My task will be to create a simple audio synthesizer, or sound generator, to be used on Android devices.
This project will better address my domain of understanding, coming from a background in audio engineering and music, and having a good understanding of audio synthesis, design and implementation in analog electronics. It will also be closer to my projected career path post-CodeClan, and something cool I'd love to learn about and have in my portfolio.
- There are frameworks for this which I will avoid.
- There is a built-in low-level audio API which I will probably make use of.
- There is also an NDK implementation of OpenSL ES, which allows C/C++ code to be used within an Android project. This is no doubt well beyond me as an Android novice, but it may be possible to lift C code from other open source projects and use it for sound generation and processing. Worth investigating, but I don't speak C/C++, so wouldn't mind just leaving it alone.
The MVP for this project will be something similar to a stylophone, i.e. a musical keyboard and simple sound generator of fixed timbre. The user will press a key and the app will make a sound. The user will be able to play simple, annoying melodies.
- Synth controls, e.g. Dual oscillators, switchable waveforms, filter cutoff/resonance, LFOs and envelopes...
- Audio recording and playback
- Sweet visual styles!