Static Bloom
A free browser drone synth

What Is a Drone?

A drone is a sustained tone or chord that continues throughout a piece of music, providing a constant harmonic reference point. Unlike melody or rhythm, a drone doesn't move — it is the ground other things walk on.

Drones appear in traditions worldwide: the tanpura in Indian classical music, the bagpipe's constant chanter, the didgeridoo in Aboriginal Australian music, the organ point in European medieval and baroque music, and the held synthesizer chords of ambient and minimalist composers like La Monte Young, Éliane Radigue, and Brian Eno.

What This Synth Does

Static Bloom is a subtractive synthesis drone engine built with the Web Audio API. It generates sound entirely in your browser — no samples, no server, no plugins.

Oscillators

• Osc A: Sine wave at base frequency. Pure, fundamental tone.
• Osc B: Triangle wave at base frequency × 1.005 (slightly sharp). Adds odd harmonics and, with detune, beating.
• Osc C (Sub): Sawtooth at base frequency × 0.5 (one octave down), low-pass filtered at 400 Hz. Adds weight and body.

Noise

Two seconds of white noise, looped, band-pass filtered at 500 Hz (Q=0.9), mixed at low level (-29 dB). Adds texture — the "static" in Static Bloom.

Filter & Modulation

• Master Filter: 12 dB/octave low-pass with variable Q (1.2). Controlled by the Filter knob.
• LFO 1 (Drift): Sine wave modulating filter cutoff. Depth = 55% of cutoff frequency. Rate controlled by Drift knob (approx 0.01–1 Hz).
• LFO 2: Slow sine (0.07 Hz) modulating Osc B detune by ±6 cents. Adds ultra-slow pitch wobble.

Visualizer

The waveform canvas shows the real-time time-domain signal (what the speakers are pushing). It updates at 60 fps while the drone runs.

Why Build This?

Most online synths are either toy keyboards or complex modular environments. Static Bloom sits in between: one sound, five controls, deep enough to lose time in, simple enough to understand in minutes. It's a drone instrument, not a melody instrument. You don't play notes; you shape a presence.

Use it for: meditation background, sleep aid, focus ambient, tinnitus masking, creative writing atmosphere, or just to hear what 55 Hz feels like in your chest.

Technical Notes

• Requires Web Audio API (all modern browsers; Safari 14+, Chrome 14+, Firefox 25+, Edge 79+).
• User gesture required to start (browser autoplay policy). The Power button provides this.
• AudioContext is suspended until first interaction, then resumed.
• On stop: master gain ramps to 0 over 400 ms, then context closes cleanly.
• Works offline after first load (no network requests after initial HTML/JS/CSS).