Play several sounds synchronously

Hi to everyone,

is there a way to play several sounds and start all of them at the same time? Maybe dynamically create an audiocilp in runtime?

I'm porting my piano app to unity3d from Windows Phone and there I used DirectX XAudio2 in order to accomplish that. In this case I mix several voices at runtime and play the mixed voice. Is this possible in Unity3d? What would be the recommended approach?

I've seen some sequencer Unity apps that seem to accomplish this kind of synchronicity but I don't have a clue how they managed to start all the sounds at the same time.

In my case, I use a loop to iterate through all the AudioSources and play them. It works when I have 2 or three sounds (even it's not perfect) but it's completely unacceptable when I have more than 7 sounds playing as the delay between each play call is clearly noticeable and the chord is played arpeggiated not as a unique sound.

Any insight on these matters would be really appreciated. Maybe you know a sound library (similar to XAudio2) that is capable of this in the Unity world.

Thanks for your help.

Best regards,

Roberto.

 

Hi, I've tried with audioclip's PlayScheduled method but I've found that it doesn't seem to be working ok. Whenever I call this method the sound plays, then stops and then plays again at the specified time. It seems to be a known bug that hasn't been resolved yet.

Any other ideas?

Best regards,

Roberto.

 

Are your audiosources set to PlayOnAwake? Make sure they aren't.

Otherwise, you should probably post the code. Sounds like you might be doing something wrong.

 

If you are playing mp3's and not wav files, that would account for the delay. Starting an mp3 playing takes about 120 times as long as starting a wave file. And it's absolutely terrible for performance which is why they should never be used for sound effects.

 

I havent done it myself, but i watched this talk recently, and it was really informative. Cant really tell, if things have changed with U5, but i believe combining samples / tracks at runtime have at least same principles:

 

I use wav files and playOnAwake is set to false. I found this bug: http://issuetracker.unity3d.com/issues/debug-dot-log-calls-cause-audio-artifacts referenced here: http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/weird-issue-with-playscheduled-two-audios.236174/

My code is fairly simple:

foreach (var nvm in nvms)
{
nvm.PlayScheduled(DataContext.PlayScheduledTime);
}

being nvm an AudioSource.

Thanks!

 

I see what you mean.

If I add a debug log (which is known to be intensive) when I schedule audio in a test project I get what you describe.

It looks like it's still a bug. You should file a bug report.

 

Thanks Naraku,

For the record, I've tried using a coroutine in the loop instead of calling the playScheduled method directly and it seems to be working in some scenarios.

In my specific case it doesn't seem to be working.

Cheers!

 

@Newton_W
Hi !
I'm not sure if you found a solution to your problem but i leave my input just in case.

"Whenever I call this method the sound plays, then stops and then plays again at the specified time"
You need an extra Audio Source , basically let's say 1 second before the loop ends you get the time samples left in the Audio Source that's playing and use that value to play another audio source with the PlayScheduled() Method, that way the audio will keep playing and switch seamlessly (at least with wav files, definitely not with mp3's).

You can also create audio clips at runtime and and play them in perfect sync to do it is a bit tricky though and it will depend on how you app works.

Here's an example of a (one track) step sequencer you can easily modify this to work with multiple tracks.
http://github.com/WoozyBytes/UnityStepSequencer
Feel free to let me know if you have any questions.
Regards WB.

 

Hi @WoozyBytes,

first of all, thank you very much for your answer. It seems that in the latest versions of Unity the issue was solved, so I can use PlayScheduled with no troubles.

Nonetheless, I've not solved the problem of synchronizing several sounds to play exactly at the same time. I've looked at your sample but I'm not really sure on how to proceed in order to sync several sounds.

It seems that you divide the audiclip in several steps and then you dynamically create another one but I don't get the point of it as I don't have this kind of audio background.

Thanks again for your help!

Best regards,

Roberto.

 

Hi @WoozyBytes,

just to be clear on the sync issue. Now that PlayScheduled works I can play sounds at the same time. Consider this thread closed.

Best regards,

Roberto.

 

Hi Roberto !
I'm Glad you fixed the issue.
"but I'm not really sure on how to proceed in order to sync several sounds."
On that sample code i showed how to create a one track step sequencer.
But if you use that code to create multiple tracks and play them at the same time they will play perfect in sync.
Regards

 

"it seems that you divide the audiclip in several steps"
Yes i divide one bar in 16 steps that is the normal 4/4 time signature on most electronic music but there's others.

"and then you dynamically create another one but I don't get the point of it as I don't have this kind of audio background."
No i only create one audio clip the dividing part is just for reference, so i can place the individuals sounds at the right time (in samples) in the main loop i created.

Try running the script on a test project it has a basic UI so you can try the sequencer, it might give you some ideas.
If you want i can explain this better just let me know.

Regards

 

@WoozyBytes thank you very much for the insights! I'll take a further look at your sequencer.

Best regards,
Roberto.

 

No problem
Regards