FlexibleFactory

The new FileReference class in Flash Player 10 opens up a whole new side to web applications, where the barrier between the local file system and the network has (to some degree) been torn down.

Here’s an example of how to load MP3 files from the local file system. I’m sure you’ll appreciate why this is pretty cool…

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So the Flash Player team have finally relegated the SOUND_COMPLETE hack to the dustbin of failed tech… but replaced it with a far superior technology. You can see all the details over at Tinic Uro’s blog (here, here and here).

Naturally quite excited by this news, I have been doing some development work. Here’s what I needed to get started:

Flash Player 10
Handy doc explaining where to get Flex SDK nightly build and how to use it to target FP10
Standalone Flash Player 10 (Debug Version)

I’ve been refactoring a class library that I have been writing over the last year and a half or so, to see how well this new stuff works. The main obstacle in the refactoring process has been the transition from using standard Arrays to ship the audio data through the application to the use of ByteArrays instead. This seems to offer a significant improvement in performance (although in the debug player it runs like a dog… about 4x slower).

Ultimately the aim is to publish this as a library for all to use, but while I am investigating licensing options and a new site for the library, I will be posting demos here.

Here is a demo application (requires Flash Player 10, it won’t try to auto-update if you don’t have FP10) that demonstrates the following features:

Extracting PCM audio data from MP3 sounds
A feedback delay module
A gain module
A mixing module
A resampler (changes the playback rate)

Below is a schematic of how these modules are chained together.

After writing an article for FlashBrighton about audio and Flash, I spent a while messing around with audio synthesis in Flash. The project has become a modular, xml powered synth engine, but has lost quite a lot of momentum recently. So instead of a grand launch, I’m going to release in bits and bobs, going back over early wins on the project. Here’s a Flex prototype that I wrote not long after releasing the initial article over a year ago.

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