Tutorials › dbc Classic › 10

Sound and music

Sound effects on key presses, and a tune playing in the background.

What you need

Soundbell.wavexamples/dbc/tutorials/sound/Soundkick.wavexamples/dbc/tutorials/sound/MIDI musicharbour_waltz.midexamples/dbc/tutorials/music/

All made for OpenDBC and released under CC0.

Sounds

LOAD SOUND reads a WAV file into a numbered slot, PLAY SOUND plays it once and LOOP SOUND repeats it. Playing a sound again restarts it.

sound_effect.dba excerptDownload

load sound "bell.wav", 1
play sound 1

Music

Music has its own slots. LOAD MUSIC, then PLAY MUSIC or LOOP MUSIC; PAUSE MUSIC and RESUME MUSIC do what they say.

sound_music.dba excerptDownload

load music "harbour_waltz.mid", 1
loop music 1

MIDI files. OpenDBC plays MIDI music with a built-in General MIDI sound bank, so it sounds the same on every platform and in exported games. If an MP3 or a WAV with the same name sits beside the .mid, OpenDBC plays that file instead.

One press, one sound

INKEY$ returns the key held right now, for as long as it is held. Remember the previous key so a press plays the sound once:

sound.dbaDownload

rem Sound and music - OpenDBC tutorial (DarkBASIC Classic)
rem Media: bell.wav, kick.wav (examples/dbc/tutorials/sound)
rem        harbour_waltz.mid (examples/dbc/tutorials/music)
sync on : sync rate 60

load sound "bell.wav", 1
load sound "kick.wav", 2
load music "harbour_waltz.mid", 1
loop music 1

do
   cls rgb(20, 24, 40)
   text 20, 20, "B: bell   K: kick   M: pause or resume the music"

   key$ = lower$(inkey$())
   if key$ <> last$
      if key$ = "b" then play sound 1
      if key$ = "k" then play sound 2
      if key$ = "m"
         if music paused(1) = 1 then resume music 1 else pause music 1
      endif
   endif
   last$ = key$

   rem A metronome: the kick plays on its own every second
   if timer() - beat > 1000 then beat = timer() : play sound 2

   if music playing(1) = 1 then text 20, 50, "Music: playing" else text 20, 50, "Music: paused"
   sync
loop

Try this

Change the pitch with SET SOUND SPEED and the stereo position with SET SOUND PAN.
Place sounds in 3D with LOAD 3DSOUND and POSITION SOUND.

The repository's sound_board.dba is a small drum machine.