Proper use of AVAudioPlayer - ios

Question

The application I'm building is essentially an instrument with ten buttons, each linked to a separate AVAudioPlayer. When I try and allocate and initialize memory for each AVAudioPlayer in the ViewDidLoad method, I get no errors however the responsiveness of each button lags and there is considerable lag time before the same button can be triggered/heard again. I've rectified this situation by implementing the code below, however I'm not convinced it's the proper way of handling memory, especially because I have 10 of these methods.
- (IBAction)note1:(id)sender {
url1 = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:[[NSBundle mainBundle]pathForResource:#"note1" ofType:#"wav"]];
unit1 = [[AVAudioPlayer alloc] initWithContentsOfURL:url1 error:nil];
[unit1 play];
}

Answer 1

One thing you can try,
Call prepareToPlay method of AVAudioPlayer before playing that file.

Answer 2

The problem with your current code is that you are creating new instance of AVAudioPlayer every time you call a -note1: You can try this improvement:
- (IBAction)note1:(id)sender {
if (!url1)
url1 = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:[[NSBundle mainBundle]pathForResource:#"note1" ofType:#"wav"]];
if (!unit1)
unit1 = [[AVAudioPlayer alloc] initWithContentsOfURL:url1 error:nil];
[unit1 play];
}
However best way is to initialise your AVAudioPlayers at one place, when your UIViewController is loaded:
- (void) initializePlayers {
url1 = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:[[NSBundle mainBundle]pathForResource:#"note1" ofType:#"wav"]];
unit1 = [[AVAudioPlayer alloc] initWithContentsOfURL:url1 error:nil];
}
- (void) viewDidLoad {
[self initializePlayers];
}
- (IBAction)note1:(id)sender {
[unit1 play];
}

Answer 3

Do any additional setup after loading the view, typically from a nib.
NSURL* url = [[NSBundle mainBundle] URLForResource:#"Rondo_Alla_Turka_Short" withExtension:#"aiff"];
NSAssert(url, #"URL is valid.");
NSError* error = nil;
self.player = [[AVAudioPlayer alloc] initWithContentsOfURL:url error:&error];
if(!self.player)
{
NSLog(#"Error creating player: %#", error);
}