Play a short sound in iOS

Question

I guess I could use AVAudioPlayer to play a sound, however, what I need is to just play a short sound and I don\'t need any loops or fine-grained control over t

Answer 1

Swift

The other answers here use Objective-C so I am providing a Swift version here. Swift uses Automatic Reference Counting (ARC), so I am not aware of any memory leak issues with this answer (as warned about in the accepted answer).

Using AudioToolbox

You can use the AudioToolbox framework to play short sounds when you do not need much control over how they are played.

Here is how you would set it up:

import UIKit
import AudioToolbox

class PlaySoundViewController: UIViewController {

    var soundURL: NSURL?
    var soundID: SystemSoundID = 0
    
    @IBAction func playSoundButtonTapped(sender: AnyObject) {
        
        let filePath = NSBundle.mainBundle().pathForResource("yourAudioFileName", ofType: "mp3")
        soundURL = NSURL(fileURLWithPath: filePath!)
        if let url = soundURL {
            AudioServicesCreateSystemSoundID(url, &soundID)
            AudioServicesPlaySystemSound(soundID)
        }
    }
}

Notes:

• This example is adapted from How to play a short sound clip with AudioToolbox in Swift.
• Remember to add yourAudioFileName.mp3 (or .wav, etc) to your project.
• Remember to import AudioToolbox
• This answer puts the code in an IBAction button tap, but it could just as easily be put in another function, of course.

Using AVAudioPlayer

By importing the AVFoundation framework, you can use AVAudioPlayer. It works for both short audio clips and long songs. You also have more control over the playback than you did with the AudioToolbox method.

Here is how you would set it up:

import UIKit
import AVFoundation

class PlaySoundViewController: UIViewController {
    
    var mySound: AVAudioPlayer?
    
    // a button that plays a sound
    @IBAction func playSoundButtonTapped(sender: AnyObject) {
        mySound?.play() // ignored if nil
    }
    
    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()
        
        // initialize the sound
        if let sound = self.setupAudioPlayerWithFile("yourAudioFileName", type: "mp3") {
            self.mySound = sound
        }
    }
    
    func setupAudioPlayerWithFile(file: NSString, type: NSString) -> AVAudioPlayer? {
        
        let path = NSBundle.mainBundle().pathForResource(file as String, ofType: type as String)
        let url = NSURL.fileURLWithPath(path!)
        var audioPlayer: AVAudioPlayer?
        do {
            try audioPlayer = AVAudioPlayer(contentsOfURL: url)
        } catch {
            print("Player not available")
        }
        
        return audioPlayer
    }
}

Notes:

• This example is adapted from Learn To Code iOS Apps With Swift Tutorial 5: Making it Beautiful (Adding Sound)
• Remember to import AVFoundtation and to add yourAudioFileName.mp3 to your project.