Resources

Overview

microwave is a microtonal modular waveform synthesizer based on:

tune – a microtonal library
Nannou – a UI framework
FluidLite – a soundfont renderer

It features a virtual piano UI enabling you to play polyphonic microtonal melodies with your touch screen, computer keyboard, MIDI keyboard or mouse. The UI provides information about pitches and just intervals in custom tuning systems.

Installation

cargo install -f microwave

To install microwave (build it from scratch) additional dev dependencies required by Nannou might need to be installed. On the CI environment (Ubuntu 18.04 LTS) the following installation step is sufficient:

sudo apt install libxcb-composite0-dev libasound2-dev

To run microwave you need the appropriate runtime libraries for your graphics card. For me (Ubuntu 18.04 LTS) the following step worked:

sudo apt install libvulkan1 mesa-vulkan-drivers vulkan-utils

If this doesn't help or you don't use Ubuntu/apt try following these instructions.

Usage

microwave run                     # 12-EDO scale (default)
microwave run steps 1:22:2        # 22-EDO scale
microwave run import my_scale.scl # imported scale

This should spawn a window displaying a virtual keyboard. Use your touch screen, computer keyboard or mouse to play melodies on the virtual piano.

Soundfont Files

For playback of sampled sounds you need to provide the location of a soundfont file. The location can be set via the environment variable MICROWAVE_SF_LOC or the command line:

microwave run --sf-loc /usr/share/sounds/sf2/default-GM.sf2 steps 1:22:2

If you like to use compressed sf3 files you need to compile microwave with the sf3 feature enabled. Note that the startup will take significantly longer since the soundfont needs to be decompressed first.

Modular Synth – Create Your Own Waveforms

On startup, microwave tries to locate a waveforms file specified by the --wv-loc parameter or the MICROWAVE_WV_LOC environment variable. If no such file is found microwave will create a default waveforms file for you.

Let's have a look at an example clavinettish sounding waveform that I discovered by accident:

name: Clavinet
envelope_type: Piano
stages:
  - Oscillator:
      kind: Sin
      frequency: WaveformPitch
      modulation: None
      destination:
        buffer: Buffer0
        intensity: 440.0
  - Oscillator:
      kind: Triangle
      frequency: WaveformPitch
      modulation:
        ByFrequency: Buffer0
      destination:
        buffer: AudioOut
        intensity: 1.0

This waveform has two stages:

Generate a sine wave with the waveform's nominal frequency and an amplitude of 440. Write this waveform to Buffer0.
Generate a triangle wave with the waveform's nominal frequency and an amplitude of 1.0. Modulate the waveform's frequency (in Hz) sample-wise by the amount stored in Buffer0. Write the modulated waveform to AudioOut.

To create your own waveforms edit the waveforms file by trial-and-error. Let microwave's error messages guide you to find valid configurations.

Live Interactions

You can live-control your waveforms with your mouse pointer or any MIDI Control Change messages source.

The following example stage defines a resonating low-pass filter whose resonance frequency can be controlled with a MIDI modulation wheel/lever from 0 to 10,000 Hz.

Filter:
  kind: LowPass2
  resonance:
    Control:
      controller: Modulation
      from: 0.0
      to: 10000.0
  quality: 5.0
  source: Buffer0
  destination:
    buffer: AudioOut
    intensity: 1.0

Feature List

Sound features

Built-in modular waveform synhesizer

microwave run --wv-loc <waveforms-file-location> [scale-expression]

FluidLite soundfont renderer

microwave run --sf-loc <soundfont-file-location> [scale-expression]

External synthesizer via MIDI-out

microwave run --midi-out <midi-target> [scale-expression]

Microphone / aux input

microwave run --audio-in [scale-expression]

WAV recording

Control features
- Sequencer / piano keyboard via MIDI-in
```
microwave run --midi-in <midi-source> [scale-expression]
```
- Computer keyboard (configurable isomorphic layout)
- Touch Screen
- Mouse
- LF sources, e.g. time slices and oscillators
Effects
- Low-pass
- 2nd order low-pass
- High-pass
- 2nd order high-pass
- Band-pass
- Notch filter
- All-pass
- Reverb
- Spatial delay
- Rotary speaker
Microtuning features
- Custom scales
- SCL import
- Tuning-dependent automatic keyboard layout
- MIDI-out retuning via Single Note Tuning messages
- Display frequencies and rational number approximations

Help

For a complete list of command line options run

microwave help

microwave 0.16.0