How to play the same sound overlapping with AVAudioPlayer? - swift

Question

This code plays the sound when the button is tapped but cancels the previous if it is pressed again. I do not want this to happen I want the same sound to overlap when repeatedly pressed. I believe it might be due to using the same AVAudioPlayer as I have looked on the internet but I am new to swift and want to know how to create a new AVAudioPlayer everytime the method runs so the sounds overlap.
func playSound(sound:String){
// Set the sound file name & extension
let soundPath = NSURL(fileURLWithPath:NSBundle.mainBundle().pathForResource(sound, ofType: "mp3")!)
do {
//Preperation
try AVAudioSession.sharedInstance().setCategory(AVAudioSessionCategoryPlayback)
} catch _{
}
do {
try AVAudioSession.sharedInstance().setActive(true)
}
catch _ {
}
//Play the sound
var error:NSError?
do{
audioPlayer = try AVAudioPlayer(contentsOfURL: soundPath)
}catch let error1 as NSError {
error = error1
}
audioPlayer.prepareToPlay()
audioPlayer.play()
}

Answer 1

To play two sounds simultaneously with AVAudioPlayer you just have to use a different player for each sound.
In my example I've declared two players, playerBoom and playerCrash, in the Viewcontroller, and I'm populating them with a sound to play via a function, then trigger the play at once:
import AVFoundation
class ViewController: UIViewController {
var playerBoom:AVAudioPlayer?
var playerCrash:AVAudioPlayer?
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
playerBoom = preparePlayerForSound(named: "sound1")
playerCrash = preparePlayerForSound(named: "sound2")
playerBoom?.prepareToPlay()
playerCrash?.prepareToPlay()
playerBoom?.play()
playerCrash?.play()
}
func preparePlayerForSound(named sound: String) -> AVAudioPlayer? {
do {
if let soundPath = NSBundle.mainBundle().pathForResource(sound, ofType: "mp3") {
try AVAudioSession.sharedInstance().setCategory(AVAudioSessionCategoryPlayback)
try AVAudioSession.sharedInstance().setActive(true)
return try AVAudioPlayer(contentsOfURL: NSURL(fileURLWithPath: soundPath))
} else {
print("The file '\(sound).mp3' is not available")
}
} catch let error as NSError {
print(error)
}
return nil
}
}
It works very well but IMO is not suitable if you have many sounds to play. It's a perfectly valid solution for just a few ones, though.
This example is with two different sounds but of course the idea is exactly the same for two identic sounds.

Answer 2

I could not find a solution using just AVAudioPlayer.
Instead, I have found a solution to this problem with a library that is built on top of AVAudioPlayer.
The library allows same sounds to be played overlapped with each other.
https://github.com/adamcichy/SwiftySound