Quick Start

This quick start is for c++ developers. If you're using SoLoud with some other environment SoLoud supports, you may want to skip this and look at the chapter that covers your environment (such as Python).

Download SoLoud

First, you need to download SoLoud sources. You can find the downloads on the http://soloud-audio.com/downloads.html page.

Add SoLoud to your project

There's a few ways to include SoLoud to your project.

You can, for example, include all the SoLoud source files to your project, define one or more of the backend defines (see table below), and you're good to go.

A bit more structured way is to use GENie / premake4 to create the build files, and build a static library for your compiler / environment.

Note that the Windows DLL only exports the "C" API, which may not be what you want - it's primarily meant for foreign interface use.

If you're including the sources directly to your project, You'll need the core files, at least one backend, and at least one audio source. For example, for wav file playing, you'll need the files from audiosource/wav.

The current list of back-ends is:

The backend with no audio device may seem odd, but that can be used to call SoLoud's mix function manually, which can be useful in some cases such as LibRetro.

Include files

In order to use a certain feature of SoLoud, you need to include its header file. You might have, for instance:

#include "soloud.h"
#include "soloud_wav.h"

Variables

You need at least the SoLoud engine core, and one or more of the audio source variables. If you're using five different sound effect wav files, you need five SoLoud::Wav objects. You can play one object any number of times, even on top of itself.

Where to place these is up to you. Globals work, as do allocation from heap, including in a class as members, etc. Stack is probably a bad idea, but I'm not stopping you.

SoLoud::Soloud gSoloud; // SoLoud engine
SoLoud::Wav gWave;      // One wave file

Initialize SoLoud

In your application, once you have your framework up (for instance after your SDL_Init call), include a call to initialize SoLoud.

gSoloud.init(); // Initialize SoLoud

The call has a bunch of optional parameters if you'd rather pick the replay back-end and its parameters yourself; the default should work for most cases.

Set up sound sources

This step varies from one audio source to another, but basically you'll load your wave files here.

gWave.load("pew_pew.wav"); // Load a wave

Play sounds

Now you're ready to play the sounds. Place playing commands wherever you need sound to be played.

gSoloud.play(gWave); // Play the wave

Note that you can play the same sound several times, and it doesn't cut itself off (but if that's what you want, there's an option for that too).

Take control of the sound

You can adjust various things about the sound you're playing if you take the handle.

int x = gSoloud.play(gWave); // Grab the handle
gSoloud.setPan(x, -0.2f);    // Use handle to adjust panning

Read the soloud.h header file (or this documentation) for further things you can do.

Cleanup

After you've done, remember to clean up. If you don't, the audio thread may do stupid things while the application is shutting down.

gSoloud.deinit(); // Clean up!

Enjoy

And you're done!

Some useful notes:

Most calls to SoLoud also return some kind of return code which may help you diagnose potential problems. When loading wave files, for instance, you may want to check if the file is actually found.

Many of the calls also have additional optional parameters, and there are also alternate calls to do (almost) the same thing (Wav::load() and WavStream::loadToMem() as an example).

Finally, SoLoud has been designed so that you can ignore most of the return values. If there's an error state, such as wav file failing to load, further calls, like trying to play the wav file that didn't load, will simply do nothing.

Copyright©2013-2020 Jari Komppa