📚 Oto - Awesome Go Library for Audio and Music
A low-level library to play sound on multiple platforms.
Detailed Description of Oto
Oto (v3)
A low-level library to play sound.
Platforms
- Windows (no Cgo required!)
- macOS (no Cgo required!)
- Linux
- FreeBSD
- OpenBSD
- Android
- iOS
- WebAssembly
- Nintendo Switch
- Xbox
Prerequisite
On some platforms you will need a C/C++ compiler in your path that Go can use.
- iOS: On newer macOS versions type
clang
on your terminal and a dialog with installation instructions will appear if you don't have it- If you get an error with clang use xcode instead
xcode-select --install
- If you get an error with clang use xcode instead
- Linux and other Unix systems: Should be installed by default, but if not try GCC or Clang
macOS
Oto requires AudioToolbox.framework
, but this is automatically linked.
iOS
Oto requires these frameworks:
AVFoundation.framework
AudioToolbox.framework
Add them to "Linked Frameworks and Libraries" on your Xcode project.
Linux
ALSA is required. On Ubuntu or Debian, run this command:
apt install libasound2-dev
On RedHat-based linux distributions, run:
dnf install alsa-lib-devel
In most cases this command must be run by root user or through sudo
command.
FreeBSD, OpenBSD
BSD systems are not tested well. If ALSA works, Oto should work.
Usage
The two main components of Oto are a Context
and Players
. The context handles interactions with
the OS and audio drivers, and as such there can only be one context in your program.
From a context you can create any number of different players, where each player is given an io.Reader
that
it reads bytes representing sounds from and plays.
Note that a single io.Reader
must not be used by multiple players.
Playing sounds from memory
The following is an example of loading and playing an MP3 file:
package main
import (
"bytes"
"time"
"os"
"github.com/ebitengine/oto/v3"
"github.com/hajimehoshi/go-mp3"
)
func main() {
// Read the mp3 file into memory
fileBytes, err := os.ReadFile("./my-file.mp3")
if err != nil {
panic("reading my-file.mp3 failed: " + err.Error())
}
// Convert the pure bytes into a reader object that can be used with the mp3 decoder
fileBytesReader := bytes.NewReader(fileBytes)
// Decode file
decodedMp3, err := mp3.NewDecoder(fileBytesReader)
if err != nil {
panic("mp3.NewDecoder failed: " + err.Error())
}
// Prepare an Oto context (this will use your default audio device) that will
// play all our sounds. Its configuration can't be changed later.
op := &oto.NewContextOptions{}
// Usually 44100 or 48000. Other values might cause distortions in Oto
op.SampleRate = 44100
// Number of channels (aka locations) to play sounds from. Either 1 or 2.
// 1 is mono sound, and 2 is stereo (most speakers are stereo).
op.ChannelCount = 2
// Format of the source. go-mp3's format is signed 16bit integers.
op.Format = oto.FormatSignedInt16LE
// Remember that you should **not** create more than one context
otoCtx, readyChan, err := oto.NewContext(op)
if err != nil {
panic("oto.NewContext failed: " + err.Error())
}
// It might take a bit for the hardware audio devices to be ready, so we wait on the channel.
<-readyChan
// Create a new 'player' that will handle our sound. Paused by default.
player := otoCtx.NewPlayer(decodedMp3)
// Play starts playing the sound and returns without waiting for it (Play() is async).
player.Play()
// We can wait for the sound to finish playing using something like this
for player.IsPlaying() {
time.Sleep(time.Millisecond)
}
// Now that the sound finished playing, we can restart from the beginning (or go to any location in the sound) using seek
// newPos, err := player.(io.Seeker).Seek(0, io.SeekStart)
// if err != nil{
// panic("player.Seek failed: " + err.Error())
// }
// println("Player is now at position:", newPos)
// player.Play()
// If you don't want the player/sound anymore simply close
err = player.Close()
if err != nil {
panic("player.Close failed: " + err.Error())
}
}
Playing sounds by file streaming
The above example loads the entire file into memory and then plays it. This is great for smaller files but might be an issue if you are playing a long song since it would take too much memory and too long to load.
In such cases you might want to stream the file. Luckily this is very simple, just use os.Open
:
package main
import (
"os"
"time"
"github.com/ebitengine/oto/v3"
"github.com/hajimehoshi/go-mp3"
)
func main() {
// Open the file for reading. Do NOT close before you finish playing!
file, err := os.Open("./my-file.mp3")
if err != nil {
panic("opening my-file.mp3 failed: " + err.Error())
}
// Decode file. This process is done as the file plays so it won't
// load the whole thing into memory.
decodedMp3, err := mp3.NewDecoder(file)
if err != nil {
panic("mp3.NewDecoder failed: " + err.Error())
}
// Rest is the same...
// Close file only after you finish playing
file.Close()
}
The only thing to note about streaming is that the file object must be kept alive, otherwise you might just play static.
To keep it alive not only must you be careful about when you close it, but you might need to keep a reference to the original file object alive (by for example keeping it in a struct).
Advanced usage
Players have their own internal audio data buffer, so while for example 200 bytes have been read from the io.Reader
that
doesn't mean they were all played from the audio device.
Data is moved from io.Reader->internal buffer->audio device, and when the internal buffer moves data to the audio device
is not guaranteed, so there might be a small delay. The amount of data in the buffer can be retrieved
using Player.UnplayedBufferSize()
.
The size of the underlying buffer of a player can also be set by type-asserting the player object:
myPlayer.(oto.BufferSizeSetter).SetBufferSize(newBufferSize)
This works because players implement a Player
interface and a BufferSizeSetter
interface.
Crosscompiling
Crosscompiling to macOS or Windows is as easy as setting GOOS=darwin
or GOOS=windows
, respectively.
To crosscompile for other platforms, make sure the libraries for the target architecture are installed, and set
CGO_ENABLED=1
as Go disables Cgo on crosscompiles by default.