Audio Asynchronously loading AudioClip from file

I'm loading user-provided OGG files from disk using the following:

UnityWebRequestMultimedia.GetAudioClip()
and
DownloadHandlerAudioClip.GetContent();

In an average case, this results in a ~500ms pause, and the culprit appears to be SoundManager.LoadFMODSound() as shown in my deep profiling screenshot.


This is all inside a coroutine that has a:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. while (!operation.isDone)
3.     yield return null;
4.  

But somewhere there seems to be a blocking operation. This is an absolute deal-breaker on Quest where you're not allowed to drop frames, much less completely freeze for half a second. Surely there is a way to asynchronously and smoothly load AudioClips from disk?

 

Did you ever find a solution to this, Brady?

Welp, shortly after asking here I found a solution that works in my case. Figured I'd share in case anyone else stumbles here.

Code (CSharp):

1. public IEnumerator LoadSong(string url)
2.     {
3.         using (UnityWebRequest www = UnityWebRequestMultimedia.GetAudioClip(url, AudioType.MPEG))
4.         {
5.             yield return www.SendWebRequest();
6.  
7.             if (www.isNetworkError)
8.             {
9.                 Debug.LogError(www.error);
10.                 yield break;
11.             }
12.  
13.            // this allows for streaming audio which may not be your solution but it works in my case
14.             ((DownloadHandlerAudioClip)www.downloadHandler).streamAudio = true;
15.  
16.             if (www.isNetworkError)
17.             {
18.                 Debug.Log(www.error);
19.             }
20.             else
21.             {
22.                   // do whatever you need to with the clip
23.                   AudioClip clip = ((DownloadHandlerAudioClip)www.downloadHandler).audioClip;
24.             }
25.         }
26.     }

 

Sorry to bring this thread back up but has anyone found a solution for this that does not involve setting the clip as streaming? I need to get samples from the clip which is not supported if streaming is enabled.

 

I don't think that's possible, since to get the samples for the entire song, you'd need to have it fully loaded. You can, however, get some frequency data from the current buffer of the playing AudioSource. See here:

https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/AudioSource.GetSpectrumData.html