Quick tutorial for anyone who isn't familiar with the music gear being emulated:<p>The top two items are two instances of an imitation of a Roland TB-303 bassline synth. The bottom item is an imitation of a Roland TR-909 drum machine (a drum synthesizer).<p>Press 'Play' in the top left to start all three instruments playing. Each is now running through 4 bars of 4 beats, or 16 steps in total. By default the first bass synth is playing a low 'C' on every step, the second bass synth is playing nothing, and the drum machine is playing a bass drum on the first step of each bar (steps 1, 5, 9, and 13).<p>Laying out a pattern on the drum machine is a little more intuitive, so start with that. The row of 16 buttons represents the steps on which a hit will be played for the currently selected drum type. Buttons for switching modes to edit the pattern for each drum type are listed horizontally (BD, SD etc).
Switch to a different drum and add some hits to the pattern by clicking on those steps in the row of 16 buttons.<p>The bassline synths are programmed in basically the opposite way. The 16 steps become the modes you switch between (by clicking the UP and DN buttons under 'Current Step') and clicking on any of the the 13 musical note buttons (coloured like piano keys) will select the note which plays on that step. The highlighted note can also be deselected so that no note will be played for that step. Try stepping through and changing the notes which are played on each step or deselecting notes to create a more interesting rhythmic pattern.
Acid Machine is a web based tool for creating Acid Techno. It consists of 2x 303 style synths and a drum machine. I'm currently working on a song mode so you can string patterns together, record automation and save your finished track.<p>Hit the randomize button for some instant results.
I would recommend doing your scheduling in a web worker.
In chrome the playback will slow to a crawl when switching tabs. This is because chrome slows down mainthread js execution for inactive tabs. I have a little module I use to get around this limitation. <a href="https://github.com/meandavejustice/audio-clock" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/meandavejustice/audio-clock</a>
This is super impressive.
I have a tiny bit of (hopefully constructive) criticism though, and it's not really against this work and what has been accomplished.<p>The TB303 has one of the worst sequencing interfaces of any hardware sequencer, so even as much as it is loved, I'd love to see something more modern in terms of UI for sequencing melodic parts.<p>Even step select/activation with 16 steps and keeping the TB303 keyboard sort of interface for actually selecting notes would be a lot more usable and immediate. Having to select the step number and enter a note is painful though and not very mouse friendly.. with hardware at least you can mash the heck out of the button.
Really impressive. If someone had told me 18 yrs ago that I shouldn't be so excited about ReBirth because one day it will be available in the browser :)<p>A feature request: delay time and hi-pass controls :)<p>Btw, the delay timing seems to be off a little bit.
I've just added in some keyboard shortcuts to mute/unmute and randomize the instruments. Working on the save and share function today, it would be great to be able to hear what people have made.
If @errozero can recreate the ReBirth [1] app in javascript, then imagine what can be made in a few years time.<p>1: <a href="http://www.rebirthmuseum.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.rebirthmuseum.com/</a>
Utterly brilliant - where did my time go!<p>Feature request please - mute and randomize (at least) would sound great if you could pre-sync them with the repeat. I found myself trying to judge how much lag there is before they kick in. It would be great if you could just line up one or more before the repeat - which is where you will want them 99%. Maybe a check box option.<p>You have a fantastic performance application right now, please don't get drawn into making a sequencer and losing all the fun.
Awesome work, just lost an hour! Might be worth adding a hover hint to the abbreviations on the drum machine. Took me a while to notice there was more to play with there.