WebAssembly AudioWorklet Csound

Steven Yi, Victor Lazzarini and Edward Costello

This paper describes WebAssembly AudioWorklet (WAAW) Csound, one of the implementations of Web Audio Csound. We begin by introducing the background to this current implementation, stemming from the two first ports of Csound to the web platform using Native Clients and asm.js. The technology of WebAssembly is then introduced and dis- cussed in its more relevant aspects. The AudioWorklet interface of Web Audio API is explored, together with its use in WAAW Csound. We complement this discussion by considering the overarching question of support for multiple plat- forms, which implement different versions of Web Audio. Some initial examples of the system are presented to illustrate various potential applications. Finally, we complement the paper by discussing current issues that are fundamental for this project and others that rely on the development of a robust support for WASM-based audio computing.