An Internet browser plug-in for real-time audio synthesis

Abstract

We present an Internet browser plug-in for interactive real-time sound synthesis. The plug-in runs the pure data (Pd) sound synthesis engine within the browser, and allows flexible and transparent sound generation and control. Pd is a general sound synthesis language that is based on the MAX graphical programming paradigm, which allows constructing and implementing a broad range of sound synthesis algorithms and paradigms, ranging from simple MIDI-like sample playback up to interactive sound generation and manipulation. This plug-in is cross-platform and runs on Windows Internet Explorer as well as on Netscape/Mozilla on Windows, OSX and Linux platforms. It opens a wide range of new possibilities for the presentation of dynamic multimedia content, where sound plays an important role and the playback of static sound files is not anymore sufficient. The data used by the plug-in that has to be transmitted over the net, is very small in size and thus perfectly suitable for low bandwidth connections. Examples of potential applications are games, adaptive sound backgrounds, interactive sound installations, Web sites, collaborative music on the Web, education and e-learning. The first implementation of the Pd plug-in has been written for a project collaboration with the Catalan theater group La Fura dels Baus.