Capabilities?

Java Sound & OpenAL
#1

Now I’ve not done any sound programming before but its time I did some ;D So I’m looking into different technologies I can use. The two main choices seem to be at the moment either the standard Java-sound in the core API, or Joal.

As far as I’m aware, regular java sound only supports basic file formats such as wave files, yet ideally I’d like to use something that doesn’t eat huge amounts of HD space, which points to either mp3 or ogg.

Random questions:

  1. Whats the current state of Joal like? Is it reliable enough to be considered as a viable alternative?

  2. Does it support mp3 directly or will I need to somehow convert it into an ogg?
    2a. Assuming using an mp3 file, what happens with licencing? Is this already taken care of by whatever platform library is used?
    2b. Assuming using an ogg file, are there any free tools to do the conversion?

Cheers

#2

  1. Current state of Joal is kinda sketchy, but that is no fault of the platform on which it resides OpenAL. The port to OSX is taking longer than I expected as I find myself fighting C header semantics and other such foolishness. However, it is a viable alternative to Java-sount in the long term.

  2. Joal streams stuff from buffers so you would slerp your audio format (of whatever type) into a ByteBuffer and have it played. Joal is not specifically for ‘music’, but anything you can put into a buffer can be played.

2a. Legally you can play any MP3 file you want. You cannot however freely encode MP3 files, and there are other myriad issues associated with the format unlike Ogg, ACC, etc.

2b. http://www.vorbis.com/ You will find a wealth of tools available. Heck there are over 15 for OSX alone so that should say a lot :slight_smile: