To review the topic of sampling synthesis that we discussed in class, read the sections from Puckette’s The Theory and Technique of Electronic Music that deal with the topic of Wavetables and Samplers, including four of its first five subsections: The Wavetable Oscillator, Sampling, Enveloping Samplers, (you may skip the subsection on Timbre Stretching,) and Interpolation.

Study the API provided by either Java (Oracle) or Apple or Microsoft for assisting the programming of audio and music applications. In Java it’s known as the Java Sound API. In the MacOS and iOS it’s known as Core Audio. In Windows it’s the Core Audio APIs. In this class we will focus primarily on Java for cross-platform development and Objective C for MacOS/iOS development. Choose whichever is most familiar and useful to you, and teach yourself as much as possible about how basic audio functionality is handled, especially audio file I/O and audio stream I/O. Try to write a simple program that performs a basic I/O task such as a) opening and examining a file, b) generating a sound and playing it or storing it, c) copying input to output, etc.

Most importantly, come to class prepared to give a presentation on what you learned, and to engage in a discussion with others about best practices for basic audio programming with Java and/or Objective C. You’ll be called on to lead the class for at least a few minutes teaching something you know, or at the least, asking informed questions of others regarding what you don’t know.