playing piano tones using C#

Question

I'm trying to make a simple piano application in C#.

It's supposed to be a very simple piano (5 or 6 keys maximum). I've found different alternatives, and the ones I've found till now are:

• consol.beep (); but I feel its sound is not like the tone of the piano
• saving and playing WAV files. I thought of getting wav files of piano tones but I feel it's the hard way to do so and it won't be salable any may take much unneeded space

Is there a library to play a piano-like tones or any different tones of a different musical instruments?

Answer 1

Did you think about using MIDI?

This can be useful.

See http://grouplab.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/cookbook/index.php/VisualStudio/HowToPlayMIDIInstruments

This one is very interesting, it allows you to play sounds in a simple way like this:

MidiPlayer.Play( new NoteOn( 0, 1, "C4", 127 ) );

You can also take a look at this code project page. See http://www.codeproject.com/KB/audio-video/MIDIToolkit.aspx

Answer 2

Checkout the downloadable source for Mike Gold's Virtual Piano in C#. I think it has what you're looking for.

You may also want to check out this post: Is it possible to generate a constant sound in C# while adjusting its frequency? . The basic idea is that you have a single sample, and you programmatically manipulate the frequency of the sound file, thus generating a different note.

As far as libraries that can help you, you can take a look at:

• NAudio @codeplex
• C# MIDI Toolkit @codeproject
• Wrapper Library for Windows MIDI API @codeproject