How to play a sound (alert) in a java application? [duplicate]

Question

I am working with a SMS handling, java based software and want to play a beep / alert sound whenever we receive a message. I tried looking at the java.sound libraries and could not find anything. I do not know if going the applet way of playing a sound will be okay in a java application! Are there any predefined sounds in any java libraries which we can call in an application? Any pointers will be appreciated!

Concerted

Answer 1

If you just want to produce a beep or a quick alert, you can use the following code:

import java.awt.Toolkit;
Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().beep();

Illsorted

This might not work under Linux. – Convolvulaceous

FYI, working fine on Windows 10. Thank you – Haveman

works fine on ubuntu linux – Nefertiti

not working on ubuntu 20 – Ruffle

Answer 2

You can generate your own sound if you looking for something less boring than a beep() without an external sound file.

import javax.sound.sampled.*;

public class SoundUtils {

  public static float SAMPLE_RATE = 8000f;

  public static void tone(int hz, int msecs) 
     throws LineUnavailableException 
  {
     tone(hz, msecs, 1.0);
  }

  public static void tone(int hz, int msecs, double vol)
      throws LineUnavailableException 
  {
    byte[] buf = new byte[1];
    AudioFormat af = 
        new AudioFormat(
            SAMPLE_RATE, // sampleRate
            8,           // sampleSizeInBits
            1,           // channels
            true,        // signed
            false);      // bigEndian
    SourceDataLine sdl = AudioSystem.getSourceDataLine(af);
    sdl.open(af);
    sdl.start();
    for (int i=0; i < msecs*8; i++) {
      double angle = i / (SAMPLE_RATE / hz) * 2.0 * Math.PI;
      buf[0] = (byte)(Math.sin(angle) * 127.0 * vol);
      sdl.write(buf,0,1);
    }
    sdl.drain();
    sdl.stop();
    sdl.close();
  }
  
  public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
    SoundUtils.tone(1000,100);
    Thread.sleep(1000);
    SoundUtils.tone(100,1000);
    Thread.sleep(1000);
    SoundUtils.tone(5000,100);
    Thread.sleep(1000);
    SoundUtils.tone(400,500);
    Thread.sleep(1000);
    SoundUtils.tone(400,500, 0.2);

  }
}

Murchison

Answer 3

The applet route should be fine (and is very straightforward). To avoid creating an Applet instance you can use the static newAudioClip method, and then call play() on the AudioClip created.

URL url = getClass().getResource("/foo/bar/sound.wav");
AudioClip clip = Applet.newAudioClip(url);
clip.play();

Here, the sound.wav file is bundled in the jar file in the foo/bar package that you create. A fully functional class (where the wav file is in the sounds package) would look like this:

package sounds;

import java.applet.Applet;
import java.applet.AudioClip;

public class PlaySound {

    public void PlayBeep() {        
        AudioClip clip = Applet.newAudioClip(getClass().getResource("/sounds/beep3.wav"));
        clip.play();
    }
}

Here, the path is given as /sounds/ because when you extract the jar, you'll see that the wav file is located in the first folder in the jar, which is sounds.

Coonhound

any idea why this answer is not widely used? It seems extremely simple and useful... – Greyso

This was an excellent solution for me. – Malignity

This works in Linux. – Sleeper

Worked very well at first attempt!! – Fernandes

Answer 4

You can take a look at the beep method within the Toolkit class, as shown here

Countersubject

Answer 5

If you want to use the sound package to play an arbitrary sound file, you can use the javax.sound.sampled package. Here is the code that will play a sound file:

private void playSound(File f) {
    Runnable r = new Runnable() {
        private File f;

        public void run() {
            playSoundInternal(this.f);
        }

        public Runnable setFile(File f) {
            this.f = f;
            return this;
        }
    }.setFile(f);

    new Thread(r).start();
}

private void playSoundInternal(File f) {
    try {
        AudioInputStream audioInputStream = AudioSystem.getAudioInputStream(f);
        try {
            Clip clip = AudioSystem.getClip();
            clip.open(audioInputStream);
            try {
                clip.start();
                try {
                    Thread.sleep(100);
                } catch (InterruptedException e) {
                    e.printStackTrace();
                }
                clip.drain();
            } finally {
                clip.close();
            }
        } catch (LineUnavailableException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } finally {
            audioInputStream.close();
        }
    } catch (UnsupportedAudioFileException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    } catch (IOException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
}

Matchwood

Can you explain why we need the thread to sleep after calling clip.start()? – Pool

It's been a while since I wrote this code, but my guess is that it would probably work just as well with a Thread.yield(). – Matchwood

I was referring to why we need to block in the first place, but I realized it's probably because we'd close the line before it finishes playing – Pool

I think you actually needed to pass back to system resources in order for the clip to actually start. – Matchwood

Yes, it would close the line before it finishes playing. – Matchwood

I removed the Thread.sleep(100) and it works fine for me in a long running app. If running in a short test you might find that, without this sleep the app is actually closing and therefore terminates the thread ... maybe... so the sleep helps to keep a short lived app alive long enough for the sound to play? (but then drain() would keep the thread alive long enough to finish... hmmm - so maybe the sleep never had any purpose at all. – Wordless

It didn't work without it. I ran this in a long-running app. The clip.start() would signal the clip to start, and then it acted like the clip.drain() canceled that before it could actually start. Once I put the Thread.sleep() call in, it played. It's quite possible that this was a bug which has been fixed since then. – Matchwood