How we Created Dynamic Sound with the Web Audio API in Microsoft Flight Simulator Arcade

July 21, 2015

Category: design, Development, HTML/CSS, Other Script Languages

Before the Web Audio API, HTML5 gave us the <audio> element. It might seem hard to remember now, but prior to the <audio> element, our best option for sound in a browser was a plugin! The <audio> element was, indeed, exciting but it had a pretty singular focus. It was essentially a video player without the video, good for long audio like music or a podcast, but ill-suited for the demands of gaming. We put up with (or found workarounds for) looping issues, concurrent sound limits, glitches and total lack of access to the sound data itself. Fortunately, our patience has paid off. Where the <audio> element may have been lacking, the Web Audio API delivers. It gives us unprecedented control over sound and it’s perfect for everything from gaming to sophisticated sound editing. All this with a tidy API that’s really fun to use and well supported. Let’s be a little more specific: Web Audio gives you access to the raw waveform data of a sound and lets you manipulate, analyze, distort or otherwise modify it. It is to audio what the canvas API is to pixels. You have deep and mostly unfettered access to the sound data. It’s […]

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