JavaScript is a great language for it’s ease and low barrier to entry, fast turnaround workflows, and trying quick experiments. It’s generally not so great for real-time tasks, such as music playback or for working with live musicians.

And yet, that’s what this library does.

In this talk we look at how the midi-live-performer library can act as a real-time MIDI looper, echo unit, and auto-accompaniment system. There’s a slight detour to show midi-info, which provides user-friendly names for MIDI messages, both in real-time and not. Then we explain how it works, where the weaknesses in timing lay, and how it formed the basis for a solo recording of the multi-instrumentalist work “In C”