TclMixer , by Googie, provides SDL_mixer (SDL) bindings for Tcl. It can allows to play multiple sounds simultaneously using a built-in software mixer.
The Androwish project contains a fork of Tclmixer-1.2.3. In particular, it improves on the callback handling. This fork is probably what you want to use.
TclMixer supports following sound formats: WAV/RIFF, MP3, OGG, MID (midi), MOD (including standart MOD modules, but also S3M, IT, XM).
There are basic effects implemented, which would be very useful, such as individual sound volume level, 3D sound source positioning, stereo balance, fading in/out and sound source distance. All these goodies closed in well known, simple Tcl syntax.
To make this extension work, end-user has to got installed SDL [L1 ] (in version 1.2.x) and SDL_mixer [L2 ] (in version 1.2.x), which are quiet famous and presents on most Unix desktop machines (in future tclmixer.so could be linked statically with these libraries to takes dependencies off).
Generaly, it's low-latency alternative for Snack package. It's excellent for a game sound system, but not only.
PYK 2015-10-13: Although test/test.tcl file in the latest release is is outdated and no longer works because tclmixer::setCallback doesn't exist, Tclmixer itself is functional. See examples below that do work.
Get some supported sound file. If it's some effect (gun shot, or explosion or sth) load it as short sound (which gives very low latency):
#!/usr/bin/env wish package require TclMixer set snd [tclmixer::sound file.<mp3|wav|ogg>] tclmixer::play $snd
if file is big (usually some music), then load it as long sound, to prevent loading it into memory:
#!/usr/bin/env wish package require TclMixer set music [tclmixer::music file.<mp3|wav|ogg|mid|mod>] tclmixer::play $music
There is 'wish' used, not 'tclsh', becouse we need some event loop, since SDL_mixer hasn't its own. If you want to use 'tclsh', you need to create some event loop, to let SDL_mixer play whole sound. You can use CALLBACK mechanism:
#!/usr/bin/env tclsh
package require TclMixer
set done 0
proc musicFinished {} {
variable done
set done 1
}
# Arrange for [musicFinished] to be called when he music is done
tclmixer::mixConfig -music [namespace current]::musicFinished
set music [tclmixer::music file.<mp3|wav|ogg|mid|mod>]
tclmixer::play $music
while {!$done} {
after 500
}PYK 2015-10-13: vwait can not be used in the case, because the callblacks registered via tclmixer::mixConfig are called in a thread created by SDL, but access the Tcl interpreter in the other thread, which is a generally a no-no. However, the convention illustrated above should work as long as nothing else sets the semaphore variable
chw 2015-10-13: Maybe the tclmixer in AndroWish is of help here (see http://www.androwish.org/index.html/dir?ci=f34be1dc90d3e7f7&name=jni/tclmixer ). It should fix many threading issues and hopefully still compile on non Androids, too.
PYK 2015-1013:
I spent quite a while today studying this code to acquaint myself with the Tcl_Async* functions. I haven't seen any other information anywhere about the application of these functions to enable callback capabilities between Tcl threads and threads managed by another library. Thank you!
In the original Tclmixer-1.2.3, an alternative to using the callbacks is to poll using tclmixer::musicType, which returns NONE when there is no music playing or paused:
#!/usr/bin/tclsh
package require TclMixer
proc playing semaphore {
if {[tclmixer::musicType] eq {NONE}} {
puts [list {Done playing audio}]
set $semaphore 1
} else {
after 500 [list after idle [info level 0]]
}
}
set music [tclmixer::music test.mod]
tclmixer::play $music
variable forever
after idle [list [namespace which playing] [namespace which -variable forever]]
vwait foreverHowever, using the original Tclmixer-1.2.3, simultaneous playback on multiple channels isn't working in my environment. I'm going to try the Androwish Tclmixer now.