How the onset (the attack) fixes which instrument you hear. Pick an instrument, listen to a single long tone, and drag the start point past the attack — hear how hard instruments become to tell apart without it.
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Pick an instrument
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Drag the line to set where playback starts
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Skip 0 ms from the onset · view window: 600 ms
Zoom — view window
Fade-in / shape the attack — 6 ms
PitchC4
MIDI keyboard
Not connected
When connected, playing the keyboard sounds the selected instrument at the played pitch, from the start point you set. If several MIDI inputs are present, pick a device from the list.
How it works and why
Every instrument here plays from a real recorded sample (the same library as «Name That Instrument»).
The attack — roughly the first 20–80 milliseconds — is what the ear leans on most to identify an instrument: the breath noise of a flute, the scrape of a bow, the hammer thud of a piano, the “snap” of a pluck.
Drag the vertical line on the waveform to the right to skip the attack. Now press «Play from the start point» — the sound begins from the middle of the sustain. Many instruments suddenly sound very alike.
Compare at any time with «Play from the beginning (with attack)» to hear how much the onset matters.
Fade-in / shape the attack — once you’ve skipped the original attack, this slider sets how fast the sound “arrives”. 0 ms = a hard, abrupt entry; 200–500 ms = the sound eases in, like a bowed string or a pad. This is how you take control of the attack yourself. («Play from the beginning» always bypasses it so you can hear the real attack.)
«Sustained tone» loops the held part — good for long listening. Turn it off to hear the sound decay naturally.
Change the pitch with the slider, the octave buttons, or a connected MIDI keyboard.