outside the Web browsers. The first project is a low-level implementation of the Web Audio API written in the Rust language, and the second provides bindings of the core Rust library for the Node.js platform. The authors' approach here is to consider Web standards and specifications as tools for defining standardized APIs across different environments and languages, which they believe could benefit the audio community in a more general manner. Although such a proposition presents some portability limitations due to the differences between languages, the authors think it nevertheless opens up new possibilities in sharing documentation, resources, and components across a wide range of environments, platforms, and users. The paper first describes the general design and implementation of the authors' libraries. Then, it presents some benchmarks of these libraries against state-of-the-art implementation fromWeb browsers, and the performance improvements that have been made over the last year. Finally, it discusses the current known limitations of these libraries and proposes some directions for future work. The two projects are open-source, reasonably feature-complete, and ready to use in production applications.
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As the potential of networked multiuser virtual environments increases under the concept of the metaverse, so do the interest and artistic possibilities of using them for live music performances. Live performances in online metaverse environments offer an easy and environmentally friendly way to bring together artists and audiences from all over the world. Virtualization also enables countless possibilities for designing and creating artistic experiences and new performance practices. For many years, live performances have been established on various virtual platforms, which differ significantly in terms of possible performance practices, user interaction, immersion, and usability. With Orchestra, we are developing an open-source toolbox that uses the Web Audio Application Programming Interface to realize live performances with various performance practices for web-based metaverse environments. Possibilities vary from live streaming of volumetric audio and video, live coding in multiple (including audiovisual) programming languages, to performing with generative algorithms or virtual instruments developed in PureData. These can be combined in various ways and also be used for telematic/networked music ensembles, interactive virtual installations, or novel performance concepts. In this paper, we describe the development and scope of the Orchestra toolbox, as well as use cases that illustrate the artistic possibilities.
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