CODEWITHSUNDEEP
audioprogramming-languages
Aerus
Aerus

Reputation: 4380

Audio support for programming languages

I want to start on a hobby project that focuses on displaying audio files in a folder in a certain fashion and has the ability to play such an audio file and shows basic control options for playing. However, i'm struggling to find a fit programming language for this.

The displaying part shouldn't be too hard and can probably be done in most of the programming languages. The audio part is what concerns me the most since it's not the main focus of the project and should only do limited things (so it shouldn't be too hard) and i do not know anything about sound support in the programming languages i currently know. (Java, C and C++)

Specifically i would like to be able to do these things:

  1. Play a sound file
  2. Stop/pause a playing song
  3. Adjust volume
  4. Show a bar that displays the current position in the song

Most files will be .mp3 files but being able to process other formats is certainly a plus. Since this is just a small project it's ok if it runs just on Windows. Scalabilty would be nice but not required.

It would be nice to have a small overview of audio support/audio libraries of programming languages (i'm always up for something new) that can accomplish these simple things, in a not too complicated way, aswell as personal experiences.

In this way i hope to create a better understanding of which programming language fits my project best. (i would very much like to not have to change language mid-way the project)

--

Edit: This is only for a later stage of the project if the first part was successfull: i will want to change the file names of the audio files that are displayed. (to make them follow a specific format)

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1215

Answers (2)

Bjorn Roche
Bjorn Roche

Reputation: 11469

I've done audio apps in both Java and C++. Java development goes way faster because it's a more powerful language and has garbage collection, but JavaSound is a pretty awful solution for audio. Of course, there are wrappers for FFMPEG and other stuff, so you can get a lot of things working. Here's an example of a Java audio app: http://www.indabamusic.com/help/mantis

OTOH, C++ gives you lots of control, low latency and wealth of libraries. (another answer mentioned Portaudio, which is, indeed, great.) But you will definitely find it also has a much longer development cycle.

You can certainly do everything you want to do with either language.

Upvotes: 0

Shahbaz
Shahbaz

Reputation: 47523

I haven't written audio processing programs much, but I know a lot of them exist for C and C++. For Java perhaps, too, but I don't know Java. I had used audio with SDL in a game, but that doesn't have that many features and I don't recommend it.

There's this question asking for a library in C, and there are a couple of similar questions that SO brings up on the side. You may want to take a look at those.

You would also need to look for a library that loads different file types. SDL at least, only opens .wav files, which I believe most of the playback libraries would support. For MP3, you will most likely need an additional library. I know Audacity uses LAME Mp3 so I'm guessing that should be good.

Some of the functionalities you want is also doable by yourself. For example, knowing the length of the music and the amount you have already read, you will know how far in the audio you are. Adjusting the volume is also a multiplication (in the simplest case) that you can do on the audio data if the library doesn't provide it.

A very good choice seems to be PortAudio which is used by Audacity, and also recommended in the accepted answer of the question I mentioned above.

Upvotes: 2

Related Questions