AISLINGVisualiser

How it works

1. 01Listen to the FM-1

   Plug the FM-1 into this computer with USB, press Listen to the FM-1 and allow MIDI when the browser asks. MIDI out is on unless you turned it off (GLO, Setup).

   The notes go from the FM-1 to this tab and no further: the page sends nothing anywhere.

2. 02No FM-1?

   No FM-1? Press Demo: it plays Skellig, one of AISLING's eight pieces, as the FM-1 plays it (a recording from the same code, 32 bars round and round) and paints its notes as you hear them. It is the one thing the page fetches, and only when you press Demo; from a downloaded copy the demo paints without sound.

   Any MIDI source works: channels 1 to 4 are the Drone, the Sequence, the Lead and Sequence 2, as the FM-1 sends them.

3. 03What paints what

   Pitch sets how far across a note lands, how hard it is played sets how much paint, and the FM-1's tempo sets the wind. The Drone and the Lead keep painting while their notes are held, so the wind draws them out into strokes.

4. 04Paint by hand

   Paint with a finger or the mouse too: the band you touch picks the colour.

5. 05The sea

   Sea is the Atlantic from above, under a storm: the water goes round in two great eddies, as hard as the clock drives it. The Drone lays the swell in long broad strokes, the Sequence the foam on the eddies, each note of Sequence 2 spins up an eddy where it lands and draws a dark stroke round it, and the Lead is the light: under the cloud for a high note, down in an eddy's eye for a low one. A few faint strokes keep going round, and the cloud keeps blowing, when nothing is played.

6. 06Space

   Space turns it into deep space in a space telescope's colours, stars crowding round a bright heart, with no horizon: the Drone paints a nebula's glow, the Sequence stars that flare where its notes land, Sequence 2 threads of gas, and the Lead a comet, each note taking it on from where the last left it, up for a higher note and down for a lower, so the air draws its path. The gas goes round in slow eddies instead of blowing across. To paint it, the top of the page is the comet, then the threads, the nebula, and at the foot the stars.

7. 07Save and record

   Save keeps the painting as it is now. Record makes a video of it; with the FM-1 plugged in it records the FM-1's own sound as well, which comes over the same USB cable (the browser asks to use it as a microphone). While it records, the sound moves the wind. Both are saved to this computer and go nowhere else.

8. 08Mix in a sound

   Drop a sound file on the page, or press Sample, to mix it in: a WAV, AIFF, FLAC or MP3. It loops out of this computer's speakers and paints as the weather, low sounds low and high sounds high, each hit a drop where a slow sweep across the page has reached. While the FM-1 plays (or the demo), In time fits it to the tempo: sped up or slowed like tape, pitch and all, to the nearest 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 or 64 beats, and kept on the beat. A sample longer than 30 seconds plays at its own speed. Record takes it too, mixed with the FM-1. The file is read in this tab and goes nowhere.

9. 09Which browsers

   It works in Chrome, Edge and Opera, on a computer or an Android phone. Firefox asks you to allow a site permission first. Safari, and every browser on an iPhone or iPad, has no Web MIDI: the demo plays there.

10. 10Keys

    Keys: F full screen, V the scene (land, sea or space), M the landscape's ground (vellum, mist or night), C its colours (Heather, Atlantic, Kells or Evening: what is painted keeps its own, the next notes take the new), D demo, S save, R record, A a sample, H hide the panel in full screen. Add ?clean to the address for no panel at all (a projector, or a browser source in OBS), or ?scene=space to open on the stars, ?scene=water on the sea.

Part of AISLING (GPL-3.0). No FM-1? Hear it in the browser emulator.