Sound Generation in C#

Adding Sound and Music to your game in C#

In this tutorial, you will learn how to handle sound and music files in C#.

When we think of creating a video game, often the first things that come to mind are the visuals, the story lines, and the memories created when someone plays the game. Having sound in your game is just as important to the players gaming experience.

Sound can set the mood of the player while playing a game. A smooth upbeat melody can bring out happy feelings while sharp chords can make tense or frightened emotion.

Sounds can directly correlate to good or bad actions for the player. Destroying an enemy might have a happy sound, but being destroyed by that enemy might have a sad sound.

Because sound is a necessary part of any game program, it is apparent to know how to program these sounds so they can be heard.

The System.Media Namespace contains classes for playing sound files and accessing sounds provided by the system.

The following classes are included in this namespace:

• SoundPlayer class – used for loading and playing sounds from a .wav file.
• SystemSound class – used for representing and playing a system sound.
• SystemSounds class – used to retrieve sounds associated with a set of Windows operating system sound-event types.

In this tutorial we will discuss the SoundPlayer class, which provides a simple interface for loading and playing a sound (.wav) file. The SoundPlayer class supports loading a .wav file from a file path, a URL, a Stream that contains a .wav file, or an embedded resource that contains a .wav file.

You can load or play a .wav file synchronously or asynchronously.

Synchronously or Asynchronously

• Synchronously – existing or occurring at the same time.
• Asynchronously – (of two or more objects or events) not existing or happening at the same time.

If you call a synchronous load or play, the file must be loaded before it can be played.

If you call an asynchronous load or play, you do not need to wait for the sound to be played.

Before you can use the SoundPlayer class, you need to initialize a new instance of the SoundPlayer class using one of the SoundPlayer class constructors.

Following are the constructors included in this SoundPlayer class:

SoundPlayer() – Initializes a new instance of the SoundPlayer class.

public SoundPlayer ();

This constructor initializes a SoundPlayer with no audio source. Until it is configured with an audio source path, the SoundPlayer will play a beep sound when one of its playback methods is called.

SoundPlayer(Stream) – Initializes a new instance of the SoundPlayer class, and attaches the .wav file within the specified Stream.

public SoundPlayer (System.IO.Stream stream);

The Stream passed to the stream parameter should be a Stream containing a .wav file. The data returned by the Read method of the Stream should be the data within a .wav file.

SoundPlayer(String) – Initializes a new instance of the SoundPlayer class, and attaches the specified .wav file.

public SoundPlayer (string soundLocation);

The string passed to the soundLocation parameter can be either a file path or a URL to a .wav file. If the path or URL is not valid, the SoundPlayer will still be constructed, but subsequent calls to a load or play method will fail.

There are several properties, methods, and events for the SoundPlayer class, but the most common are listed below.

Properties

• SoundLocation property – Gets or sets the file path or URL of the .wav file to load. If no file path is present the value is Empty.
• LoadTimeout property – Gets or sets the time, in milliseconds, in which the .wav file must load. After this time (10 seconds) has expired, the loading is canceled and a TimeoutException exception is thrown.
• IsLoadCompleted property – Gets a value indicating whether loading of a .wav file has successfully completed. Boolean value true if a .wav file is loaded; false if a .wav file has not yet been loaded.

Methods

• Load method – Loads a sound synchronously.
• LoadAsync method – Loads a .wav file from a stream or a Web resource using a new thread. Begins to load a sound asynchronously.
• Play method – Plays the .wav file using a new thread, and loads the .wav file first if it has not been loaded. Plays the sound specified in the SoundLocation or Stream property in a new thread.
• PlayLooping method – Plays and loops the .wav file using a new thread, and loads the .wav file first if it has not been loaded. Plays the sound specified in the SoundLocation or Stream property in a new thread.
• PlaySync method – Plays the .wav file and loads the .wav file first if it has not been loaded. Plays the sound specified in the SoundLocation or Stream property in the current thread.
• Stop method – Stops playback of the sound if playback is occurring.

Events

• LoadCompleted event – Raised after the load of a sound is attempted.

The other class of the System.Media Namespace worth mentioning is the SystemSounds class to play common system sounds, including a beep.

The following is the syntax for the sound function:

//Gets the sound associated with the Beep program event in the current Windows sound scheme.

System.Media.SystemSounds.Beep.Play();

This does exactly what you might expect, it beeps the computer’s speaker. The beep function is rather limited, because it lacks the ability to change the tone and duration of the beep. The sound varies from computer to computer, but it’s good for simple audio feedback.

You can get better sound with the SoundPlayer Class.

Play and PlayLooping methods

The Play method plays the .wav file. The Play method is useful in a space game if you want to hear a sound when you fire the weapon.

This example plays a sound at a given path. The SoundPlayer class is first initialized and the sound file is loaded and played when the playButton is clicked.

Using System.Media;

namespace SoundPlayerPlay

{

       public partial class Form1 : Form

       {

              //initialize the SoundPlayer class

              private SoundPlayer Player = new SoundPlayer();

              private void playButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)

              {

              // the .wav file is loaded and ready to play.

              this.Player.SoundLocation = @”C:\Windows\Media\shoot.wav”;

              //plays the .wav file using a new thread

              this.Player.Play();

             }

       }

}

The PlayLooping method plays and loops the .wav file until stopped. The PlayLooping method is useful in a space game if you want to hear a sound when you repeatedly fire the weapon.

The following code example plays a sound repeatedly.

Using System.Media;

namespace SoundPlayerPlay

{

       public partial class Form1 : Form

       {

              //initialize the SoundPlayer class

              private SoundPlayer Player = new SoundPlayer();

              private void playLoopingButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)

              {

              // the sound is loaded and ready to play.

             this.Player.SoundLocation = @”C:\Windows\Media\shoot.wav”;

             //plays and loops the .wav file using a new thread

             this.Player.PlayLooping();

              }          

              private void stopPlayingButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)

              {

                     //stop playing the .wav file

                     this.Player.Stop();

             }

       }

}

When the code in the stopPlayingButton_Click procedure is executed, any sound currently playing stops. If no sound is playing, nothing happens.

Sound Examples:

There are two examples:

1. SoundPlayer1 – Play, PlayLooping, PlaySync methods.
2. SpaceInvasion6 – Sound added to the game.

Example 1: SoundPlayer1