CODING SOUND

This is the site for Coding Sound at Albright College
It's written, compiled and maintained by Mark Baldridge
------

Table of Contents

• Introduction to the course
• Lesson 01: Hello Tone
• Lesson 02: Music Box
• Lesson 03: Effects
• Lesson 04: Step Sequencer

• Project: Music Box

Build a "Music Box" that plays a little tune every time it's run ——— 15 Points

• The tune doesn't have to sound "pretty" but should be "interesting" enough to listen to several times
• It should be easy to stop or pause, or it should end when the "tune" ends
• At any point, at least two notes must play simultaneously (may occur throughout)
• At any point, at least one effect must be used which is not Feedback Delay or Auto Wah (these may also be used)
Excellence: On time, and above / beyond the assignment ——— 2 Points
Bonus: Interandom ——— 3 Points
Add a little user input or randomness, so that the "Music Box" doesn't always play the same tune —or you can always suggest a stretch goal of your own!
Total Points Available: 20
DUE DATE: End of Week Three

My Music Box Sketches

• Music Box 01: Playing with effects
• Music Box 02: Sliding note pitches
• Music Box 03: Random voices and distortion choices

BONUS: Here's how to record what your project outputs to Destination - Search for "REC" to find commented code - make this more "modular" so that we can use it in many projects

• Lesson 05: Keyboard Keyboard
• Lesson 06: Hello Oscillator
• Lesson 07: Sound Synthesis 01: Beating
• Lesson 08: Sound Synthesis 02: LFO
• Lesson 09: Sound Synthesis 03: Amplitude / Frequency Modulation
• Lesson 10: Interfaces 01: Launch Pads with CSS
• Seminar 01: Combining/Expanding Concepts/Skills

• Midterm Project: Instrument

Build a "Musical Instrument" that users can play ——— 25 Points

• This should offer more developed options than our music box
• Can be based on the "keyboard keyboard" of Lesson 5 (mine won't be, I don't actually like that keyboard much)
• Should involve, somewhere (perhaps as an optional "voice") some form of "modulation": LFO, FM, AM or other
• Your instrument doesn't have to sound pretty, it can have random elements, but it must be "playable" by you in a way you find satisfactory
Excellence: On time, and above / beyond the assignment ——— 2 Points
Bonus: Interface ——— 3 Points
Build your own graphical interface which offers users intuitive or exploratory access to the greatest degrees of freedom —or you can always suggest a stretch goal of your own!
Total Points Available: 30
DUE DATE: TBA

My Instrument Sketches

• Instrument 01: Steel Drum
• Instrument 02: Steel Drum
• Instrument 03 (contains modular recording code): Steel Drum

• Lesson 12: Processing Audio Files
• Lesson 13: Granular Synthesis

My Clip Player Sketches

• Clip Player 01: Gravy
• Clip Player 02: Piano Chords

Documentation, Examples, Demos and Tutorials from Tone.js

• Tone.js Documentation
  Your handy reference
  
• Tone.js Examples
  Choose an example on the left, then find the
  
• Code for each Example
  in the projects github repository
• There are also these demos
  hosted by Tone.js —maybe you'd like to Submit a Project!
• The Tone.js Wiki
  This is a hub for learning Tone.js. You can see the list of tutorials in the right-hand links list

Tutorial Links, Elseweb

• A YouTube playlist of tutorial projects for Tone.js by Gregg Fine, AKA "The Code Creative":
  
• Hello World
• Effects
• Building a QWERTY Keyboard Synthesizer
• Working with Oscillators

• Programming Digital Media (PDM)
  Part of the Digital Design and Emergent Media pathway at Louisiana State University, taught by Matthew Bardin
  Within this course we'll look at:
• Sound With Tone.js
• Basics of Sound: A solid introduction to sound itself, then take these sections out of order:
• Synthesized Sound and Sequencing
• Sound File Playback and Audio Effects
The above PDM content has a great set of videos which accompany it

• Dan Tramte begins a series of videos as part of his Browser Noise series


• David Bouchard has two different series as part of his Generative Processes courses
  • One from 2022
  • And one from 2020
  
  
• Jake Albaugh experiments featuring Tone.js in CodePen
  He also has These examples
  


• Google Creative Lab a few of these examples actually still work, and there's some nice info further down


• Finally, I'm building an eclectic playlist of video tutorials from around the web, some of which you'll find in playlists I link to, above

Extras:

• Lightnote for a little music theory
• A musical notes as frequencies chart
• A great learning resource is W3 Schools for all your HTML and JavaScript (and CSS styling and etc) needs!