How to create and manipulate sounds from scratch

Among other projects I have in mind for Xojo (which I’m really dig’n, by the way), is a pet idea to build a cross-platform Sound Masking audio app for those who suffer from Tinnitus. Me being one of them.

I know there are sound masking apps and dedicated devices already available, but I have some different ideas about how I think I could improve on the model by adding some other resources you don’t typically find in these other apps. Not to mention, some sound masking apps are pretty simplistic.

My programming experience to date has primarily always been web & business database applications, so sound or audio is an entirely new field for me and I’m not sure where to start.

In a prior career I was a technican and worked side-by-side with Sound Engineers for many years doing live concerts (mostly likely the source of my Tinnitus), so the concepts of manipulating audio (white/pink noise, frequencies, modulation, pitch, oscillation, reverb, etc…) are not new to me - but trying to create sound programmatically is.

One of the driving requirements I have in mind is to have the same functionality (the same sound capabilities and quality) in all Mobile and Desktop OS’ that Xojo supports. Because one aspect of the project is to allow sharing “favourite” custom sound masking configurations between users, where one person may be on Windows and another user on iOS.

In theory, the information being exchanged between users to share custom sounds would be just configuration specs (an XML or Json file) and preferably not a recorded audio track, e.g., MP3.

This will also be a free app I want to share with whomever it can help.

I know MBS has an Audio Plugin available, but I’ve already contacted Christian and it is not iOS compatiable.

Any pointers would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

iOS has the AudioKit API which can produce amongst other things, Pink and White noise… however how/if they can be accessed via Xojo is another question…

Thank you Dave,

Prior to committing to Xojo, I was learning Swift and came across AudioKit as well. Their library is extremely impressive and what I think I may need (from what little understanding I have so far).

Their free iPad demo app is really cool AudioKit Synth One

Unfortunately it appears to be a strictly macOS or iOS based library. Which brings us back to your question - can it be utilized by a Xojo made app? I guess I need to learn about Xojo declares?

In which case, I would need to find a Windows equivalent and do the same on Android eventually. And hope they all come out with a similiar API and results.

This is one of the backup options I have in mind (if it’s even workable), but of course I’d rather go native as much as possible as a first choice.

I’ll try to remember to post here with whatever I come up with, eventually.

Thanks again.

Thank you Jean-Paul, every suggestion helps.

Fortunately the AudioKit Library is open-source and allows forking, so it’s not an impossibility. In general I’d like to learn more about building Xojo plugins, but first I got some other smaller projects to get going.

I’ll leave the option on the table for now, while I do further research as time permits.

Thanks.