In Xcode 3.2.5 I would like to play multiple audio files in sequence (50+) from a single UIButton. I've tried several codes but they leak memory. Any suggestions? I'm still learning so please include header and implimentation file codes. My thanks in advance.
Use the interfaces in Audio Queue Services (AudioToolbox/AudioQueue.h). Create one audio queue object for each sound that you want to play. Then specify simultaneous start times for the first audio buffer in each audio queue, using the AudioQueueEnqueueBufferWithParameters function.
The following limitations pertain for simultaneous sounds in iPhone OS, depending on the audio data format:
AAC, MP3, and ALAC (Apple Lossless) audio: You may play multiple AAC, MP3, and ALAC format sounds simultaneously; playback of multiple sounds of these formats will require CPU resources for decoding.
Linear PCM and IMA/ADPCM (IMA4 audio): You can play multiple linear PCM or IMA4 format sounds simultaneously without CPU resource concerns.
Taken from play multiple sounds simultaneously
This is just conceptual, but what about (a) creating an array of sound names you want to play (this can be during runtime), in the proper order, then (b) writing a function where each soundHandler-type object checks to see where it is in the array; if it's not last it constructs a soundPlayer, loads the sound, plays and then calls the next soundHandler in the array. (If it's last it just constructs/loads/plays, and maybe notifies the parent that it's done.) Each soundHandler (I'm just making that up, you'll have to write it) then can dealloc itself when complete.
If you run into latency/loading issues, you could always have each soundHandler call n+2 in the array, and of course then check to see if it's penultimate instead of the end.
Is that more what you had in mind?
Related
I'm trying to identify how much latency is being experienced when using AirPods, compared to using the device mic & speaker, for the purposes of recording user video & audio that must be synchronised to a backing track.
Here's how my system currently works:
I have a recording pipeline that uses AVCaptureSession to record video, and AVAudioEngine to record audio.
During the recording process, I play audio via AVAudioEngine, which the user will 'perform to'. I create a movie file using AVAssetWriter where the user's captured audio (utilising noise cancellation) is added to the file, and the backing audio file is written into a separate track.
The audio file's presentation timestamps are modified slightly to account for the initial playback delay experienced in AVAudioEngine., and this works well (I previously used AVPlayer for audio playback and the start delay was more significant, and that's what led to making use of this technique).
I know about AVAudioSession's inputLatency, outputLatency and bufferDuration properties, and I've read that these can be used to identify latency, at least in one sense. I notice that this calculation yields a total round-trip latency of around 0.01s when using the device on its own, and 0.05 seconds when using AirPods' inputs and outputs.
This is useful, and I can apply that extra time difference in my own logic to improve synchronisation, but there is definitely additional latency in the output, and I can't identify its source.
Strangely, it looks as though the recorded audio and video are in sync, but not in sync with the backing track. This makes me think that the system is still adding compensation to one of those two forms of captured media, but it doesn't relate the active played-back audio, and so the user is potentially listening to delayed-playback audio and I'm not accounting for that extra delay.
Does anyone have any thoughts on what other considerations may be required? I feel as though most use cases for bluetooth synchronisation will be to either synchronise audio and visual output, or to synchronise only the audio and visual input when recording, not a third factor whereby the user is performing alongside an audio or video source on device that is later added to a resultant asset writing session/media file.
Is it possible to record output audio in an app using Swift? So, for example, say I'm listening to a podcast, and I want to, within a separate app, record a small segment of the podcast's audio. Is there any way to do that?
I've looked around but have only been able to find information on recording microphone recording and such.
It depends on how you are producing the audio. If the production of the audio is within your control, you can put a tap on the output and record to a file as it plays. The easiest way is with the new AVAudioEngine feature (there are other ways, but AVAudioEngine is basically an easy front end for them).
Of course, if the real problem is to take a copy of a podcast, then obviously all you have to do is download the podcast as opposed to listening to it. Similarly, you could buffer and save streaming audio to a file. There are many apps that do this. But this is not because the device's output is being hijacked; it is, again, because we have control of the sound data itself.
I believe you'll have to write a kernel extension to do that
https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin/Conceptual/KEXTConcept/KEXTConceptIOKit/iokit_tutorial.html
You'd have to make your own audio driver to record it
It appears as though
That is how softonic made soundflowerbed.
http://features.en.softonic.com/how-to-record-internal-sound-on-a-mac
I am designing an AUGraph for an iOS application and would appreciate help on the following things.
If I want to play a number of audio files at once, does each file need an audio unit?
From the Core-Audio docs
Linear PCM and IMA/ADPCM (IMA4) audio You can play multiple linear PCM or IMA4 format sounds simultaneously in iOS without incurring CPU resource problems.
AAC, MP3, and Apple Lossless (ALAC) audio Playback for AAC, MP3, and Apple Lossless (ALAC) sounds uses efficient hardware-based decoding on iPhone and iPod touch. You can play only one such sound at a time.
So multiple AAC or MP3 files cannot be played at the same time. What is the optimal LPCM format to play multiple sounds at once?
Does this apply to Audio-Units too, as this in under the AudioQueue documentation.
Can an audio unit in an AUGraph be inactive? If an AUGraph looks like this
Speaker/output < recorder unit < mixer unit < number of audio file playing units
what happens if the recorder is not active, would it still pull, but just not write the buffers to a file?
No; you need to use the mixer audio unit. Check this:
http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/DOCUMENTATION/MusicAudio/Conceptual/AudioUnitHostingGuide_iOS/ConstructingAudioUnitApps/ConstructingAudioUnitApps.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40009492-CH16-SW1
Mostly reading the document above, wrapping the sample code in a class and creating a pair of utility structures, I coded this 'Simple Sound Engine' from scratch:
ttp://nicolasmiari.com/blog/a-simple-sound-engine-for-ios-using-the-audio-unit-framework/
(Link to article in my blog containing the source code). Sorry, moved blog to Jekyll/Github and this article didn't make the cut.
...I was going to start a repo on github, but it's too much trouble. I am a visual guy, still pretty much git-phobic. Okay, that was a long time ago... Now I use git from the command line :-)
You can use it as-is, or extract the Audio Unit-related code and adapt it to your project.
I believe the Cocos Denshion 'Simple Audio Engine' does pretty much the same thing, but haven't checked the source code.
Known issues
If you have an exception breakpoint set for C++ exceptions, when debugging, the code will stop 2 or 3 times on AUGraphInitialize(). This is a 'non-crashing' exception, so you can click on continue and the code works OK.
To convert your wav files to the uncompressed .caf format, use this command on the Terminal:
%afconvert -f caff -d LEI16 mysoundFile.wav mySoundFile.caf
EDIT: So I created a GitHub repo after all:
https://github.com/nicolas-miari/Sound-Engine
Both ordinary common .wav and .caf files contain raw PCM audio samples, and can be played without hardware assist or DSP processing if already at the destination sample rate.
When there's no audio file or other synthesized data to feed an audio unit that's pulling buffers, the usual practice is to feed it buffers of silence (or perhaps a taper to zero if the previous buffer ended with non-zero amplitude).
I have run through an audio units tutorial for a sine wave generator and done a bit of reading, and I understand basically how it is working. What I would actually like to do for my app, is play a short sound file in response to some external event. These sounds would be about 1-2 seconds in duration and occur at a rate of about about 1-2 per second.
Basically where I am at right now is trying to figure out how to play an actual audio file using my audio unit, rather than generating a sine wave. So basically my question is, how do I get an audio unit to play an audio file?
Do I simply read bytes from the audio file into the buffer in the render callback?
(if so what class do I need to deal with to open / convert / decompress / read the audio file)
or is there some simpler method where I could maybe just hand off the entire buffer and tell it to play?
Any names of specific classes or APIs I will need to look at to accomplish this would be very helpful.
OK, check this:
http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/samplecode/MixerHost/Introduction/Intro.html
EDIT: That is a sample project. This page has detailed instructions with inline code to setup common configurations: http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/ipad/#DOCUMENTATION/MusicAudio/Conceptual/AudioUnitHostingGuide_iOS/ConstructingAudioUnitApps/ConstructingAudioUnitApps.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40009492-CH16-SW1
If you don't mind being tied to IOS 5+, you should look into AUFilePlayer. It is much easer then using the callbacks and you don't have to worry about setting up your own ring buffer (something that you would need to do if you want to avoid loading all of your audio data into memory on start-up)
What I want to do is to take the output samples of an AVAsset corresponding to an audio file (no video involved) and send them to an audio effect class that takes in a block of samples, and I want to be able to this in real time.
I am currently looking at the AVfoundation class reference and programming guide, but I can't see a way of redirect the output of a player item and send it to my effect class, and from there, send the transformed samples to an Audio output (using AVAssetReaderAudioMixOutput?) and hear it from there. I see that the AVAssetReader class gives me a way to get a block of samples using
[myAVAssetReader addOutput:myAVAssetReaderTrackOutput];
[myAVAssetReaderTrackOutput copyNextSampleBuffer];
but Apple documentation specifies that the AVAssetReader class is not made and should not be used for real-time situations. Does anybody have a suggestion on where to look, or if I am having the right approach?
The MTAudioProcessingTap is perfect for this. By leveraging an AVPlayer, you can avoid having to block the samples yourself with the AVAssetReaderOutput and then render them yourself in an Audio Queue or with an Audio Unit.
Instead, attach an MTAudioProcessingTap to the inputParameters of your AVAsset's audioMix, and you'll be given samples in blocks which are easy to then throw into an effect unit.
Another benefit from this is that it will work with AVAssets derived from URLs that can't always be opened by other Apple APIs (like Audio File Services), such as the user's iPod library. Additionally, you get all of the functionality like tolerance of audio interruptions that the AVPlayer provides for free, which you would otherwise have to implement by hand if you went with an AVAssetReader solution.
To set up a tap you have to set up some callbacks that the system invokes as appropriate during playback. Full code for such processing can be found at this tutorial here.
There's a new MTAudioProcessingTap object in iOS 6 and Mac OS 10.8 . Check out the Session 517 video from WWDC 2012 - they've demonstrated exactly what you want to do.
WWDC Link
AVAssetReader is not ideal for realtime usage because it handles the decoding for you, and in various cases copyNextSampleBuffer can block for random amounts of time.
That being said, AVAssetReader can be used wonderfully well in a producer thread feeding a circular buffer. It depends on your required usage, but I've had good success using this method to feed a RemoteIO output, and doing my effects/signal processing in the RemoteIO callback.