Chapter 11. Sprites

Audio Synthesis Libraries

The sampled audio synthesis carried out by NotesSynth and the MIDI sequence generation in SeqSynth could be expanded to turn the applications into general-purpose synthesis tools, classes, or libraries. However, Java audio synthesis libraries exist but not as part of J2SE.

JSyn (http://www.softsynth.com/jsyn/) generates sound effects by employing inter-connected unit generators. It includes an extensive library of generators, including oscillators, filters, envelopes, and noise generators. For example, a wind sound can be built by connecting a white noise generator to a low pass filter modulated by a random contour generator. JSyn comes with a graphical editor, called Wire, for connecting unit generators together. The result can be exported as Java source code.

jMusic (http://jmusic.ci.qut.edu.au/) is aimed at musicians rather than engineers. Its libraries provide a music data structure based around note and sound events, with associated methods. jMusic can read and write MIDI and audio files.