Recording Sound with a Microphone

This topic demonstrates the basics of recording audio using a microphone.

Recording Audio from a Microphone

The procedure shows the bare basics of using the microphone to record audio. In practice, you will want to use UI elements (such as buttons) to start and stop audio recording.

To record audio from the microphone

1. Get the device's default microphone by using Microphone.Default.

   Microphone  mic = Microphone.Default;
   if (mic == null)
   {
      return false; // No microphone is attached to the device
   }
   

2. Declare a buffer array to hold the audio data, and declare a variable to track the amount of audio that will be recorded.

   // Declare a buffer array to hold the audio data based on the duration of the recording
   byte[] buffer = new byte[Microphone.Default.GetSampleSizeInBytes(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(3.0))];
   
   // Tracks the amount of data recorded
   int bytesRead = 0;
   
   

3. Begin recording audio, calling method Microphone.Start.

   if (!isMicrophoneRecording)
   {
       // we are starting to record
       timeSpentRecording = 0;                
       Microphone.Default.Start();
   }
   
   isMicrophoneRecording = !isMicrophoneRecording;
   

4. While the microphone is recording, call Microphone.GetData (Byte[], Int32, Int32) in your game's Game.Update method to save the latest recorded audio to the buffer.

   bytesRead += Microphone.Default.GetData(buffer, bytesRead, (buffer.Length - bytesRead));
   

5. When you are finished recording, set the microphone state to stopped by calling method Stop.

   if (!isMicrophoneRecording)
   {
   }
   
   else
   {
   
       Microphone.Default.Stop();                
   
       // mark the flag that we have some data available.
       hasData = true;
   }
   

Concepts

• Working with Microphones
  Provides an overview and basic concepts of microphone usage for XNA Game Studio 4.0 Refresh-enabled games.

Reference

• Microphone
  Provides properties, methods, and fields and events for capturing audio data with microphones.
• DynamicSoundEffectInstance
  Provides properties, methods, and events for play back of the audio buffer.