Show HN: Synesthesia, make noise music with a colorpicker

Show HN: Synesthesia, make noise music with a colorpicker(visualnoise.ca)

39 points by tevans3 118 days ago | 13 comments

This is a (silly, little) app which lets you make noise music using a color picker as an instrument. When you click on a specific point in the color picker, a bit of JavaScript maps the binary representation of the clicked-on color's hex-code to a "chord" in the 24 tone-equal-temperament scale. That chord is then played back using a throttled audio generation method which was implemented via Tone.js.

NOTE! Turn the volume way down before using the site. It is noise music. :)

hecanjog 118 days ago |

Lovely! Edit: you might want to consider adding a limiter to the output, it makes a lovely crackling effect but it's easy to flatline the output until it fizzles out completely, it'd be more curious to hear the denser textures.

tevans3 118 days ago | |

Thanks! And thanks for that suggestion.

I added a limiter to the output and an envelope to my synth object, but after a bunch of experimenting with different settings for each, the flatlining effect was still there. Throttling beyond the note+release's duration did fix it, but that also removed the layering effect of overlapping chords. I think some of those were interesting and wanted to keep them. The last thing I tried was setting the attack to 0.01 and I think that fixed the flatlining issue?

hecanjog 118 days ago | | |

Sounds great now -- I'm not getting the DC stuttering when I play around with different colors anymore.

It seemed like the source is minified, but I didn't look that closely -- I'd be curious to hear more about your sonification scheme.

Edit: nevermind I found a link to the source & explanation in another comment! https://github.com/tevans-3/synesthesia

bitwize 118 days ago |

That's cool. I've been playing through the Quake Brutalist Jam collections recently, and this sounds almost like ambient music from one of those maps.

zenmac 118 days ago |

What is the LICENSE?

tevans3 118 days ago | |

Just added it here: https://github.com/tevans-3/synesthesia/blob/main/LICENSE

nick__m 118 days ago | | |

I love the anti-licence and thank you for the blessings!

yzydserd 118 days ago |

synthesia

christopherscot 118 days ago |

oh my god, so LOUD lol - i didn't read the post just clicked the link LMAO

tevans3 118 days ago | |

I'm sorry!

I know this doesn't help you now, but I changed the default volume to be significantly lower...

mcjiggerlog 118 days ago |

RIP my phone's speakers. Maybe I should have read the post first..

tevans3 118 days ago | |

I'm sorry, this was an oversight on my part!

I adjusted the default volume, so that "painfully loud" is now opt-in by default...