Convert audio stereo to audio byte

Question

I've trying to do some audio processing, I'm really stuck with a stereo to mono conversion. I looked in internet regarding stereo to mono conversion.

As far I know, I can take the left channel, right channel, sum them up and divide by 2. But when I dump the result into a WAV file again, I got a lot of foreground noise. I know that the noise can be caused when processing the data, there some overflow in the byte variable.

This is my class from retrieving byte[] data chunks from an MP3 file:

public class InputSoundDecoder {

private int BUFFER_SIZE = 128000;
private String _inputFileName;
private File _soundFile;
private AudioInputStream _audioInputStream;
private AudioFormat _audioInputFormat;
private AudioFormat _decodedFormat;
private AudioInputStream _audioInputDecodedStream;

public InputSoundDecoder(String fileName) throws UnsuportedSampleRateException{
    this._inputFileName = fileName;
    this._soundFile = new File(this._inputFileName);
    try{
        this._audioInputStream = AudioSystem.getAudioInputStream(this._soundFile);
    }
    catch (Exception e){
        e.printStackTrace();
        System.err.println("Could not open file: " + this._inputFileName);
        System.exit(1);
    }

    this._audioInputFormat = this._audioInputStream.getFormat();

    this._decodedFormat = new AudioFormat(AudioFormat.Encoding.PCM_SIGNED, 44100, 16, 2, 1, 44100, false);
    this._audioInputDecodedStream = AudioSystem.getAudioInputStream(this._decodedFormat, this._audioInputStream);

    /** Supported sample rates */
    switch((int)this._audioInputFormat.getSampleRate()){
        case 22050:
                this.BUFFER_SIZE = 2304;
            break;

        case 44100:
                this.BUFFER_SIZE = 4608;
            break;

        default:
            throw new UnsuportedSampleRateException((int)this._audioInputFormat.getSampleRate());
    }

    System.out.println ("# Channels: " + this._decodedFormat.getChannels());
    System.out.println ("Sample size (bits): " + this._decodedFormat.getSampleSizeInBits());
    System.out.println ("Frame size: " + this._decodedFormat.getFrameSize());
    System.out.println ("Frame rate: " + this._decodedFormat.getFrameRate());

}

public byte[] getSamples(){
    byte[] abData = new byte[this.BUFFER_SIZE];
    int bytesRead = 0;

    try{
        bytesRead = this._audioInputDecodedStream.read(abData,0,abData.length);
    }
    catch (Exception e){
        e.printStackTrace();
        System.err.println("Error getting samples from file: " + this._inputFileName);
        System.exit(1);
    }

    if (bytesRead > 0)
        return abData;
    else
        return null;
}

}

This means, every time I call getSamples, it returns an array like:

buff = {Lchannel, Rchannel, Lchannel, Rchannel,Lchannel, Rchannel,Lchannel, Rchannel...}

The processing routine an conversion to mono looks like:

    byte[] buff = null;
        while( (buff = _input.getSamples()) != null ){

            /** Convert to mono */
            byte[] mono = new byte[buff.length/2];

            for (int i = 0 ; i < mono.length/2; ++i){
                int left = (buff[i * 4] << 8) | (buff[i * 4 + 1] & 0xff);
                int right = (buff[i * 4 + 2] <<8) | (buff[i * 4 + 3] & 0xff);
                int avg = (left + right) / 2;
                short m = (short)avg; /*Mono is an average between 2 channels (stereo)*/
                mono[i * 2] = (byte)((short)(m >> 8));
                mono[i * 2 + 1] = (byte)(m & 0xff);
            }

}

And writing to the wav file using:

     public static void writeWav(byte [] theResult, int samplerate, File outfile) {
        // now convert theResult into a wav file
        // probably should use a file if samplecount is too big!
        int theSize = theResult.length;


        InputStream is = new ByteArrayInputStream(theResult);
        //Short2InputStream sis = new Short2InputStream(theResult);

        AudioFormat audioF = new AudioFormat(
                AudioFormat.Encoding.PCM_SIGNED,
                samplerate,
                16,
                1,          // channels
                2,          // framesize
                samplerate,
                false
        );

        AudioInputStream ais = new AudioInputStream(is, audioF, theSize);

        try {
            AudioSystem.write(ais, AudioFileFormat.Type.WAVE, outfile);
        } catch (IOException ioe) {
            System.err.println("IO Exception; probably just done with file");
            return;
        }


    }

With 44100 as sample rate.

Take in mind that actually the byte[] array that I've got it's already pcm, so mp3 -> pcm conversion it's done by specifying

 this._decodedFormat = new AudioFormat(AudioFormat.Encoding.PCM_SIGNED, 44100, 16, 2, 1, 44100, false);
this._audioInputDecodedStream = AudioSystem.getAudioInputStream(this._decodedFormat, this._audioInputStream);

As I said, when writing to the Wav file I've got a lot of noise. I pretend to apply to every chunk of byte a FFT, but I think because of the noisy sound the result it's not correct.

Because I'm taking two songs, one of them is a 20 seconds crop from the another, and when comparing the crop fft result with the original 20 seconds subset, it doesn't match at all.

I think the reason it's the incorrect conversion stereo->mono.

Hope someone know something about this,

Regards.

Answer 1

As pointed out in the comments, endianness may be wrong. Also, converting to a signed short and shifting it may cause the first byte to be 0xFF.

Try:

int HI = 0; int LO = 1;
int left = (buff[i * 4 + HI] << 8) | (buff[i * 4 + LO] & 0xff);
int right = (buff[i * 4 + 2 + HI] << 8) | (buff[i * 4 + 2 + LO] & 0xff);
int avg = (left + right) / 2;
mono[i * 2 + HI] = (byte)((avg >> 8) & 0xff);
mono[i * 2 + LO] = (byte)(avg & 0xff);

Then switch the values of HI and LO to see if it gets better.