Reading Audio Channel Data From A Playing Sound File 1

[apc2004]

Hi,

I am currently building an MP3 / Audio Player control for WinForms .net v1.1 using Managed DirectX 9c.

I can't find any decent tutorial(s) or example project(s) on how to make a Spectrum Analyser that moves to the music or sound that is currently playing.

I have a few very rough ideas... somehow I need to read the audio data (per channel) of the currently loaded (playing) file, the problem is I have absolutely no idea how to do this.

Can anyone offer some advice, code samples, or anything that can point me in the right direction?

Thanks in advance...

 

[JurkMonkey]

http://www.codeguru.com/cpp/g-m/multimedia/audio/article.php/c8935/

http://www.codeguru.com/cpp/g-m/multimedia/audio/article.php/c4725/

These two are written in C++. The first one gives you a good look at the makings of a wav file and the second one contains C++ code on how to read the levels.

Basically, I believe you need to decode your MP3 back into a raw wav format and calculate the DB level for each audio chunk (sample) as it plays. Remember that if you have 2 channels (Left and Right) then your samples become doubled so you have to read the DB output for the entire sound frame.

Sounds scary but reading the docs will help.

 

[apc2004]

C++ eek... haven't touched that for a long time, I feel a brush up comin' on!

Thanks for the links, at first glance they look pretty good, will haves a proper read tomorrow.

 

[JurkMonkey]

Thanks for the big purple one!