microwave-0.32.0 is not a library.

Make xenharmonic music and explore musical tunings.

Resources

Overview

microwave is a microtonal modular waveform synthesizer with soundfont rendering capabilities based on:

tune – a microtonal library
magnetron – a modular synthesizer architecture
fluid-xenth – a microtonal soundfont renderer
Nannou – a UI framework

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.

Demo

Download / Installation

Option A: Try out the web app to get a very first impression:

microwave (Browser) - Very experimental!

Option B: Download a precompiled version of microwave for the supported target architectures:

Option C: Use Cargo to build a fresh binary from scratch for your own target architecture:

# If you are using Linux: Make sure all dev dependencies are installed.
# On the CI environment (Ubuntu 20.04) we only need to add one library:
sudo apt install libasound2-dev

# Make sure pkg-config is installed
sudo apt install pkg-config

cargo install -f microwave

microwave should run out-of-the box on a recent (Ubuntu) Linux, Windows or macOS installation. If it doesn't, the problem is probably caused by the Nannou framework. In that case, try following these instructions.

Usage

Hint: Run microwave with parameters from a shell environment (Bash, PowerShell). Double-clicking on the executable will not provide access to all features!

microwave run                       # 12-EDO scale (default)
microwave run steps 1:22:2          # 22-EDO scale
microwave run scl-file my_scale.scl # imported scale
microwave run help                  # Print help about how to set the parameters to start microwave

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

MIDI In/Out

To enable playback via an external MIDI device you need to specify the name of the output device and a tuning method. The available tuning methods are full, full-rt, octave-1, octave-1-rt, octave-2, octave-2-rt, fine-tuning and pitch-bend.

microwave devices # List MIDI devices
microwave run --midi-out name-of-my-device --tun-method octave-1
microwave run --midi-in "name of my device" --tun-method octave-1 # If the device name contains spaces

To listen for events coming from a external MIDI device you only need to specify the name of the input device:

microwave devices # List MIDI devices
microwave run --midi-in name-of-my-device
microwave run --midi-in "name of my device" # If the device name contains spaces

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.

Audio Options

The command-line enables you to set set up sample rates, buffer sizes and many other audio parameters. To print a full list of available options run:

microwave run help

Modular Synth – Create Your Own Waveforms and Effects

On startup, microwave tries to locate a config file specified by the --cfg-loc parameter or the MICROWAVE_CFG_LOC environment variable. If no such file is found microwave will create a default config file with predefined waveforms and effects for you.

`waveforms` section

The waveforms section of the config file defines waveform render stages to be applied sequentially when a key is pressed.

You can combine those stages to create the tailored sound you wish for. The following example config defines a clavinettish sounding waveform that I discovered by accident:

waveforms:
  - name: Funky Clavinet
    envelope: Piano
    stages:
      - Oscillator:
          kind: Sin
          frequency: WaveformPitch
          modulation: None
          out_buffer: 0
          out_level: 440.0
      - Oscillator:
          kind: Triangle
          frequency: WaveformPitch
          modulation: ByFrequency
          mod_buffer: 0
          out_buffer: 1
          out_level: 1.0
      - Filter:
          kind: HighPass2
          resonance:
            Mul:
              - WaveformPitch
              - Time:
                  start: 0.0
                  end: 0.1
                  from: 2.0
                  to: 4.0
          quality: 5.0
          in_buffer: 1
          out_buffer: AudioOut
          out_level: 1.0

While rendering the sound three stages are applied:

Generate a sine wave with the waveform's nominal frequency F and an amplitude of 440. Write this waveform to buffer 0.
Generate a triangle wave with frequency F and an amplitude of 1.0. Modulate the waveform's frequency (in Hz) sample-wise by the amount stored in buffer 0. Write the modulated waveform to buffer 1.
Apply a second-order high-pass filter to the samples stored in buffer 1. The high-pass's resonance frequency rises from 2F to 4F within 0.1 seconds. Write the result to AudioOut.

To create your own waveforms use the default config file as a starting point and try editing it by trial-and-error. Let microwave's error messages guide you to find valid configurations.

`effects` section

The effects section of the config file defines the effects to be applied sequentially after the waveforms have been rendered.

Use the following config as an example to add a rotary-speaker effect to your sound.

effects:
  - RotarySpeaker:
      buffer_size: 100000
      gain:
        Controller:
          kind: Sound9
          from: 0.0
          to: 0.5
      rotation_radius: 20.0
      speed:
        Controller:
          kind: Sound10
          from: 1.0
          to: 7.0
      acceleration: 7.0
      deceleration: 14.0

The given config defines the following properties:

A fixed delay buffer size of 100000 samples
An input gain ranging from 0.0 to 0.5. The input gain can be controlled via the F9 key or MIDI CCN 78.
A rotation radius of 20 cm
A target rotation speed ranging from 1 Hz to 7 Hz. The speed can be controlled via the F10 key or MIDI CCN 79.
The speaker accelerates (decelerates) at 7 (14) Hz/s.

Live Interactions

You can live-control your waveforms with your mouse pointer, touch pad 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.

stages:
  - Filter:
      kind: LowPass2
      resonance:
        Controller:
          kind: Modulation
          from: 0.0
          to: 10000.0
      quality: 5.0
      in_buffer: 0
      out_buffer: AudioOut
      out_level: 1.0

If you want to use the mouse's vertical axis for sound control use the Breath controller.

resonance:
  Controller:
    kind: Breath
    from: 0.0
    to: 10000.0

If you want to use the touchpad for polyphonic sound control use the KeyPressure property.

resonance:
  Linear:
    value: KeyPressure
    from: 0.0
    to: 10000.0

Feature List

Sound features

Built-in modular waveform synthesizer with physical modeling synthesis

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

Soundfont renderer

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

External synthesizer via MIDI-out

microwave run --midi-out <midi-target> --tun-method <tuning-method> [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]
```
- Lumatone / multichannel input
```
# 31-EDO Lumatone preset centered around D4 (62, Layout offset -5)
microwave ref-note 62 --root 57 --luma-offs 31 --lo-key 0 --up-key 155 --midi-in lumatone steps 1:31:2
```
- Computer keyboard (configurable isomorphic layout)
- Touch Screen
- Mouse
- Channel events (pitch-bend, modulation, pedals, aftertouch, etc.)
- Polyphonic events (key pressure)
- LF sources (envelopes, time slices, oscillators, etc.)
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 imports
- KBM imports
- Tuning-dependent automatic isomorphic keyboard layouts
- MIDI-out retuning via different tuning message types
- Display frequencies and rational number approximations
- Customizable second visual keyboard (--kb2 option)

Help

For a complete list of command line options run

microwave help

License

microwave statically links against OxiSynth for soundfont rendering capabilities. This makes the binary executable of microwave a derivative work of OxiSynth. OxiSynth is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License, version 2.1.

microwave 0.32.0