What if your synthesizer was powered by APL (or a dumb K clone)?

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47386983

Source

HN

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—

Product

What if your synthesizer was powered by APL (or a dumb K clone)?

Website domain

github.io

Launched

March 15, 2026

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Upvotes

92

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0.9003690036900369

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Fetched at

Sept. 7, 2026, 9:26 p.m.

Updated at

Sept. 7, 2026, 9:26 p.m.

Description

I built k-synth as an experiment to see if a minimalist, K-inspired array language could make sketching waveforms faster and more intuitive than traditional code. I’ve put together a web-based toolkit so you can try the syntax directly in the browser without having to touch a compiler:Live Toolkit: https://octetta.github.io/k-synth/If you visit the page, here is a quick path to an audio payoff:- Click "patches" and choose dm-bell.ks.- Click "run"—the notebook area will update. Click the waveform to hear the result.- Click the "->0" button below the waveform to copy it into slot 0 at the top (slots are also clickable).- Click "pads" in the entry area to show a performance grid.- Click "melodic" to play slot 0's sample at different intervals across the grid.The 'Weird' Stack:- The Language: A simplified, right-associative array language (e.g., s for sine, p for pi).- The Web Toolkit: Built using WASM and Web Audio for live-coding samples.- AI Pair-Programming: I used AI agents to bootstrap the parser and web boilerplate, which let me vet the language design in weeks rather than months.The Goal: This isn't meant to replace a DAW. It’s a compact way to generate samples for larger projects. It’s currently in a "will-it-blend" state. I’m looking for feedback from the array language and DSP communities—specifically on the operator choices and the right-to-left evaluation logic.Source (MIT): https://github.com/octetta/k-synth

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