Fast Audio Input/Output

Question

Here's what I want to do:

I want to allow the user to give my program some sound data (through a mic input), then hold it for 250ms, then output it back out through the speakers.

I have done this already using Java Sound API. The problem is that it's sorta slow. It takes a minimum of about 1-2 seconds from the time the sound is made to the time the sound is heard again from the speakers, and I haven't even tried to implement delay logic yet. Theoretically there should be no delay, but there is. I understand that you have to wait for the sound card to fill up its buffer or whatever, and the sample size and sampling rate have something to do with this.

My question is this: Should I continue down the Java path trying to do this? I want to get the delay down to like 100ms if possible. Does anyone have experience using the ASIO driver with Java? Supposedly it's faster..

Also, I'm a .NET guy. Does this make sense to do with .NET instead? What about C++? I'm looking for the right technology to use here, and maybe a good example of how to read/write to audio input/output streams using your suggested technology platform. Thanks for your help!

Answer 1

I've used JavaSound in the past and found it wonderfully flaky (and it keeps changing between VM releases). If you like C#, use it, just use the DirectX APIs. Here's an example of doing kind of what you want to do using DirectSound and C#. You could use the Effects plugins to perform your 250 ms echo.

http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/tamir/archive/2008/12/25/capturing-and-streaming-sound-by-using-directsound-with-c.aspx