Anjana Vakil: Making Waves with the Web: Audio Synthesis and Data Sonification with the WebAudio API

What’s in a waveform? How can we derive "do re mi” from only digits? Can synthetic sounds sing us a story?

In this talk, we’ll use the WebAudio API and the library Tone.js to explore the fundamentals of audio synthesis, building a drone synthesizer in the browser that creates a unique ambient soundscape based on a location’s current weather. Along the way we'll explore basic concepts in digital signal processing and audio engineering, as we create, shape, and add movement to waveforms to coax atmospheric sounds out of these atmospheric signals.

We’ll only scratch the surface of what WebAudio can do, but you'll take away a toolkit of techniques and inspiration to start making your own weird, wonderful waves with the web.

Anjana suffers from a chronic case of curiosity, which led her from philosophy to English teaching to computational linguistics to software engineering.

Her conference talks and courses on functional programming, JavaScript, and philosophical & linguistic perspectives on software development have reached millions of learners worldwide.

These days she mostly codes & teaches from her dual home bases in the San Francisco Bay & Berlin, when not traveling to speak or MC at events around the world. Nerd out with her about functional programming, ask her about the Recurse Center & Outreachy, and definitely invite her to your karaoke party!