@aurio/soundbank

A tiny HTTP server for serving local audio samples to Strudel.

Inspired by @strudel/sampler but with a few changes I needed to make.

• No dependencies (not even cows).
• No PostgreSQL default port conflicts.
• No Directory traversal
• No re-scan on each request by default. The whole point is to have as close to zero latency as possible. Index rebuild is opt-in and based on file-watching, so it's still better.

Installation

Run directly with npx:

npx @aurio/soundbank

Or install globally:

npm install -g @aurio/soundbank
soundbank

Usage

Serve samples from the current directory:

soundbank

Serve samples from a specific directory:

soundbank --dir ~/Samples

Use a custom port:

soundbank --port 9000

Generate a strudel.json file and exit:

soundbank --json

Watch the directory and automatically rebuild the sample index when files change:

soundbank --watch

Strudel

After starting the server:

Serving soundbank:

  /Users/alice/Samples

- http://localhost:8787
- http://192.168.1.143:8787

Use the displayed URL directly in Strudel:

await samples("http://localhost:8787");

If another device on your local network needs access, use the LAN URL printed by the server.

Supported Formats

• WAV (.wav)
• MP3 (.mp3)
• OGG (.ogg)

Bank Naming

Given the following directory structure:

Samples/
├── drums/
│   ├── kick.wav
│   └── snare.wav
└── bass/
    └── sub.wav

The generated banks are:

{
  "drums": [
    "/drums/kick.wav",
    "/drums/snare.wav"
  ],
  "bass": [
    "/bass/sub.wav"
  ]
}

With --flat, paths are flattened into unique names:

{
  "drums_kick": [
    "/drums/kick.wav"
  ],
  "drums_snare": [
    "/drums/snare.wav"
  ],
  "bass_sub": [
    "/bass/sub.wav"
  ]
}

Security

@aurio/soundbank only serves files located under the configured root directory.

Path traversal attempts such as:

../../etc/passwd

are rejected.

Why?

This package started as a clean-room replacement for another sample server whose implementation had accumulated several design issues:

• unnecessary runtime dependencies
• repeated filesystem scans on every request
• synchronous filesystem operations inside asynchronous handlers
• lack of path traversal protection
• poor defaults

The goal of @aurio/soundbank is simple:

Serve audio files to Strudel with as little code and as few surprises as possible.

License

MIT