implementing Queue Services in AV Audio Recorder using Swift - ios

Is it possible to create a buffer concept similar to AudioQueue services in AVRecorder Framework. In my application , i need to capture the Audio buffer and send it over the Internet. The server connection part is done, but i wanted to know if there is a way to record the voice continuously in the foreground, and pass this audio buffer by buffer at the background to the server using Swift.
Comments are appreciated.

AVAudioRecorder records to a file, so you can't easily use it to stream audio data out of your app. AVAudioEngine on the other hand can call you back as it captures audio buffers:
var engine = AVAudioEngine()
func startCapturingBuffers() {
let input = engine.inputNode!
let bus = 0
input.installTapOnBus(bus, bufferSize: 512, format: input.inputFormatForBus(bus)) { (buffer, time) -> Void in
// buffer.floatChannelData contains audio data
}
try! engine.start()
}

Related

How to stream audio while recording in swift?

I am trying to develop a audio streaming system. The client streams the audio from microphone to server while recording in real-time, another clients will subscribe like podcast.
As far as my understanding, the AVCaptureSession derives the AVCaptureDeviceInput to AVCaptureAudioDataOutput.
let captureSession = AVCaptureSession()
guard let audioDevice = AVCaptureDevice.default(for: .audio) else { return }
let audioInput = try AVCaptureDeviceInput(device: audioDevice)
if captureSession.canAddInput(audioInput) {
captureSession.addInput(audioInput)
}
let audioOutput = AVCaptureAudioDataOutput()
if captureSession.canAddOutput(audioOutput) {
captureSession.addOutput(audioOutput)
}
captureSession.commitConfiguration()
With a background from javascript with MediaRecoder API. The recoder emits a chunk of audio data every X milliseconds.
So, Is it possible to do a similar way in iOS (swift)? Is there any other way to do stream the audio in real-time
Edit 1: I need a stream or a chunk of data that emit every X miliseconds. This questions mentioned the recording but it saved to the file.

How to play multiple sounds from buffer simultaneously using nodes connected to AVAudioEngine's mixer

I am making a basic music app for iOS, where pressing notes causes the corresponding sound to play. I am trying to get multiple sounds stored in buffers to play simultaneously with minimal latency. However, I can only get one sound to play at any time.
I initially set up my sounds using multiple AVAudioPlayer objects, assigning a sound to each player. While it did play multiple sounds simultaneously, it didn't seem like it was capable of starting two sounds at the same time (it seemed like it would delay the second sound just slightly after the first sound was started). Furthermore, if I pressed notes at a very fast rate, it seemed like the engine couldn't keep up, and later sounds would start well after I had pressed the later notes.
I am trying to solve this problem, and from the research I have done, it seems like using the AVAudioEngine to play sounds would be the best method, where I can set up the sounds in an array of buffers, and then have them play back from those buffers.
class ViewController: UIViewController
{
// Main Audio Engine and it's corresponding mixer
var audioEngine: AVAudioEngine = AVAudioEngine()
var mainMixer = AVAudioMixerNode()
// One AVAudioPlayerNode per note
var audioFilePlayer: [AVAudioPlayerNode] = Array(repeating: AVAudioPlayerNode(), count: 7)
// Array of filepaths
let noteFilePath: [String] = [
Bundle.main.path(forResource: "note1", ofType: "wav")!,
Bundle.main.path(forResource: "note2", ofType: "wav")!,
Bundle.main.path(forResource: "note3", ofType: "wav")!]
// Array to store the note URLs
var noteFileURL = [URL]()
// One audio file per note
var noteAudioFile = [AVAudioFile]()
// One audio buffer per note
var noteAudioFileBuffer = [AVAudioPCMBuffer]()
override func viewDidLoad()
{
super.viewDidLoad()
do
{
// For each note, read the note URL into an AVAudioFile,
// setup the AVAudioPCMBuffer using data read from the file,
// and read the AVAudioFile into the corresponding buffer
for i in 0...2
{
noteFileURL.append(URL(fileURLWithPath: noteFilePath[i]))
// Read the corresponding url into the audio file
try noteAudioFile.append(AVAudioFile(forReading: noteFileURL[i]))
// Read data from the audio file, and store it in the correct buffer
let noteAudioFormat = noteAudioFile[i].processingFormat
let noteAudioFrameCount = UInt32(noteAudioFile[i].length)
noteAudioFileBuffer.append(AVAudioPCMBuffer(pcmFormat: noteAudioFormat, frameCapacity: noteAudioFrameCount)!)
// Read the audio file into the buffer
try noteAudioFile[i].read(into: noteAudioFileBuffer[i])
}
mainMixer = audioEngine.mainMixerNode
// For each note, attach the corresponding node to the audioEngine, and connect the node to the audioEngine's mixer.
for i in 0...2
{
audioEngine.attach(audioFilePlayer[i])
audioEngine.connect(audioFilePlayer[i], to: mainMixer, fromBus: 0, toBus: i, format: noteAudioFileBuffer[i].format)
}
// Start the audio engine
try audioEngine.start()
// Setup the audio session to play sound in the app, and activate the audio session
try AVAudioSession.sharedInstance().setCategory(AVAudioSession.Category.soloAmbient)
try AVAudioSession.sharedInstance().setMode(AVAudioSession.Mode.default)
try AVAudioSession.sharedInstance().setActive(true)
}
catch let error
{
print(error.localizedDescription)
}
}
func playSound(senderTag: Int)
{
let sound: Int = senderTag - 1
// Set up the corresponding audio player to play its sound.
audioFilePlayer[sound].scheduleBuffer(noteAudioFileBuffer[sound], at: nil, options: .interrupts, completionHandler: nil)
audioFilePlayer[sound].play()
}
Each sound should be playing without interrupting the other sounds, only interrupting its own sound when the sounds is played again. However, despite setting up multiple buffers and players, and assigning each one to its own Bus on the audioEngine's mixer, playing one sound still stops any other sounds from playing.
Furthermore, while leaving out .interrupts does prevent sounds from stopping other sounds, these sounds won't play until the sound that is currently playing completes. This means that if I play note1, then note2, then note3, note1 will play, while note2 will only play after note1 finishes, and note3 will only play after note2 finishes.
Edit: I was able to get the audioFilePlayer to reset to the beginning again without using interrupt with the following code in the playSound function.
if audioFilePlayer[sound].isPlaying == true
{
audioFilePlayer[sound].stop()
}
audioFilePlayer[sound].scheduleBuffer(noteAudioFileBuffer[sound], at: nil, completionHandler: nil)
audioFilePlayer[sound].play()
This still leaves me with figuring out how to play these sounds simultaneously, since playing another sound will still stop the currently playing sound.
Edit 2: I found the solution to my problem. My answer is below.
It turns out that having the .interrupt option wasn't the issue (in fact, this actually turned out to be the best way to restart the sound that was playing in my experience, as there was no noticeable pause during the restart, unlike the stop() function). The actual problem that was preventing multiple sounds from playing simultaneously was this particular line of code.
// One AVAudioPlayerNode per note
var audioFilePlayer: [AVAudioPlayerNode] = Array(repeating: AVAudioPlayerNode(), count: 7)
What happened here was that each item of the array was being assigned the exact same AVAudioPlayerNode value, so they were all effectively sharing the same AVAudioPlayerNode. As a result, the AVAudioPlayerNode functions were affecting all of the items in the array, instead of just the specified item. To fix this and give each item a different AVAudioPlayerNode value, I ended up changing the above line so that it starts as an empty array of type AVAudioPlayerNode instead.
// One AVAudioPlayerNode per note
var audioFilePlayer = [AVAudioPlayerNode]()
I then added a new line to append to this array a new AVAudioPlayerNode at the beginning inside of the second for-loop of the viewDidLoad() function.
// For each note, attach the corresponding node to the audioEngine, and connect the node to the audioEngine's mixer.
for i in 0...6
{
audioFilePlayer.append(AVAudioPlayerNode())
// audioEngine code
}
This gave each item in the array a different AVAudioPlayerNode value. Playing a sound or restarting a sound no longer interrupts the other sounds that are currently being played. I can now play any of the notes simultaneously and without any noticeable latency between note press and playback.

AudioKit: Trying to record audio from microphone to file but nothing being recorded

I'm having a problem with recording audio from the microphone of my test device to a .caf file in Swift, XCode 9.4.1 using the latest version of AudioKit. In a simple test whereby I send the audio straight from the microphone to the output via an AKBooster, it works just fine and I can hear the mic input coming out of the speakers. I'm more or less following this example, although again using a booster node instead of an oscillator.
The following is my code:
class MicrophoneHandler
{
var microphone : AKMicrophone!
var booster : AKBooster!
var mixer : AKMixer!
var recorder : AKNodeRecorder!
var file : AKAudioFile!
var player : AKAudioPlayer!
init()
{
setupMicrophone()
microphone = AKMicrophone()
booster = AKBooster(microphone) // Stereo amplifier for microphone
mixer = AKMixer(booster)
file = try! AKAudioFile() // File to store recorder output
player = try? AKAudioPlayer(file: file) // Player to play back recorded audio file
//player.looping = true
recorder = try? AKNodeRecorder(node: mixer, file: file)
try? recorder.record()
sleep(5)
let dur = String(format: "%0.3f seconds", recorder.recordedDuration)
print("Stopped. (\(dur) recorded)")
recorder.stop()
//file.exportAsynchronously(name: "Test", baseDir: .documents, exportFormat: .caf){ [weak self] _, _ in
//}
//player.play()
//AudioKit.output = player!
//try? AudioKit.start()
}
func setupMicrophone()
{
// Function to initialise microphone settings
// Adapted from AudioKit example code found here:
// https://audiokit.io/examples/MicrophoneAnalysis
AKSettings.bufferLength = .medium
AKSettings.ioBufferDuration = 0.002 // TODO experiment with this to control latency
do
{
try AKSettings.setSession(category: .playAndRecord, with: .allowBluetoothA2DP) // Set session type & allow streaming to Bluetooth devices
} catch
{
AKLog("Could not set session category.")
}
AKSettings.defaultToSpeaker = true // Output to speaker when audio input is enabled
}
}
I have commented out the export code as the problem doesn't appear to be here. The console displays the following:
AKMicrophone.swift:init():45:Mixer inputs 8
AKAudioPlayer.swift:updatePCMBuffer():533:AKAudioPlayer Warning: "BF848EC0-94F8-4E39-A211-784B001CED72.caf" is an empty file
2018-11-16 17:49:16.936169+0000 VoxBox[2258:6984570] Audio files cannot be non-interleaved. Ignoring setting AVLinearPCMIsNonInterleaved YES.
AKNodeRecorder.swift:record():104:AKNodeRecorder: recording
Stopped. (0.000 seconds recorded)
As you can see, the recorder appears not to be recording to file for some reason. To my mind, my code should
Initialise the microphone (including settings)
Route the microphone input through a booster followed by a mixer (mixing with an FX bank will happen later)
Create an empty .caf audio file to be written to
Set up a player to play this file when the time comes
Set up a recorder to record the output of the mixer node to the audio file
Record 5 seconds of microphone input to the audio file
Yet for some reason nothing is being recorded. Clearly I am missing something or have misunderstood how the AKNodeRecorder works in this regard. I have read as many StackOverflow questions on similar topics as I can, had a dig through the AudioKit documentation and read a couple of examples from the AudioKit site, but nothing seems to address my particular problem.
Any help would be much appreciated.

iOS Swift playing audio (aac) from network stream

I'm developing an iOS application and I'm quite new to iOS development. So far I have implemented a h264 decoder from network stream using VideoToolbox, which was quite hard.
Now I need to play an audio stream that comes from network, but with no file involved, just a raw AAC stream read directly from the socket. This streams comes from the output of a ffmpeg instance.
The problem is that I don't know how to start with this, it seems there is little information about this topic. I have already tried with AVAudioPlayer but found just silence. I think I have first need to decompress the packets from the stream, just like with the h264 decoder.
I have been trying also with AVAudioEngine and AVAudioPlayerNode but no sucess, same as with AVAudioPlayer. Can someone provide me some guidance? Maybe AudioToolbox? AudioQueue?
Thank you very much for the help :)
Edit:
I'm playing around with AVAudioCompressedBuffer and having no error using AVAudioEngine and AVAudioNode. But, I don't know what this output means:
inBuffer: <AVAudioCompressedBuffer#0x6040004039f0: 0/1024 bytes>
Does this mean that the buffer is empty? I have been trying to feed this buffer in several ways, but always returns something like 0/1024. I think I'm not doing this right:
compressedBuffer.mutableAudioBufferList.pointee = audioBufferList
Any idea?
Thank you!
Edit 2:
I'm editing for reflecting my code for decompressing the buffer. Maybe some one can point me in the right direction.
Note: The packet that is ingested by this function actually is passed without the ADTS header (9 bytes) but I have also tried passing it with the header.
func decodeCompressedPacket(packet: Data) -> AVAudioPCMBuffer {
var packetCopy = packet
var streamDescription: AudioStreamBasicDescription = AudioStreamBasicDescription.init(mSampleRate: 44100, mFormatID: kAudioFormatMPEG4AAC, mFormatFlags: UInt32(MPEG4ObjectID.AAC_LC.rawValue), mBytesPerPacket: 0, mFramesPerPacket: 1024, mBytesPerFrame: 0, mChannelsPerFrame: 1, mBitsPerChannel: 0, mReserved: 0)
let audioFormat = AVAudioFormat.init(streamDescription: &streamDescription)
let compressedBuffer = AVAudioCompressedBuffer.init(format: audioFormat!, packetCapacity: 1, maximumPacketSize: 1024)
print("packetCopy count: \(packetCopy.count)")
var audioBuffer: AudioBuffer = AudioBuffer.init(mNumberChannels: 1, mDataByteSize: UInt32(packetCopy.count), mData: &packetCopy)
var audioBufferList: AudioBufferList = AudioBufferList.init(mNumberBuffers: 1, mBuffers: audioBuffer)
var mNumberBuffers = 1
var packetSize = packetCopy.count
// memcpy(&compressedBuffer.mutableAudioBufferList[0].mBuffers, &audioBuffer, MemoryLayout<AudioBuffer>.size)
// memcpy(&compressedBuffer.mutableAudioBufferList[0].mBuffers.mDataByteSize, &packetSize, MemoryLayout<Int>.size)
// memcpy(&compressedBuffer.mutableAudioBufferList[0].mNumberBuffers, &mNumberBuffers, MemoryLayout<UInt32>.size)
// compressedBuffer.mutableAudioBufferList.pointee = audioBufferList
var bufferPointer = compressedBuffer.data
for byte in packetCopy {
memset(compressedBuffer.mutableAudioBufferList[0].mBuffers.mData, Int32(byte), MemoryLayout<UInt8>.size)
}
print("mBuffers: \(compressedBuffer.audioBufferList[0].mBuffers.mNumberChannels)")
print("mBuffers: \(compressedBuffer.audioBufferList[0].mBuffers.mDataByteSize)")
print("mBuffers: \(compressedBuffer.audioBufferList[0].mBuffers.mData)")
var uncompressedBuffer = uncompress(inBuffer: compressedBuffer)
print("uncompressedBuffer: \(uncompressedBuffer)")
return uncompressedBuffer
}
So you are right in thinking you will (most likely) need to decompress the packets received from the stream. The idea is to get them to raw PCM format so that this can be sent directly to the audio output. This way you could also apply any DSP / audio manipulation you could want to the audio stream.
As you mentioned, you will probably need to be looking into the AudioQueue direction and the Apple Docs provide a good example of streaming audio in realtime, although this is in obj-c (in this case I think it may be a good idea to carry this out in obj-c). This is probably the best place to get started (interfacing the obj-c to swift is super simple).
Looking again at it in Swift there is the class AVAudioCompressedBuffer which seems to handle AAC for your case (would not need to decode the AAC if you get this to work), however there is no direct method for setting the buffer as it is intended for just being a storage container, I believe. Here's a working example of someone using the AVAudioCompressedBuffer along with an AVAudioFile (maybe you could buffer everything into files in background threads? I think it would be too much IO overhead).
However, if you tackle this in obj-c there is a post on how to set the AVAudioPCMBuffer (maybe works with AVAudioCompressedBuffer?) directly through memset (kind of digusting but at the same time lovely as an embedded programmer myself).
// make a silent stereo buffer
AVAudioChannelLayout *chLayout = [[AVAudioChannelLayout alloc] initWithLayoutTag:kAudioChannelLayoutTag_Stereo];
AVAudioFormat *chFormat = [[AVAudioFormat alloc] initWithCommonFormat:AVAudioPCMFormatFloat32
sampleRate:44100.0
interleaved:NO
channelLayout:chLayout];
AVAudioPCMBuffer *thePCMBuffer = [[AVAudioPCMBuffer alloc] initWithPCMFormat:chFormat frameCapacity:1024];
thePCMBuffer.frameLength = thePCMBuffer.frameCapacity;
for (AVAudioChannelCount ch = 0; ch < chFormat.channelCount; ++ch) {
memset(thePCMBuffer.floatChannelData[ch], 0, thePCMBuffer.frameLength * chFormat.streamDescription->mBytesPerFrame);
}
I know this is a lot to take and no way seems like a simple solution, but I think the obj-c AudioQueue technique would be my first stop!
Hope this helps!

I'm trying to use AVQueuePlayer to create a seamless audio loop, however, I don't know why there is a small silent pause between loops?

I have a simple audio file in .wav format (the audio file is cut perfectly to loop). I've tried different methods to loop it. My first attempt was simply using AVPlayer and NSNotification to detect when audioItem ended to seek time at zero and play again. However, there was clearly a gap.
I've been looking at different solutions online, and found people using AVQueuePlayer to do a switching:
Looping AVPlayer seamlessly
However, when implemented, this still produces a gap.
Here's my current notification code:
weak var weakSelf = self
NSNotificationCenter.defaultCenter().addObserverForName(AVPlayerItemDidPlayToEndTimeNotification, object: nil, queue: nil, usingBlock: {(note: NSNotification) -> Void in
if weakSelf?.currentQueuePlayer.currentItem == weakSelf?.currentAudioItemOne {
weakSelf?.currentQueuePlayer.insertItem((weakSelf?.currentAudioItemTwo)!, afterItem: nil)
weakSelf?.currentAudioItemTwo.seekToTime(kCMTimeZero)
} else {
weakSelf?.currentQueuePlayer.insertItem((weakSelf?.currentAudioItemOne)!, afterItem: nil)
weakSelf?.currentAudioItemOne.seekToTime(kCMTimeZero)
}
})
Here's my code to set up the current QueuePlayer.
let audioPlayerItem = AVPlayerItem(URL: url)
currentAudioItemOne = audioPlayerItem
currentAudioItemTwo = audioPlayerItem
currentQueuePlayer = AVQueuePlayer()
currentQueuePlayer.insertItem(currentAudioItemOne, afterItem: nil)
currentQueuePlayer.play()
I've been working at this problem for several days now. Any leads or new things to try would be appreciated. The only thing I haven't tried so far is lower quality audio files. These .wav files are all over 1mb, and had be suspecting that the file size could be affecting the seamless looping.
EDIT:
Using AVPlayerLooper to create the 'Treadmill' effect:
let url = URL(fileURLWithPath: path)
let audioPlayerItem = AVPlayerItem(url: url)
currentAudioItemOne = audioPlayerItem
currentQueuePlayer = AVQueuePlayer()
currentAudioPlayerLayer = AVPlayerLayer(player: currentQueuePlayer)
currentAudioLooper = AVPlayerLooper(player: currentQueuePlayer, templateItem: currentAudioItemOne)
currentQueuePlayer.play()
EDIT 2:
afinfo on one of my wav files:
Num Tracks: 1
----
Data format: 2 ch, 44100 Hz, 'lpcm' (0x0000000C) 16-bit little-endian signed integer
no channel layout.
estimated duration: 11.302336 sec
audio bytes: 1993732
audio packets: 498433
bit rate: 1411200 bits per second
packet size upper bound: 4
maximum packet size: 4
audio data file offset: 44
not optimized
source bit depth: I16
----
You are inserting the item too late in your current solution. You need to queue up more than one initial item, so there's always a primed AVPlayerItem ready to go.
This is called the AVPlayerQueue "treadmill pattern" as better described in this WWDC 2016 session. If you're targeting iOS 10, you can use new AVPlayerLooper class which does it for you (also described in the same link). Apple has also provided a sample project which provides an example of both strategies.
Lower level solutions include queuing up the audio buffers to an AVAudioEngine instance or using an AudioQueue or mashing the buffers together yourself with an AudioUnit.

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