Show HN: Gapless.js – gapless web audio playback

(github.com)

17 points | by switz 3 hours ago ago

6 comments

  • martpie 2 hours ago

    Look very nice, I may end up using for https://museeks.io, gapless playback has been on the roadmap for a while, but WebAudio APIs have always been super cryptic, a higher-level API is very much welcome.

    • switz 2 hours ago

      Thanks! Please do share if you choose to implement it (you can open a Github issue). I'd be glad to add any projects using it to the README.

  • modec 2 hours ago

    How does this relate to https://github.com/regosen/Gapless-5 - looks like that is also recently updated.

    • switz 2 hours ago

      Gapless 5 was actually the pre-cursor to this library over a decade ago, so Rego deserves full credit. They built the first example of gapless playback on the web and I took inspiration from their techniques.

      Gapless 5 has a built in UI and style. Our library is headless: you bring your own UI and controls. It just depends on what your use-case is.

  • NoahZuniga an hour ago

    It's not gapless on firefox latest.

    • switz an hour ago

      I run Firefox latest so it should work. There's always a risk when going from HTML5->Web Audio. There's an occasional blip that's impossible to avoid (or at least, I have never found a solution). It doesn't happen every time though. Try going from track 2 to track 3 in the second tab of the demo (if both are "READY" as web audio).

      The problem with exclusively using the web audio API is that the entire track must be loaded into memory before playing it, whereas HTML5 loads progressively. So we use both to balance the techniques.

      In prior versions of the library, we'd load the track in parallel to HTML5 and make the switch mid-track so it's actually far less noticeable even if it does blip. I'm considering adding that to the new version.

      Another alternative is building a custom buffer using RANGE requests to exclusively drive it via the web audio API. But obviously that is a far more complex undertaking (and requires the server to support RANGE requests). I'm open to implementing it, though.