I started this project one day I was reading about music theory, golden ratios, and the fibonacci sequence. Not to mention, something about a secret order of the Tool album, Lateralus, one of my favorite albums of all time. Naturally I wanted to try and code something so I can gain a better understanding of it.
The quickest way for me to experiment with code is using Python! However, I couldn't find many great Python implementations of sound generation. Also being a synthesizer lover, I decided to try to code a standalone synth in Python.
Python3, Pygame, numpy
It turns out, there are two ways you can divide the western music scale into note ratios: theoretical ratios and equal temperament ratios. Both are at the top of the file and theoretical ratios are commented out because I found the equal temperament to be more suitable for this environment as they are more rigorous and don't include repeating numbers (0.66666).
The BaseSynth is where I'm using some fancy Python syntax to set the scale dict using the current base_hz (default to 440) and the ratios constant. The keys of the dict are the Pygame key constants mimicking a piano starting with A (440 hz). So, you can play a minor scale by going straight across the middle row, a through k.
In the wave functions, we use numpy to generate arrays using equations I worked over from examples and some AI assistance. These can be converted to audio using Pygame's sndarray module!
This is the first implementation of the BaseSynth where we use Pygame to initialize a mixer and implement a shape setter.
The methods play_sound_at_hz and stop_sound access a dict of Pygame Sound objects to play or stop them.
handle_music_key_press expects you to handle keys not related to music before calling this.
The transpose and octave functions update the scale by setting the base_hz.
In the main file we initialize the MonoSynth and the Pygame event loop. We'll handle any key presses aside from the music notes. I have a purple window which will display a sine wave at your frequency and sample rate. My idea is to create a new class that accepts a synth and generates the point plots to display the waves.