Programming a MUSIC app (synthesizer) for smartphone:

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Hello everyone!

What I want to do is to program a realtime synthesizer (mostly java), for smartphone device (mostly android). I want it to perform high quality sounds, and also to have a lot of sound presets and libraries.I've firstly thought about programming a vst host, knowing that those vst's are just what I need, but it seems they can't be used on smartphones.

Then, I found that some Novation devices like midi keyboards can be directly connected to IPad, but I'm not sure about that.

Are there any alternatives for vst's? Or some audio cards for phone? And, just for information, how does the real synthesizers work?

Please HELP!

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Android allows plugins. IOS dosnt. Neither format supports standard plugins (vst/au). USB interfaces are supported on both platforms. IOS is better supported currently for audio software due to latency issues in Android. The new Android version L coming soon is supposed to address latency. So there are pros and cons to both platforms for DAW work. If you havnt looked already, check out Caustic, Audio Evolution and Fruity loops on Android. They will show you whats currently around. I can use my EMU xboard 49 USB MIDI controller on Google Nexus 7 2013 with Caustic and USB OTG lead.

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UltraJv wrote:Android allows plugins. IOS dosnt.
What kind of plugins? Examples?
If you havnt looked already, check out Caustic
Thank you, I've checked out Caustic, and it seems to be kinda what I need. How do the synthesizers actually produce sounds in this app? With some algorithms? Or using some audio plugins?

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Muselc wrote:
UltraJv wrote:Android allows plugins. IOS dosnt.
What kind of plugins? Examples?
If you havnt looked already, check out Caustic
Thank you, I've checked out Caustic, and it seems to be kinda what I need. How do the synthesizers actually produce sounds in this app? With some algorithms? Or using some audio plugins?
The Android plugin structure would have to be written for audio. There aren't any audio plugins currently. I think Caustic uses samples and synthesis. Only the dev would know.

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A single synth instead of daw type worth looking at is heat. currently what's lacking on Android are wavetable type synths
Last edited by UltraJv on Mon Oct 06, 2014 5:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Do you know any library for android audio synthesis?
So basically i need to be able to manage some samples, and pitch them in function of the keys. Then add some effects. Any library for a effects?
Last edited by Muselc on Mon Oct 06, 2014 6:04 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Heat is the name of a synth. As for sample libraries, there are some available for Caustic.if you're asking for code libraries, I don't know. You would have to look at programming environments for Android. Single cell (caustic devs) often posts on here regarding updates on Caustic.if you search on kvr you should find them.

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I talk about code libraries. How does the wavetable synths (for android) you talked about precisely work?

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Muselc wrote:I talk about code libraries. How does the wavetable synths (for android) you talked about precisely work?
I don't think there are any on android. For PC and Mac there are quite a few. Serum and Codex are the latest. If you Google wavetable synthesis it will give you a far better idea than I can.

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Okay, I'll check out those. Anyway, thanks for your support! :)

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Muselc wrote:Okay, I'll check out those. Anyway, thanks for your support! :)
No problem. I hope you make a cool new synth for Android :tu:

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Hi, my name is Rej and I wrote Caustic.

Caustic uses both samples and synthesized audio depending on which machine ("plugin") you're using.

If you're looking to get in on the programming level, maybe have a look at libPD, it's multiplatform and takes away the lower-level programming for audio. I've never tried it but I think there are released apps that use it.

http://libpd.cc/

If you can give more info on exactly what you're looking to do, I can give you more info in that direction.

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Muselc wrote:Do you know any library for android audio synthesis?
So basically i need to be able to manage some samples, and pitch them in function of the keys. Then add some effects. Any library for a effects?
Hi Muselc
I'm the developer of the G-Stomper VA-Beast Synthesizer for Android.
I've used some parts (or at least concepts) of the Minim library by Damien Di Fede for my wavetables.
It's available on github as pure java version https://github.com/ddf/Minim and a cpp version https://github.com/ddf/minim-cpp. Actually it was no option for me to use the library or its code as is, but it helped a lot to read the code.

Also be sure to check out this article.
http://mindtherobot.com/blog/633/androi ... with-byte/
As you want to go for java, the explained concept will be very useful, it helps to avoid garbage collector hickups.
Hope this is a help for you

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