Audio Queue buffer manipulation when paused - iphone

I am wondering if there is a way to manipulate the audio buffer when the audio queue is paused. So the pseudo logic goes like this:
1. pause audio queue
2. manipulate the audio buffers in the queue except the one that is being handed to the callback function.
3. start the audio queue again
I notice the problem would be when I try to manipulate the audio buffer that is being decoded and fed to the device. So anyone has ever tried this before?

I think this path will lead to pain and suffering, and one that could be simulated without breaking the paradigm that AudioQueue sets forth. The whole point of the queue is to feed buffers to a callback that you implement so you can manipulate each sample as you see fit before passing it down the chain.
Maybe if you can explain the context of what you're trying to accomplish, a more suitable solution could be offered.

Related

How to pause offline rendering?

OfflineContext.suspend stops the progression of OfflineContext.currentTime, but what effect does it have while rendering (OfflineContext.startRendering)? What I want to do is start the rendering process, pause it, do some other task and resume it when the other task is done. While the rendering process is paused, the imminent AudioBuffer should not be getting larger, meaning that when I export the AudioBuffer into a wav file and play it, there should be no silence corresponding to the pause that was taken by the rendering process.
I have tried OfflineContext.suspend while rendering and it does seem to add some silence in the resulting wav file, but perhaps I'm doing something wrong.
How can I pause the rendering process?
What is OfflineContext.suspend for?
suspend is intended to cause the offline context to stop at controlled times, before startRendering() is called. You can call suspend() after starting rendering, but this is not very precise, especially since rendering is probably faster than real time.
Plus you have not access to the AudioBuffer during rendering. If you want to capture the audio while rendering, use a ScriptProcessorNode or an AudioWorkletNode to save the audio data.

Is it possible to record the audio that comes out of the iPhone?

I am working on an app that allows the user to create a sort of dub. There is an audio file playing, and the user can tap at certain moments to insert sound (kind of like a censor button.) I'm wondering how to go about capturing the final product.
Capturing audio directly from the iPhone seems the easiest route, as the user already hears the finished product as it is made. However, I can't find anything on how to do this. If not possible, are there any suggestions?
The best way would probably be to be using the AV Foundation framework for mixing and then buffering the audio as well as playing it. This would allow for a high abstraction level while guaranteeing both played back and saved audio to be equal.
Apart from that: from a How can I achieve this with minimum code-perspective, without more information about your setup, the question is way too broad and/or opinion-based.
You will have to work with buffers. Don't know right now how it is done in Swift but you can implement it in Obj-C and then bridge it out.
You can refer to this answers here in StackOverflow (They are a bit old)
https://stackoverflow.com/a/11218339/2683201
https://stackoverflow.com/a/10101877/2683201
and a project also exists (but is in Obj-C)
https://github.com/alexbw/novocaine
Mainly the idea for your case would be to have 2 separated buffers and your sound effect.
Then, you will be playing from buffer A (your music) and copying played data into buffer B (final Output) unless you are playing the effect. In wich case you will be copying the effect data into your buffer B.
Other option is to do it offline:
Play your music (or audio) and keep a timer running synced with the elapsed time of your "to be censored audio".
Save the timestamp of when you start and end tapping the censor button (for example).
Overlap buffer A with your effect in those recorded (start-end) timestamps.
Save the buffer as a file (or do whatever you need to do with it)
UPDATE:
You should take a look into the Apple implementation of something like this:
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/samplecode/AVAEMixerSample/Introduction/Intro.html

Playing sounds in perfect succession on the iPhone

I am developing a game for the iPhone and iPad using cocos2d, and I need to be able to play a sound exactly when another one completes.
I have a soundtrack that is chopped up in smaller pieces, and there are no room for the tinyest gap between playback when one finishes and one starts.
Btw. I cannot glue the sounds together into a single file and just play that since the order of the files will be rearranged runtime.
How can I achieve this?
With CocosDenshion you can register a delegate with
[[CDAudioManager sharedManager] setBackgroundMusicCompletionListener:self
selector:#selector(musicDidFinish)];
CDAudioManager class reference
This delegate will be called whenever the background music ends. This of course only works if you play your sound files as background music (with the playBackgroundMusic method).
If that doesn't work for you, have a look at ObjectAL. You'll have more options and greater flexibility. For example, with ALSource you can queue multiple ALBuffer objects which represent sound files. That means whenever the source's buffer count decreases to 1 you just queue the next buffer to achieve uninterrupted, sequential playback of multiple sound files (any format).
Because ObjectAL is so awesome (well, I think so :) ) it's included and ready to use in Kobold2D.
You can use a single Audio Queue or the RemoteIO Audio Unit, and just fill the callback buffers with raw/PCM audio samples from any file in any order.

Best way to play a sound with an attack / sustain (loop) / decay with AVAudioPlayer

I am having a problem finding resources on playing an attack (start of sound) / sustain (looping sound) / decay (ending of sound) sequence with no transition breaks. Are there any good libraries for handling this, or should I roll my own with AVAudioPlayer? Is AudioQueue a better place to look? I used to use SoundEngine.cpp, but that's been long gone for a while. Is CAF still the best format to use for it?
Thanks!
From your description, it sounds as if you're trying to write a software synthesizer. The only way that you could use AVAudioPlayer for something like this would be to compose the entire duration of a note as a single WAV file and then play the whole thing with AVAudioPlayer.
To create a note sound of arbitrary duration, one that begins playing in response to a user action (like tapping a button) and then continues playing until a second user action (like tapping a "stop" button or lifting the finger off the first button) begins the process of ramping the looped region's volume down to zero (the "release" part), you will need to use AudioQueue (AVAudioPlayer can be used to play audio constructed entirely in memory, but the entire playback has to be constructed before play begins, meaning that you cannot change what is being played in response to user actions [other than to stop playback]).
Here's another question/answer that shows simply how to use AudioQueue. AudioQueue calls a callback method whenever it needs to load up more data to play - you would have to implement all the code that loops and envelope-wraps the original WAV file data.
creating your own envelope generator is very simple. the tough part will be updating your program to use lower level audio services in order to alter the signal directly.
to do this, you will need:
the audio file's samples
set up an AudioQueue (that's one approach, but i am going with it because it was mentioned in the OP, and it is relatively high level API for a user provided sample buffer)
provide a signal to the queue
determine if your program is best in realtime or pre-rendered
Realtime
Allows live variations
manage your loop points
manage your render position
be able to determine the amplitude to apply based on the sample position range you are reading
or
Prerendered
May require more memory
Requires less CPU
apply the envelope to your copy of the sample buffer
manage your render position
I also assume that you need only slow/simple transitions. If you want some crazy/fast LFO, without aliasing, you will have a lot more work to do. This approach should not produce audible aliasing unless your changes are too abrupt:
Writing a simple envelope generator (EG) is easy; check out Apple's SinSynth for a very basic EG if you need a push in that direction.

iOS: Audio Unit RemoteIO AudioBuffer manipulation (i.e. sound effects from microphone)

I've been playing around with Apple's aurioTouch demo which is sample code for their Audio Unit tutorial. This application allows simultaneous input/output from the mic. to speaker. It also renders a stereograph of the inputted sound from the mic.
At a really high-level of this low-level process, the sample code defines an AudioComponent (in this case RemoteIO which allows for simultaneous input/output) and there is a render callback for this Audio Unit. In the callback they do some audio filtering (a DC Rejection Filter) and visualization of the stereograph based on the AudioBuffer sound data from the mic.
My ultimate goal is to create my own custom sound distortion Audio Unit based on the input from the mic. I think the proper way to do this based on the Audio Unit tutorial is to make a second Audio Unit and connect them with an Audio Processing Graph. However, I've read that iOS doesn't allow you to register your own custom Audio Units. My questions are:
Can I do direct manipulation on the AudioBufferList that I have access to in the render callback from the remoteIO Audio Unit (since they already seem to be doing this and applying an audio filter on it) and create my own custom sound distortion there?
I've tried assigning the AudioBufferList data to a constant (a value I've seen it hold from a sample run and logging of the AudioBufferList), but it appears to do nothing.
The answer to your first question is yes. That is generally how it is done.
I believe that you need to manipulate the data in the pointer directly, rather than reassigning. You may want to take a look at the code in openframeworks that handles assigning buffers and passing them to a callback: https://github.com/openframeworks/openFrameworks/blob/master/addons/ofxiPhone/src/sound/ofxiPhoneSoundStream.mm
There is other code out there that you can look at, nick collins has a basic application for getting sound off the microphone and out the speaker, whist processing inbetween: http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/nc81/code.html. He also has code there that gets sample buffers out of a iPod track that may be useful to you.
It is true that you can not add your own custom AudioUnits to the iPhone.
The way it works it like this: The speaker drives the pull-chain of data through the system. You add a render callback to the ioUnit, as you have already done.
The callback runs whenever the speaker (bus #0) is hungry and it is your job to fill in as many samples as it has requested, in the buffer that the speaker has provided. The size of the provided buffer will be a power of two that is as close as possible to the Preferred IO Buffer Duration you specified when configuring the AudioSession.
The simplest way to do that is to take the AudioBufferList you were given and pass it to AudioUnitRender on the the microphone (bus #1). After you fill in the buffer with Render(), but before the callback returns, you can manipulate the data any way you like. For example, AurioTouch zeroes it out to mute it.
The important thing to remember is that the speaker is going to read from the actual data buffer that it passed you. It is not going to look at the AudioBufferList descriptor and check if you pointed to another databuffer. If you start changing the AudioBufferList that you were given, you will run into problems. At best, you will be ignored. At worst, you will run into memory management issues.
If you don't want to be constrained to working in just the ioData buffer, then you can use your own AudioBufferList, allocated any way you like, in any size, and ask the microphone to Render() into that. Then you can do all the manipulation you like so long as in the end you copy the results into the buffer provided by the callback (i.e. ioData->mBuffers[0].mData as it was at the time the Callback was invoked).