Managing Sounds and Music in Actionscript 3

13 Dec, 2008  Game Library, Programming

Dealing with sounds in Actionscript can be kind of wacky. Sound Objects, Channels, Transforms…blah. I don’t like messing with all of that, so I’ve built a sweet, easy to use Sound Manager. I don’t suppose it has any magical powers or anything but that’s only because I couldn’t think of anything magical a Sound Manager should do…other than play sounds and control volume.

The Sound Manager Class

It is a Singleton, and can be used from anywhere in your game / project. Simply register all of your sounds to the manager, and play them using IDs rather than having references to the sounds themselves.

Also, I have made it so that you can play a “sound”, or play “music” which is controlled at a different volume. Also, it is set up so that only one music sound will play at a time.

Here is the interface for the Sound Manager:

public class SoundManager
{
 
	// -- INITIALIZATION ---
 	public static function get instance():SoundManager
 
        // Volume Control
 	public function get soundVolume():Number
 	public function set soundVolume( volume:Number ) : void
	public function get musicVolume():Number
	public function set musicVolume( volume:Number ) : void
 
 	public function SoundManager( enforcer:SingletonEnforcer )
 
	public function registerSound( a_sound:Sound, a_id:String ) : void
 
	public function playSound( a_id:String, a_startTime:int = 0, a_loops:int = 0 ) : void
	public function stopSound( a_id:Sound ) : void
 
	public function playMusic( a_id:String, a_start:int = 0, a_loops:int=0 ) : void
 
	public function stopMusic() : void
 
}

Example Usage

I like that I can use ids to play the sounds, because in my games I tend to use 2-3 sounds for certain effects such as death or explosions, which I like to randomly choose. In the example code you can see how I do this:

public class MainScreen extends AScreen
{
	[Embed(source="../assets/gunshot.mp3")]
	private var GunshotSound:Class;
	[Embed(source="../assets/murloc.mp3")]
	private var MurlocSound:Class;
	[Embed(source="../assets/diemaggot.mp3")]
	private var DieMaggotSound:Class;
	[Embed(source="../assets/mario.mp3")]
	private var MarioSound:Class;
 
	public function MainScreen(a_parentScreen:IScreenItem=null)
	{
		super(a_parentScreen);
 
		SoundManager.instance.registerSound( new GunshotSound(), "sound0" );
		SoundManager.instance.registerSound( new MurlocSound(), "sound1" );
		SoundManager.instance.registerSound( new DieMaggotSound(), "sound2" );
		SoundManager.instance.registerSound( new MarioSound(), "music" );
 
		var tf:TextField = Utils.createTextField( this );
		tf.htmlText = Utils.createHtmlText( "Click the mouse to play 1 of 3 random sounds. \n Press 'spacebar' to play music. \n Press 'up' or 'down' to control sound volume.", "#FFFFFF", 16 );
		tf.x = 550/2 - tf.width/2;
		tf.y = 400/2 - tf.height/2;
 
	}
 
	public override function update(a_timePassed:int):void
	{
		if( Input.instance.isMousePressed )
		{
			var rand:int = Math.random() * 4 - 1;
			SoundManager.instance.playSound( "sound" + rand );
		}
		if( Input.instance.isKeyPressed( KeyCode.SPACEBAR ) )
		{
			SoundManager.instance.playMusic( "music" );
		}
	}
}

As always, download the source at the Google project page.

Here it is in action.

(5 votes, average: 4.80 out of 5)

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9 Comments so far »

1. Brian Yamabe said

   am December 20 2008 @ 10:09 pm

   This series is great. Do you have a full template project, or is that coming in a future post? What types have games have you created with this framework?

   Great job,
   Brian Yamabe

2. Colby Cheeze said

   am December 24 2008 @ 10:05 pm

   I’ll be doing some open-source games in the future that will show off the structure of a game in a real world setting. For now though, I have a few more components and what not to discuss.

3. Cloud_9ine said

   am February 26 2009 @ 8:10 pm

   Dammit! You jsut had to release this, I was going to do this :/. At least Mine is a bit more featureful. Want to see it?

4. Cloud_9ine said

   am February 26 2009 @ 8:13 pm

   Also your attmpt at the mario music with your(?) voice sucked.

5. Colby Cheeze said

   am February 26 2009 @ 8:17 pm

   Hehe I agree I didn’t feel like putting a real song in there for the example.

6. Cloud_9ine said

   am February 26 2009 @ 8:18 pm

   ok found the link to my engine, many features

   http://www.kongregate.com/forums/4/topics/29053

7. Yu-Chung Chen said

   am June 14 2009 @ 7:02 am

   Great class, helping me out a lot.

   One small thing:
   Argument type of stopSound should be String, no?

8. Brian Busche said

   am February 9 2010 @ 1:44 pm

   I downloaded the source and published it in Flash CS4. A small change was required in the the ManagingSound.as file in order to get it to compile from the IDE. I import the Main class, and remove the getDefinitionByName in onRootLoaderComplete()

   [code]
   private function onRootLoaderComplete ( event:Event ):void
   {
   //Do some cleanup
   removeChild(m_infoField);
   graphics.clear();
   loaderInfo.removeEventListener( Event.INIT, onRootLoaderInit );
   loaderInfo.removeEventListener( ProgressEvent.PROGRESS, onRootLoaderProgress );
   loaderInfo.removeEventListener( Event.COMPLETE, onRootLoaderComplete );

   //go to the next frame and load up the main class
   nextFrame();

   var app:Object = new Main(stage);
   addChild(app as DisplayObject);
   }
   [/code]

   Thanks for the example. This is a very useful Sound class for folk who like implementing Singletons.

9. 6 Very Useful ActionScript Classes About Sound - Ntt.cc said

   am February 10 2010 @ 9:27 am

   [...] Sound Manager Class [...]

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