Why the Rifleman's Creed, of course: "There are many like it, but this one is mine."

(To be clear, I am not the creator here.)

There are many things like this, but for what it is worth, this is a pretty well executed one: simple to use, elegant UX, produces pleasing tones even when used inexpertly.

Also the fact that this one expands to a large number of steps is somewhat unique I think. (BTW it seems odd to me that the lower bound on the number of steps is 10 rather than the conventional 8.)

I too have seen (and played with) a large number of step-sequencer things and literally have three of them sitting next to me on my desk while I type this.

But I still enjoyed playing with this one for a little while.

I'm sure the OP learned something from this exercise, and there could be people for whom this is their first/best experience with a simple step sequencer, so it may "unlock" something for someone. But I think that's unnecessary "gravy" in this case. Sometimes the "joy" of creating is reason enough to do it. I may never visit Music Grid again but I'm glad OP shared it.

Hey, I'm the author and your comment did put a smile on my face. thanks for that :)

> steps is 10 rather than the conventional 8

oops, sorry on that one as I have no idea about music theory and stuff. I just learned a lot by building it and now going through this thread learning more.

The 8-not-10 isn't a problem at all, just a little surprising and maybe a hint that the creator wasn't deeply experienced with sequencers.

To be honest that's fine. I sincerely think this is a pretty elegant implementation, maybe because you're looking at it with fresh eyes.

Traditionally the hardware versions of these things have a pretty clunky and awkward interface that seems designed to minimize the number of switches and dials rather than to be readily understandable. A lot of the "toy" software sequencers you'll find online are clearly modeled on the hardware sequencers - sometimes specific ones - and copy that clunky interface. The "here's a grid, toggle a button to play a sound on that beat" interface is much more intuitive and fun to play with.

I think this is really well done. The only idea for improvement that jumps out at to me would be the ability to drag the cursor with the mouse down to toggle multiple buttons at once rather than independently clicking on each one.

If you want to learn more about Music Theory, I highly recommend Adam Nealy's videos on YouTube. He takes a refreshingly relaxed, entertaining, and overall very enjoyable approach to music theory, in stark comparison to a lot of the extant music theory material available. Which is kind of ironic since one of the reasons people play music is to relax, entertain, and enjoy themselves: https://www.youtube.com/user/havic5

I also like Rick Beato, as he tends to do more song deconstruction, though sometimes he can come off as a bitter, old man (though most of the time it's endearing): https://www.youtube.com/user/pegzch

Finally, I also like Signals Music Studio. He takes a little more of a traditional approach, but still in the camp of positivity rather than criticism of "crappy modern music": https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRDDHLvQb8HjE2r7_ZuNtWA

I love WebAudio stuff. It's so much fun to bang out a jam with some code. I could never get the gumption to get SuperCollider or any of the other systems working, because I was much more interested in the interactivity and sharing that are fundamental to the web.

Here's a multi-touch capable keyboard: https://codepen.io/SeanMcBeth/pen/meaQvj

Here's a game I made (about the consequences of following orders) that used nothing but WebAudio synthesis for the sound: https://www.seanmcbeth.com/yabs.html

Actually, I've been hacking on audio stuff in the browser before there was even a WebAudio API. Here's a synth I made that generated raw WAV files on the fly and played them in a standard <audio> tag (note: it pretty much only works correctly in Chrome): https://www.seanmcbeth.com/html5/synth/

Always keep playing.

Nothing special. But I'm sure it was fun building it!

I've seen the others too, but I found this to be less busy and more fun!

I too feel a little cynical, because I built basically exactly this back in 2012. Before Google, and before Ableton. AFAIK, it was the first grid sequencer online. The first version used the Mozilla audio API, before Web Audio was even a thing. I wish I was credited for the inspiration somewhere, but I guess it's very possible that this is an independent reinvention.

I called it MusicToy: http://maximecb.github.io/MusicToy/#aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...

It's almost exactly the same, with the pattern encoded in the URL, but it also has drum samples, and it has very few dependencies (no need for node or any web frameworks). I personally prefer having time go from left to right because that's how most sequencers work, and our monitors tend to be wider than they are tall.

I also made an updated, more advanced version (MusicToy 2) in 2019: https://mt2.musictools.live/

Coldcut, a Brit electronic music duo who also dabbled in audio/video mix software, made a simple online music tool for Absolut Vodka in 1998. (Absolut was targeting the youth market and set up a site called Absolut DJ.) Coldcut's thing was a simple grid on which you placed sound effects/samples sprites. A dot moving through the grid would play each in turn as it hit them. It was really good fun, but I can't find it now. Might have been made in Flash - or perhaps it was still known as Shockwave Flash back then.

Here's an archive article about Absolut's campaign:

https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/absolut-vodka-launche...

Coldcut's Wikipedia entry:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coldcut

Tone Matrix predates yours by many years and was popular at the time. If you weren't aware of it, you should charitably assume OP independently built this too.

Yes, was going to say the same thing. I was playing with Tone Matrix way back in 2006 I think. It was built with Flash, and died with the rest of the flash web.

Edit: original link to tone matrix: http://lab.andre-michelle.com/ToneMatrix

I ported Tone Matrix to JavaScript to help keep it from dying:

https://www.maxlaumeister.com/tonematrix/

Tone Matrix isn't a grid sequencer though, but fair enough, I should have said the first JS-based grid sequencer, not the first grid sequencer online.

'first JS-based grid sequencer'

We're all inspired by other things, and being first doesn't really count for much if you don't promote yourself. Even then, it's a roll of the dice as to if you stand out in the crowd.

If you're just going by "JS-based grid sequencer' I created one in February 2011 as part of an HTML-based emulation of a Boss DR-110 drum machine (Which I later updated to use the Web Audio API to synthesize the drum voices)

https://github.com/leviathant/BossDR110

It's skeumorphic (I was challenging the popular notion "You can do everything in HTML that you can do in Flash" at the time - it wasn't true then, but we're much closer now), I never finished out 'song mode', but it is a JS-based grid sequencer that predates your timeline. As best as I can tell, it was the first click-and-drag Javascript knob done Rebirth/Reason style - it was a little clunky, but I sure as hell couldn't find any remotely similar code to base it off of - but I don't get bent out of shape whenever I see other people making Javascript knobs.

Yes, we're all inspired by other things. Neither of us invented grid sequencers, or music theory.

I know there was no hostile intent, and I'm glad that OP is having fun, but hopefully you understand why I feel a slight pinch when I see something that is so close to what I've built making the rounds on HN with zero acknowledgement from OP.

If we just go by a description of features, we've both built a grid sequencer in JS, with a built in synth that is designed to play on a scale so that everything comes out "sounding good"... With a serverless architecture so that you can share the tunes with anchor tags. It's precisely the same idea. How would you feel? Would you be able to be completely detached?

I did promote MusicToy a bit. The original MusicToy made the rounds on reddit 8 years ago. MusicToy2 has had the same (small) base of active users for about 1.5 year now: https://mt2.musictools.live/

Either way, I should probably look at this as a learning experience. It shows that I didn't promote my project as well as I could have. My project could also use better mobile support in terms of auto-scaling the page for mobile displays.

There's so much messaging around "if you build it, they will come" and "my work should speak for itself" that it's easy to feel defeated when someone does the same thing - often, a variation you'll even find to be inferior - but gets more recognition for it because that person was better at promoting.

Speaking for myself, I'm not great at self-promotion. It feels gross. Marketing feels gross - and, if I'm being real, it often is gross. But that's how you get recognition. Spending time to talk about yourself and your work helps to position you for that time that luck just seemed to fall in your lap.

As I was building out that JS Boss DR-110, I rounded a corner where I felt like if I really dedicated myself to putting the polish on - finishing up song mode, scrapping and rewriting the frontend styling, a live demo page with a listing of actual DR-110s for sale driven by the eBay API - I could have made a sizeable splash in whatever that niche world was. Of course, in early 2011 getting consistent timing out of Javascript doing audio playback wasn't possible - that was a considerable hindrance. But it would still be a solid groundwork for someone else's future project. I could have done a few low-key unpaid speaking engagements about it, for sure.

Then what?

Every now and then, I think about going back and rewriting the sequencer, or building an import/export routine, or implementing MIDI I/O, but I have no real desire to get into the world of creating softsynth drum machines & sequencers. It's a fun footnote, it was a good way to kick off some rust - I hadn't been doing front end code for several years by that point.

Nice job on Musictoy, and that's great that you've got a persistent userbase, no matter what the size is!

Thanks for the honest comment. I think you're quite right about the "if you build it, they will come" messaging, and the importance of self-promotion.

It's also OK to build projects that don't necessarily go anywhere. I recently had a music app I was developing and I had hopes for turning that into a business, but I quickly realized that in order to make the app really competitive, to have enough value that people would pay for it, it would become a job on top of my job, and that would really kill the fun. At the end of the day, side-projects like this are mostly about having fun and learning a few things.

I am happy with my small userbase. The fact that a few people keep coming back, and the app lives on its own, without me promoting it, means that some people find genuine value/enjoyment out of it. I intend to keep the app running and free for as long as it doesn't become a maintenance burden.

> 0 acknowledgement from OP.

if it makes you feel any better, I am the author of the website and I posted the same exact link 9 hours before OP and it got 3 upvotes [0] .

then I woke up to a lot of GitHub stars on the repository and turns out this blew up.

HN works in mysterious ways.

> 0 acknowledgement from OP

I have no idea, that seems like a newly created account to me. if you have any queries or issues/feedback, you can always raise it on git or contact me.

I took this only as a learning experience and in no way to promote or market something :)

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23508667

Thank you for responding irshadshalu, I sincerely appreciate you taking the time. I agree that HN works in unpredictable ways. I don't know if you were just more lucky than I was, or if people like your app better because the UI looks better. If that's the case, it's interesting to know.

This HN account is new-ish, but the original MusicToy blog post from 2012 is still around [1].

As far as Git goes, I would appreciate it if you had an acknowledgement somewhere that linked to the MusicToy repo[2], or just mentioned in passing in terms of inspirations/predecessors. You obviously have no obligation to do this, but it won't take away from the success of your app if you choose to do so.

I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors, and may your success encourage you to build more great projects.

[1] https://pointersgonewild.com/2012/04/23/musictoy-music-made-...

[2] https://github.com/maximecb/MusicToy

But parent hasn't acknowledged that you were an inspiration. I find this insistence quite rude. Especially when it's taking well trodden ground in desktop software and putting it on the web.

Well trodden ground? Except there wasn't desktop software that could do this beforehand.

If you can't see the innovation, let me spell it out for you in very few words: the software has an intuitive-enough UI that you need no prior knowledge of the program to use it, and you can share musical ideas in one or two clicks. Please tell us exactly which desktop program allowed you to do this, as easily, pre-2012? Yes, this is novel, since it enables something that wasn't possible before.

This kind of simple edit and share songs definitely existed, e.g. Otomata. So you combined Otomata and Tone Matrix? Cool, I guess, but the ingredients were right there for any number of people to do the same thing independently.

Trying to claim your place as the trunk of the tree that any tool that looks like this branches out of is not reflective of reality and pure hubris.

Also I'd appreciate it if you added a link on Music Toy for both of these apps which clearly gave you inspiration.

Why in the world would the author lie to market for you when you weren’t an inspiration?

I think it's very likely that he has seen one of the multiple music apps I've put out over the years and has actually taken inspiration from it. Either way, it's not required, but considerate to acknowledge your predecessors. Particularly given that the concept is pretty much exactly the same.

I was not aware of any of the music apps you made and came to know about MusicToy first time from this thread (oh and it's great btw, I played around with it a bit)

and my inspiration, as I stated earlier was from a stress-reliver app in play store which I have given credits in the first paragraph of README.

Invention is a myth

Very enjoyable, thanks:

http://maximecb.github.io/MusicToy/#babababaaaaaaaaababababa...

https://mt2.musictools.live/#1259

These are great too. Thanks for sharing!

Ironically that google link seems to be broken in Chrome, because it predates the time in 2018 when chrome intentionally broke most/all existing webaudio content.

(Ostensibly the change was meant to prevent pages from auto-playing sounds without user input, but in practice it broke pages regardless of whether they did so.)

Details: https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2018/11/web-audio-...

Strange, that google one works for me in Chrome and it was made after the restrictions

The more embarrassing one for Google is this entire site

https://www.google.com/search?q=link%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fmusicla...

It's unpredictable; the chrome policy that breaks webaudio is partly based on your browsing behavior.

When they first applied the policy (mid 2018), it broke pretty much all webaudio and they un-applied it a few days later. When they later reapplied it (late 2018) they didn't change the policy itself, but apparently added a thing where chrome ignores the policy if it remembers you having allowed audio to play at that site before.

Anyhoo it looks like I was in an incognito tab when I tried it before and the audiocontext was silenced. In a regular tab it plays normally (for me, anyway).

What's really weird is that sometimes the audio works of you navigated to the page, but if you refresh the page it breaks.

For as much as Google engineers talk about "don't break the Web", they break the fucking web all the time.

It uses Google Analytics.

>I'm not trying to be cynical

Welp, you failed spectacularly at that. You came off like a bitter, cynical asshole who's mad that someone made something.

>Is there something special about this one?

Yeah, someone had the inspiration to make something and they did it. That's pretty fucking special.

"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena... who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds... who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

Oof, please don't do this here. I appreciate you standing up for the OP, and of course the shallow-dismissal aspect of internet comments is a big problem, big enough that the site guidelines ask people not to do it: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. But they also ask you to "Be kind", plus this:

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

The best way to respond to a comment like that isn't to do to Monty Python fish slap but rather to include and expand (I almost want to say 'embrace and extend') - rodw shows how it's done: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23517644