GAYER, the Graphical Audio plaYER, is a browser-based subtractive synth inspired by the ANS Synthesizer and its many descendants. It is a work in progress implemented in ReasonML, using partial bindings to the WebAudio and Canvas APIs.

GAYER operates by writing pixel data into an HTML5 canvas from various input sources (e.g. webcam, microphone, image/audio files) and reading back the pixel data to control an audio filterbank. Each input source resides on its own image layer; GAYER offers controls to reorder these layers and manipulate their opacity, compositing mode, and other parameters on the fly, allowing for various audiovisual effects.

Audio input is analyzed using the constant-Q transform, which can be conceived of as a series of logarithmically-spaced bandpass filters. The frequency bins of this transform are aligned with the frequencies of musical notes in Western equal temperament, making it well-suited for musical applications. GAYER uses these same filter parameters for its output filterbank; when the microphone and playback layers are activated, it essentially functions as a vocoder with a larger than usual number of bands.

While the ANS required users to painstakingly inscribe their desired sounds on a physical surface, GAYER’s support for live video and audio input opens the door to easy experimentation and improvisation. Additionally, since all its parameters are stored in the URL, you can simply bookmark your favorite set-up, go back in the browser’s history to undo, or copy a link to share with others.

The demo will include a brief explanation of GAYER’s principles of operation and the history of graphical sound, as well as examples of how it can be used in music-making. It will also illustrate how ReasonML’s design admits of flexible combinations of functional and imperative approaches, allowing for the developer to gradually transform an imperative API into a functional one and to choose different trade-offs between purity and practicality within the same application.

The software is available at: https://gayer.live
The source is available under a GPL v3.0 license at at: https://github.com/corajr/gayer