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Java Sound API Resources

The lengthy Java Sound API programmer's guide comes with the J2SE documentation, and can be found at http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/guide/sound/programmer_guide/. It's a little bit old now (it dates from October 2001) but still informative. The best place for examples, links, and a great FAQ is the Java Sound resources site (http://www.jsresources.org/).

Lots of specialized information can be extracted from the javasound-interest mailing list at http://archives.java.sun.com/archives/javasound-interest.html. The Java Games Forum on Java Sound help searchable; visit http://www.javagaming.org/cgi-bin/JGNetForums/YaBB.cgi?board=Sound.

Sun's Java Sound site at http://java.sun.com/products/java-media/sound/ contains links to articles, a FAQ, a large demo, instruments soundbanks, and service provider plug-ins for nonstandard audio formats. The Java Almanac offers code fragments illustrating various techniques (http://javaalmanac.com/egs/?). Look under the javax.sound.sampled and javax.sound.midi package headings.

An excellent set of Java Sound examples can be found in Java Examples in a Nutshell by David Flanagan (O'Reilly). He includes a MIDI synthesizer based around the processing of musical notes, covering similar ground to my SeqSynth application in Chapter 10, but with additional features. All the examples can be downloaded from O'Reilly's web site at http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/jenut3/index.html?CMP=ILC-0PY480989785, and two excerpts from the Java Sound chapter (Chapter 17) are at http://www.onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/excerpt/jenut3_ch17/index.html and http://www.onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/excerpt/jenut3_ch17/index1.html.

Extended coverage of Java Sound appears in Chapter 22 of Java: How to Program, Fourth Edition by Harvey and Paul Deitel (Deitel Int.). The MIDI example combines synthesis, playback, recording, and saving. The code can be downloaded from http://www.deitel.com/books/downloads.html.

Unfortunately, the Java Sound material has been cut from later editions of this book.

Sing Li has written an article using some of the new J2SE 5.0 features in Java Sound (e.g., the Direct Audio Device and the Port class implementation), called "Making Sense of Java Sound with JDK 1.5" (http://www.vsj.co.uk/articles/display.asp?id=370). It cumulates in a karaoke recording application. Dick Baldwin has written several Java Sound tutorials, found at http://dickbaldwin.com/tocadv.htm; topics include "Capturing microphone data into an audio file" and "Creating, playing, and saving synthetic sounds."

A good starting point for Java Sound software, including tools and libraries, is the Google directory: http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Multimedia/Music_and_Audio/Software/Java/?il=1.