Play audio from AVAudioPCMBuffer with AVAudioEngine

Question

I have two classes, MicrophoneHandler , and AudioPlayer . I have managed to use AVCaptureSession to tap microphone data using the approved answer here , and and converted the CMSampleBuffer to NSData using this function:

func sendDataToDelegate(buffer: CMSampleBuffer!)
{
    let block = CMSampleBufferGetDataBuffer(buffer)
    var length = 0
    var data: UnsafeMutablePointer<Int8> = nil

    var status = CMBlockBufferGetDataPointer(block!, 0, nil, &length, &data)    // TODO: check for errors

    let result = NSData(bytesNoCopy: data, length: length, freeWhenDone: false)

    self.delegate.handleBuffer(result)
}

I would now like to play the audio over the speaker by converting the NSData produced above to AVAudioPCMBuffer and play it using AVAudioEngine . My AudioPlayer class is as follows:

var engine: AVAudioEngine!
var playerNode: AVAudioPlayerNode!
var mixer: AVAudioMixerNode!

override init()
{
    super.init()

    self.setup()
    self.start()
}

func handleBuffer(data: NSData)
{
    let newBuffer = self.toPCMBuffer(data)
    print(newBuffer)

    self.playerNode.scheduleBuffer(newBuffer, completionHandler: nil)
}

func setup()
{
    self.engine = AVAudioEngine()
    self.playerNode = AVAudioPlayerNode()

    self.engine.attachNode(self.playerNode)
    self.mixer = engine.mainMixerNode

    engine.connect(self.playerNode, to: self.mixer, format: self.mixer.outputFormatForBus(0))
}

func start()
{
    do {
        try self.engine.start()
    }
    catch {
        print("error couldn't start engine")
    }

    self.playerNode.play()
}

func toPCMBuffer(data: NSData) -> AVAudioPCMBuffer
{
    let audioFormat = AVAudioFormat(commonFormat: AVAudioCommonFormat.PCMFormatFloat32, sampleRate: 8000, channels: 2, interleaved: false)  // given NSData audio format
    let PCMBuffer = AVAudioPCMBuffer(PCMFormat: audioFormat, frameCapacity: UInt32(data.length) / audioFormat.streamDescription.memory.mBytesPerFrame)

    PCMBuffer.frameLength = PCMBuffer.frameCapacity

    let channels = UnsafeBufferPointer(start: PCMBuffer.floatChannelData, count: Int(PCMBuffer.format.channelCount))

    data.getBytes(UnsafeMutablePointer<Void>(channels[0]) , length: data.length)

    return PCMBuffer
}

The buffer reaches the handleBuffer:buffer function when self.delegate.handleBuffer(result) is called in the first snippet above.

I am able to print(newBuffer) , and see the memory locations of the converted buffers, but nothing comes out of the speakers. I can only imagine something is not consistent between the conversions to and from NSData . Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Skip the raw NSData format

Why not use AVAudioPlayer all the way? If you positively need NSData , you can always load such data from the soundURL below. In this example, the disk buffer is something like:

let soundURL = documentDirectory.URLByAppendingPathComponent("sound.m4a")

It makes sense to record directly to a file anyway for optimal memory and resource management. You get NSData from your recording this way:

let data = NSFileManager.defaultManager().contentsAtPath(soundURL.path())

The code below is all you need:

Record

if !audioRecorder.recording {
    let audioSession = AVAudioSession.sharedInstance()
    do {
        try audioSession.setActive(true)
        audioRecorder.record()
    } catch {}
}

Play

if (!audioRecorder.recording){
    do {
        try audioPlayer = AVAudioPlayer(contentsOfURL: audioRecorder.url)
        audioPlayer.play()
    } catch {}
}

Setup

let audioSession = AVAudioSession.sharedInstance()
do {
    try audioSession.setCategory(AVAudioSessionCategoryPlayAndRecord)
    try audioRecorder = AVAudioRecorder(URL: self.directoryURL()!,
        settings: recordSettings)
    audioRecorder.prepareToRecord()
} catch {}

Settings

let recordSettings = [AVSampleRateKey : NSNumber(float: Float(44100.0)),
    AVFormatIDKey : NSNumber(int: Int32(kAudioFormatMPEG4AAC)),
    AVNumberOfChannelsKey : NSNumber(int: 1),
    AVEncoderAudioQualityKey : NSNumber(int: Int32(AVAudioQuality.Medium.rawValue))]

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Download Xcode Project:

You can find this very example here . Download the full project, which records and plays on both simulator and device, from Swift Recipes .