Data-Driven Live Coding with DataToMusic API

Creating interactive audio applications for web browsers often involves challenges such as time synchronization between non-audio and audio events within thread constraints and format-dependent mapping of data to synthesis parameters. In this paper, we describe a unique approach for these issues with a data-driven symbolic music application programming interface (API) for rapid and interactive development. We introduce DataToMusic (DTM) API, a data-sonification tool set for web browsers that utilizes the Web Audio API as the primary means of audio rendering. The paper demonstrates the possibility of processing and sequencing audio events at the audio-sample level by combining various features of the Web Audio API, without relying on the ScriptProcessorNode, which is currently under a redesign. We implemented an audio event system in the clock and synthesizer classes in the DTM API, in addition to a modular audio effect structure and a flexible data-to-parameter mapping interface. For complex real-time configuration and sequencing, we also present a model system for creating reusable functions with a data-agnostic interface and symbolic musical transformations. Using these tools, we aim to create a seamless connection between high-level (musical structure) and low-level (sample rate) processing in the context of real-time data sonification.