The type
property of the OscillatorNode
interface specifies what shape of waveform the oscillator will output. There are several common waveforms available, as well as an option to specify a custom waveform shape. The shape of the waveform will affect the tone that is produced.
Syntax
OscillatorNode.type = type;
Value
A DOMString
specifying the shape of oscillator wave. The different available values are:
sine
- A sine wave. This is the default value.
square
- A square wave with a duty cycle of 0.5; that is, the signal is "high" for half of each period.
sawtooth
- A sawtooth wave.
triangle
- A triangle wave.
custom
- A custom waveform. You never set
type
tocustom
manually; instead, use thesetPeriodicWave()
method to provide the data representing the waveform. Doing so automatically sets thetype
tocustom
.
Exceptions
InvalidStateError
- The value
custom
was specified. To set a custom waveform, just callsetPeriodicWave()
. Doing so automatically sets the type for you.
Example
The following example shows basic usage of an AudioContext
to create an oscillator node. For an applied example, check out our Violent Theremin demo (see app.js for relevant code).
// create web audio api context var audioCtx = new (window.AudioContext || window.webkitAudioContext)(); // create Oscillator node var oscillator = audioCtx.createOscillator(); oscillator.type = 'square'; oscillator.frequency.setValueAtTime(440, audioCtx.currentTime); // value in hertz oscillator.start();
Specifications
Specification | Status | Comment |
---|---|---|
Web Audio API The definition of 'type' in that specification. |
Working Draft |
Browser compatibility
The compatibility table on this page is generated from structured data. If you'd like to contribute to the data, please check out https://github.com/mdn/browser-compat-data and send us a pull request.
Desktop | Mobile | |||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
type | Chrome Full support 14 | Edge Full support 12 | Firefox Full support 25 | IE No support No | Opera Full support 15 | Safari Full support 6 | WebView Android Full support Yes | Chrome Android Full support 18 | Firefox Android Full support 26 | Opera Android Full support 14 | Safari iOS Full support Yes | Samsung Internet Android Full support 1.0 |
Legend
- Full support
- Full support
- No support
- No support