ATMOSYNTH Kids

Try a sound:

Hello, sound maker

Press a coloured key below, or the letters A S D F G H J K on a computer keyboard. Follow the thick wires: your note goes into the Wave, through each block, and out of the Speaker.

Wave

Smooth
Sound shape

Tone

Wobble

Echo

Speaker

What comes out
Computer keys A S D F G H J K

For grown-ups

Everything here happens in this browser. There is no account, nothing is saved and nothing is sent anywhere.

What each block really is

  • Wave: an oscillator, with an amplitude envelope (attack, decay, sustain, release)
  • Tone: a low-pass filter, only its cutoff shown
  • Wobble: a low-frequency oscillator bending the pitch, which is vibrato
  • Echo: a delay feeding back into itself
  • Speaker: the output, with an oscilloscope showing the wave that leaves it

What it teaches

  • A wave's shape is its sound, seen on two screens: the shape picked and what really comes out
  • ADSR as a mountain with a dot riding it while a key is held
  • Filters, echo and vibrato named in plain words, with the real term beside them
  • Real units: every key says its frequency in hertz, and the high C is twice the low one

Where to go next

  • The same ideas are what every patch on ATMOSYNTH is built from.
  • Explore what people have made, and play any of it.
  • Open the editor to wire blocks together freely. It needs no account either until something is published.