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A low-level audio player in C#

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27 Aug 20033 min read 952.8K   16.5K   240   171
This article describes a sample application that uses the waveout API in C#.

Sample Image - cswavplay.gif

Introduction

It is no news that the .NET framework does not include any classes for dealing with sound. Some people have worked around this limitation by wrapping high-level system components, such as Windows Media Player or DirectShow, into .NET-friendly libraries. However, most of these libraries are designed in such a way that they cannot be used to manipulate audio samples on the fly because they do not give you access to the actual sound data.

When developing applications that deal with such low-level issues, the most commonly used technologies are DirectSound and the waveout API. This article describes a sample application that uses the waveout API in C# through Interop to play a WAV file in a continuous loop.

Using the code

Most of the work in the sample application is carried out by two classes: WaveStream and WaveOutPlayer.

The WaveStream class extends System.IO.Stream and implements the necessary code to read audio samples from a WAV file. The constructor reads the file header and extracts all the relevant information including the actual length of the stream and the format of the audio samples, which is exposed through the Format property.

One important thing to note is that seeking operations in the WaveStream class are relative to the sound data stream. This way you don't have to care about the length of the header or about those extra bytes at the end of the stream that don't belong to the audio data chunk. Seeking to 0 will cause the next read operation to start at the beginning of the audio data.

The WaveOutPlayer class is where the most interesting things happen. For the sake of simplicity, the interface of this class has been reduced to the strict minimum. There are no Start, Stop or Pause methods. Creating an instance of WaveOutPlayer will cause the system to start streaming immediately.

Let's have a look at the code that creates the WaveOutPlayer instance. As you can see, the constructor takes five parameters:

C#
private void Play()
{
    Stop();
    if (m_AudioStream != null)
    {
        m_AudioStream.Position = 0;
        m_Player = new WaveLib.WaveOutPlayer(-1, m_Format, 16384, 3, 
            new WaveLib.BufferFillEventHandler(Filler));
    }
}

The first parameter is the ID of the wave device that you want to use. The value -1 represents the default system device, but if your system has more than one sound card, then you can pass any number from 0 to the number of installed sound cards minus one to select a particular device.

The second parameter is the format of the audio samples. In this example, the format is taken directly from the wave stream.

The third and forth parameters are the size of the internal wave buffers and the number of buffers to allocate. You should set these to reasonable values. Smaller buffers will give you less latency, but the audio may stutter if your computer is not fast enough.

The fifth and last parameter is a delegate that will be called periodically as internal audio buffers finish playing, so that you can feed them with new sound data. In the sample application we just read audio data from the wave stream, like this:

C#
private void Filler(IntPtr data, int size)
{
    byte[] b = new byte[size];
    if (m_AudioStream != null)
    {
        int pos = 0;
        while (pos < size)
        {
            int toget = size - pos;
            int got = m_AudioStream.Read(b, pos, toget);
            if (got < toget)
                m_AudioStream.Position = 0; // loop if the file ends
            pos += got;
        }
    }
    else
    {
        for (int i = 0; i < b.Length; i++)
            b[i] = 0;
    }
    System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.Copy(b, 0, data, size);
}

Please note that this delegate may be called from any internal thread created by the WaveOutPlayer object, so if you want to call into your Windows Forms objects you should use the Invoke mechanism.

To stop playing, just call Dispose on the player object, like this:

C#
private void Stop()
{
    if (m_Player != null)
    try
    {
        m_Player.Dispose();
    }
    finally
    {
        m_Player = null;
    }
}

Conclusion

This sample demonstrates how to use the waveout API from C#. This is useful for applications that require more control on the audio stream compared to what other higher level libraries offer. Typical examples are applications that generate or modify audio samples on the fly, such as digital effect processors.

A modified version of this sample that implements support for DirectX plug-ins is included in the Adapt-X SDK, which is a commercial product that can be found at www.chronotron.com.

History

Update 28 Aug 03 - Fixed a bug related to reading the WAV file header.

License

This article has no explicit license attached to it but may contain usage terms in the article text or the download files themselves. If in doubt please contact the author via the discussion board below.

A list of licenses authors might use can be found here


Written By
Web Developer
Luxembourg Luxembourg
Ianier Munoz lives in France and works as a senior consultant and analyst for an international consulting firm. His specialty is in multimedia applications, and he has authored some popular software, such as American DJ's Pro-Mix, Chronotron and Adapt-X.

Comments and Discussions

 
QuestionIs these Code Work for G711Mulaw Stereo Pin
pratheep.s21-Sep-17 4:21
pratheep.s21-Sep-17 4:21 
QuestionProblems with network Pin
Member 1242556311-Apr-17 21:04
Member 1242556311-Apr-17 21:04 
QuestionRe: Problems with network Pin
RCStrange11-May-17 4:19
RCStrange11-May-17 4:19 
QuestionAudio stuttering with recent versions of .net and Visual Studio Pin
surei1-Feb-16 21:49
surei1-Feb-16 21:49 
QuestionRe: Audio stuttering with recent versions of .net and Visual Studio Pin
Slawkowsky26-Nov-16 0:21
Slawkowsky26-Nov-16 0:21 
QuestionRe: Audio stuttering with recent versions of .net and Visual Studio Pin
RCStrange11-May-17 4:21
RCStrange11-May-17 4:21 
Questionplay audio signal by txt file Pin
Chenan Wang21-May-14 17:45
Chenan Wang21-May-14 17:45 
QuestionThe code doesn't work! Pin
Efi Hoory21-Aug-13 23:07
Efi Hoory21-Aug-13 23:07 
AnswerRe: The code doesn't work! Pin
Member 1023807628-Aug-13 10:40
Member 1023807628-Aug-13 10:40 
GeneralRe: The code doesn't work! Pin
Efi Hoory28-Aug-13 22:14
Efi Hoory28-Aug-13 22:14 
GeneralMy vote of 5 Pin
Pham Anh Khoa6-Aug-13 23:31
Pham Anh Khoa6-Aug-13 23:31 
GeneralMy vote of 5 Pin
Raul Iloc28-May-13 2:08
Raul Iloc28-May-13 2:08 
GeneralMy vote of 5 Pin
DerRohrbach9-Mar-13 2:12
DerRohrbach9-Mar-13 2:12 
QuestionNice work! Pin
aerjienong12-Nov-12 7:20
aerjienong12-Nov-12 7:20 
QuestionSyncing audio and graphical display Pin
Vitor Vilela30-Jul-12 4:52
Vitor Vilela30-Jul-12 4:52 
QuestionPlayback speed correction Pin
SergeyKS23-Apr-12 5:32
SergeyKS23-Apr-12 5:32 
AnswerRe: Playback speed correction Pin
SergeyKS24-Apr-12 0:07
SergeyKS24-Apr-12 0:07 
GeneralMy vote of 2 Pin
richardhere27-Mar-12 17:13
richardhere27-Mar-12 17:13 
GeneralMy vote of 2 Pin
duonmhMTA19-Nov-11 17:08
duonmhMTA19-Nov-11 17:08 
GeneralWindows Mobile Sound Record Pin
bayfatih200024-May-11 2:32
bayfatih200024-May-11 2:32 
QuestionProblems blocking other audio output? Pin
Member 452632627-Sep-10 12:26
Member 452632627-Sep-10 12:26 
Generalsound from microphone Pin
Benetz8-Feb-10 0:01
Benetz8-Feb-10 0:01 
QuestionIs it possoble to play audio in any Sample rate? Pin
Soroush Safaei19-Oct-09 8:59
Soroush Safaei19-Oct-09 8:59 
Questionlittle error Pin
Member 41940844-Mar-09 17:17
Member 41940844-Mar-09 17:17 
AnswerRe: little error Pin
zonksoft12-Mar-09 7:15
zonksoft12-Mar-09 7:15 

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