Unlock JavaScript Web Audio in Safari and Chrome
Update: This is now necessary for Chrome, too. You might see this message in the console: The AudioContext was not allowed to start. It must be resumed (or created) after a user gesture on the page. It can be tricky to deal with Web Audio because browser vendors have measures in place to protect users […]
Yamaha DX7 and MIDI in JavaScript
Check the demo or find the source at https://github.com/mmontag/dx7-synth-js. This Yamaha DX7 emulator is my attempt to do something cool with the Web Audio APIs. The synth responds to MIDI input (make sure your device is hooked up before you start your browser) including pitch bend, mod wheel, and aftertouch. I've added the ability to pan the operators for […]
Subpixel Letter-Spacing in Webkit
As of sometime in August, Chrome Canary enables subpixel CSS letter-spacing attributes. It's a beautiful thing. https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20606 http://src.chromium.org/viewvc/blink?view=revision&revision=153727
Avoid Faux-Bold with Web Fonts
Only the best web fonts have a full complement of bold, italic, and bold-italic faces. Typekit provides lots of great fonts with a fleet of variants, but if you're on a budget or enjoy the freedom of Google Fonts (as I do), you'll find a lot of great fonts that don't have true bold variants. […]
Converting to Retina
These are my personal recommendations for making the switch to a high-DPI website. 1. Step one: stop working at 72 DPI This one is for the designers: get into the practice of doing everything at high-DPI. If you are working in Photoshop, get to know and love shape layers and the path tool, even for […]
Google Analytics for Backbone Apps
When you build a single-page web app with something like Backbone driving routes and managing browser history, the page load event is only going to happen once at the beginning of the session. The standard Google Analytics javascript snippet doesn't work so well for these single-page apps. You should trigger an Analytics event when the […]
Music Streaming Snapshot
Monthly Users According to Facebook - February 2012 Service Launch Date Monthly Users % Change Spotify Oct 2008 15,800,000 +20% Pandora Jan 2000 9,200,000 +3% SoundCloud Oct 2008 3,100,000 +24% Bandcamp Sep 2008 1,200,000 +21% Grooveshark Jan 2006 1,100,000 0% Slacker Jun 2007 150,000 0% MOG Dec 2009 140,000 -30% Rdio Aug 2010 100,000 +43% […]
Universal's Audible Watermark
This is my personal blog. The views expressed on this page are mine alone. Update, April 8, 2013: Can you hear it? Take the watermark listening test. Update, January 14, 2015: Check out the results of the listening test. A while ago, I wrote about my confusion regarding Weird Spotify Compression Artifacts. It turns out […]