Play recorded sounds

Load at least two prerecorded sounds, and demonstrate as many of these features as you can:

playing them individually and simultaneously
stopping before the end of the sound
looping (preferably glitch-free)
setting the volume of each sound
stereo or 3D positional mixing
performing other actions when marked times in the sound arrive

Describe:

The supported audio formats, briefly.
Whether it is suitable for game sound effects (low-latency start, resource efficiency, supports many simultaneous sounds, etc.)
Whether it is suitable for playing music (long duration ).

[Note: If it seems to be a good idea, this task may be revised to specify a particular timeline rather than just 'demonstrate these features'.]

Where applicable, please categorize examples primarily by the audio facility used (library/API/program/platform) rather than the language if the language is incidental (e.g. "Mac OS X CoreAudio" or "mplayer" rather than "C" or "bash").

AutoHotkey

No builtin functions for:
1. monitoring timepoints in the sound
2. simultaneous play <lang AutoHotkey> SoundPlay, %A_WinDir%\Media\tada.wav, wait SoundPlay, %A_WinDir%\Media\Windows XP Startup.wav, wait

simulaneous play may require a second script

SoundPlay, %A_WinDir%\Media\tada.wav SoundPlay, Nonexistent ; stop before finishing

SoundSet +10 ; increase volume by 10% Loop, 2

   SoundPlay, %A_WinDir%\Media\tada.wav, wait

</lang>

C#

<lang csharp>using System; using System.Threading; using System.Media;

class Program {

   static void Main(string[] args)
   {
       //load sound file
       SoundPlayer s1 = new SoundPlayer(); //
       s1.SoundLocation = file; // or "s1 = new SoundPlyer(file)"

       //play
       s1.Play();

       //play for 0.1 seconds
       s1.Play();
       Thread.Sleep(100);
       s1.Stop();

       //loops
       s1.PlayLooping();
   }

}</lang>

Tcl

Library: snack

<lang tcl>package require sound

Potentially also require driver support for particular formats

Load some sounds in; this part can be slow

snack::sound s1 s1 read $soundFile1 snack::sound s2 s2 read $soundFile2

Play a sound for a while (0.1 seconds; this is a low-latency operation)

s1 play after 100 set done 1; vwait done; # Run the event loop for a while s1 stop

Play two sounds at once (for 30 seconds) while mixing together

s1 play s2 play after 30000 set done 1; vwait done s1 stop s2 stop</lang> Note that this library is capable of handling both short and long sounds (sound effects and music).

UNIX Shell

<lang sh>#!/usr/bin/sh cat $1 >> /dev/audio # Write a file to the speaker's Character Special (/dev/audio). $1 must be a .au file. </lang>