beatboxer
Creative
drum machine
SHOW HN2016
134points
48comments
#268of 2,264 in 2016
Top 12%of 2016 by points
How HN took it
DebatedReal support and real criticism
16 positive, 8 neutral or asking, 0 mixed, 11 critical, out of 35 comments about the project. Thread score +0.07.
Idea: 12 for, 0 againstPerformance: 2 for, 7 againstExecution: 1 for, 3 againstDesign: 0 for, 1 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Fun and cool for 100 lines of code
From 4 comments
The last 2 sequence boxes for each type of hit wrap around to a new line (firefox). Pretty cool for 100 lines of HTML and JS.
jonwot on HNhehe.. I was just a few squares short of recreating drop it like it's hot :D
sakri on HNSuper fun.
scriptnull on HNThis is really fun, FYI. Social features would be fun.
nichochar on HN
Works well on desktop; sound plays fine
From 1 comment
Tried it on my desktop computer now - works just fine, nicely done. Needs more cowbell, though.
sandebert on HN
Objections
Timing is unreliable because it uses setInterval
From 4 comments
Never use setInterval for audio based applications. It's just totally unreliable. WebAudio has nice built in features for high precision timing.
kowdermeister on HNFirst, it's an enourmous waste of computing resources. Second, it doesn't even work, since the 'setinterval' is unusable for audio timing. Third, what's there to show off? So…
iammyIP on HNUnenjoyable, even as a gimmick, since the timing is all over the place. Either get timing right, or don't do a drum machine. Also this wastes resources like mad. What's the point…
iammyIP on HNNice work! Although from my experience with audio programming in the browser, setInterval() is always fraught with timing danger and inconsistencies. Have you considered using…
cyberferret on HN
Doesn't play or misbehaves in some browsers such as Safari and Android Chrome
From 3 comments
Not sure why this is down voted — the demo literally does not work in my browser (Safari 10) because of the (mis)use of setInterval.
aroman on HNI can change color of the boxes. Something animates from left to right. But I can't hear anything. (Android 7, latest Chrome.)
sandebert on HNMe too - android 6,latest chrome. Works fine on Firefox on the same phone...
djaychela on HN
Rhythm slows or misbehaves when the tab is backgrounded
From 3 comments
Cool! when tab is not active, the rhythm slows down in Chrome/win7.
GoToRO on HNit behaves weirdly when you change the tabs, must be because of setInterval?
scottydelta on HNThis is due to a step taken by the browser to improve performance, namely, timers in Chrome are limited to 'ticking' at most once a second when a tab is backgrounded. The drum…
nprescott on HN
Requests
Encode the pattern in the URL for sharing
From 3 comments
Very cool! It'd be great if you could also serialize the notes to the url, so people can share these.
prashnts on HNNice! A little feature suggestion -- it would be really cool if the current pattern were encoded in a URL so you could link it to friends. :)
sdrothrock on HNAn implementation: http://www.bambax.com/beatboxer/index.html#x||||x||||x||||x||||||x||x||x||||||||||||||||||||x|x|||x||||||||||||||x|||| Edit: now also saves bpm value:…
bambax on HN
More instruments such as hi-hat and cowbell
From 2 comments
Very nice. Could you add a hi-hat?
paublyrne on HNCool! It would be cool to have more instruments to create little loops to share with friends.
jfornear on HN
Tempo (BPM) slider
From 1 comment
With a slider to change bpm: http://www.bambax.com/beatboxer/
bambax on HN
Questions
Why use setInterval instead of Web Audio timing
From 2 comments
When the goal is showing off what you can do with 100 lines of code, what's wrong with it? I doubt high precision timing can be done with the same amount of code.
yAnonymous on HNHow peculiar you didn't use the webaudio API for this. I'm working on something similar right now for sun, but with a bank of generated sounds through the oscillator.
deanclatworthy on HN
Alternatives named
Web Audio API based drum machines such as the Boss DR-110 clone
From 2 comments
I can't give you 'realistic' drum sounds, but I was working on an approximate recreation of a Roland analog drum machine using only Javascript. I got the sound engine down more…
leviathant on HNThese appear to be the synthesized versions: https://github.com/leviathant/BossDR110/blob/feature/synthesized-sounds/dr110_synth.js To the parent, what did you use as the…
heuermh on HN