On Sat, Nov 3, 2012 at 6:44 AM, David Pearah <pea...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello. > > I am an experienced web programmer (Javascript, HTML, Flash, Java) but > relatively new to MIDI. I am researching a project requires both 1. > real-time audio synthesis and 2. real-time audio streaming from server to > client, but I wanted to get insight/direction before moving forward with > FluidSynth Very simply, this is what I'm trying to build: > > - USER EXPERIENCE > - Web app (i.e. runs in most Mac + Windows desktop browsers) that > plays MIDI files with high-quality grand piano SoundFont > - Real-time controls for speed and pitch (along with typical > controls for volume, pause/play, etc.)... so there's no option to > pre-generate audio files since you can't anticipate what pitch/key > combination will be requested in the middle of playing the song. > - ARCHITECTURE: > - My assumption is that it is NOT a good idea to have the softsynth > running in the browser (computationally intense, large SoundFont > download, > install fat client vs. web app, etc.) > - *So this leads me to believe that the softsynth should be running > in real-time on the server, generating audio that can be streamed to > the browser app, which would be very lightweight since all it would > need to > do is play streaming audio* > - The controls for speed + pitch would actually go back to the > server, and in real-time cause the softsynth to generate the > corresponding > audio which would be streamed to the web client > > So my questions are: > > 1. Can Fluidsynth be installed on a server and generate real-time > audio fast enough to give up with playback, i.e. given typical server CPU > and single piano instrument, is it reasonable to expect that FluidSynth can > generate audio in faster than real-time? > 2. Can the FluidSynth API be accessed in mid-song to change the pitch > and velocity, or does it have to start over from the beginning of the song? > 3. Do you know of anyone who has taken the audio output from > FluidSynth and streamed it to another client? > > > I greatly appreciate your time to review these questions and hopefully > point me in the right direction. And for those who are interested, I'm > willing to pay for a short-term development contract to help get this > project started. > > Thanks! > > -- Dave > > Hello Dave, I have also been interested in such an application of FluidSynth for some time now, for use with the online SoundFont instrument database project that I was working on. In that case it would be used to preview SoundFont instruments with a Javascript or Flash based keyboard interface for playing notes, etc. Seems like a similar application to yours. My own thoughts around the architecture of such a system is the following: * Would be a server based solution, with a server application written in C. * Server application would handle spawning FluidSynth rendering threads using libFluidSynth to stream to users. * Server would provide a FastCGI interface for control FluidSynth instances. * Client application interface would be Javascript or Flash and use AJAX to control the FluidSynth instance. * Server application would interface to a Shoutcast server to stream encoded MP3 data. One thing about such a system is it would require quite a lot of CPU and probably would not scale very well. So in cases where there were a lot of users (say more than a couple), a distributed server farm like topology would be needed (synthesis servers, MP3 encoding servers, etc). I am interested to hear the details of your offer to pay for such a project. Best regards, Element Green
_______________________________________________ fluid-dev mailing list fluid-dev@nongnu.org https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/fluid-dev
