soundpool

A Flutter Sound Pool for playing short media files.

Sound Pool caches audio tracks in memory. This can be useful in following scenarios:

  • lower latency between play signal and actual playing of the sound (audio does not need to be read from disc/web),
  • the same sound may be used multiple times.

Inspired by Android SoundPool API. This also means that multiple optional features are supported on Android only.

Example:

    import 'package:soundpool/soundpool.dart';

    Soundpool pool = Soundpool(streamType: StreamType.notification);

    int soundId = await rootBundle.load("sounds/dices.m4a").then((ByteData soundData) {
                  return pool.load(soundData);
                });
    int streamId = await pool.play(soundId);

DOs and DON'Ts

  • DO NOT create the Soundpool instance multiple times; DO create a Soundpool for logically connected sounds (ex. sounds for level, sounds with the same streamType),
  • DO NOT load the same file multiple times; DO load it once (ideally while the application is starting), store sound id and use play(soundId),
  • DO NOT leave sounds loaded in memory when no longer used; DO call release() or dispose() when sounds are no longer useful,

You should call release() when you are sure you won't need loaded sounds anymore. The example would be Soundpool holding sounds for some level of the game. When players finishes it and moves to the next one you may release that Soundpool and create new one.
On the other hand you may have another Soundpool holding sounds for UI actions feedback. That instance would be created at the start of the game and kept forever although it may be a good idea to load sounds when the game is resumed (being moved to the foreground) and release them when it is paused or stopped (see WidgetsBindingObserver).

  • DO NOT play music files; DO use plugin that is intended for that.

Libraries

soundpool