I’ve added several new features to the “Celtic Sounds” WebMIDI Sound Module for WARBL.
Master tuning slider - Allows setting the tuning up to -/+ 50 cents
New instruments - Great Highland Bagpipe and Smallpipes
Also demonstrated in the video is the Transpose control which allows shifting the pitch up to -/+ 12 semitones to allow changing the key of whistles, simulating flat sets of pipes, etc.
Click the “?” at the top-right corner for full instructions.
I don’t understand anything about what you are saying, but I want to. Do you know if your program will work on my Firefox, or I could ask my Firefox when I figure out what to ask them. You were playing what looked like whistle, but maybe it was a midi intrument? All for now, and I thank you for the work you have done on this. Larry585
For both Celtic Sounds and WARBL Sound Lab, the following advice applies:
WARBL Sound Lab/Celtic Sounds must remain visible on screen while you are playing.
All modern browsers (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, etc.) automatically reduce performance for content that is not visible to conserve CPU and battery.
This includes:
Tabs that are not currently active
Windows that are fully covered by other windows
This behavior cannot be disabled by the tool.
When WARBL Sound Lab/Celtic Sounds is not visible, incoming MIDI data from the WARBL (breath, expression, pitch bend, etc.) will not be processed smoothly.
This will cause:
Reduced responsiveness
Stepped or uneven dynamics and pitch
Audio glitches, clicks, or pops
As soon as the tab or window becomes visible again, normal performance will resume.
Important: This limitation affects all web-based audio tools.
Best experience:
Keep WARBL Sound Lab/Celtic Sounds in the foreground, or if using a separate window, make sure some portion of it remains visible at all times.
I’ve added a new “Säckpipa” (Swedish bagpipes) instrument that uses the same WARBL fingering pattern and drone toggle on MIDI note 51 (D#3 / Eb3) as the Great Highland Bagpipe and Smallpipes.
Playing “Långdans från Sollerön” on the WARBL2 using the Säckpipa instrument in my WebMIDI version of Celtic Sounds.
I’m obviously not a Säckpipa player, in real life I play Uilleann pipes, would love to see what’s possible in the hands of someone who actually plays the Säckpipa.
Because I’m used to reading notation based on a bottom note of D instead of E, I transposed the notation to be D-based for my own convenience. As far as the pitch, Celtic Sounds can transpose the instrument to any key. In the video it’s pitched at D, but could just as easily be pitched at E.
You can now play the same custom instruments that are created for my ABC Transcription Tools in Celtic Sounds using your WARBL.
From the Instrument menu, you can now load a custom instrument .zip file and the instrument is automatically mapped and ready to play.
The custom instruments work with all existing Celtic Sounds features, including MIDI control, expression, reverb, tuning, and mixer settings.
If you load a custom instrument, the tool will make sure that it’s automatically loaded and ready for use the next time you run the tool.
Exported presets include all settings and the custom instrument itself, so a setup can be saved, restored, or shared and will load exactly the same way.
Custom instruments use the same format as the ABC Transcription Tools and can be created using the ABC Transcription Tools Custom Instrument Builder:
You will find many demo and instructional videos for the Custom Instrument Builder here:
you can now easily build a custom instrument for Celtic Sounds from the over 700 instruments available from five of the full General MIDI soundfonts available in my ABC Transcription Tools.
I’ve long been trying to ween myself off the computers in my life and immerse myself in the traditional and historic aspects of the music and instruments. But all this work you’ve been doing with the WARBL and your Celtic Sounds app has really peaked my interest.
I’m honestly blown away by what you’ve achieved already, and obviously the potential for future refinement is almost unlimited.
People often post about wanting solutions to practicing quietly. Something like this with a set of headphones seems tough to beat!
I think I’m going to have to get one of these to play around with.
Since I was unable to find any available open-source Northumbrian Pipes chanter/drone per-note audio samples, I built a new Northumbrian Pipes instrument for Celtic Sounds using parametric sound modeling of the instrument.
The instrument has both drones (note/fifth/octave) and chanter sounds across over two octaves.
I’ve also made the tool I built to create the new Northumbrian Pipes instrument available for anyone to use:
Northumbrian Pipes Custom Instrument Factory
In the tool you can adjust many aspects of the sound to create and preview many subtle variations of the Northumbrian Pipes drones and chanter sound.
Once you have dialed-in the sound you want, you can export a Celtic Sounds custom instrument .zip file that you can then load into Celtic Sounds using the “Load Custom Instrument…” item on the “Instrument” selection menu.
Celtic Sounds is now able to handle custom instruments that have drones on specific MIDI note numbers.
If you are interested in the technical details for building a custom instrument with drones for use with Celtic Sounds, please drop me a note on the WARBL WebMIDI Sound Modules Facebook group.
