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how to decode mp3 file in c# using NAudio

My task is to decode a mp3 file, exclude its header, side information and the optional checksum. I just need the actual data of every frame of the mp3 file.
I have googled a lot but did't find a way !
Can any one tell me a direct way to do that. I am using NAudio to access frames using ReadNextFrame()
Any help will be appreciated.

As mentioned in http://mark-dot-net.blogspot.de/2010/11/merging-mp3-files-with-naudio-in-c-and.html you could change the code to something like that:
public static byte[] GetRawMp3Frames(string filename)
{
using(MemoryStream output = new MemoryStream()) {
Mp3FileReader reader = new Mp3FileReader(filename);
Mp3Frame frame;
while ((frame = reader.ReadNextFrame()) != null)
{
output.Write(frame.RawData, 0, frame.RawData.Length);
}
return output.ToArray();
}
}
Then you can process the frame-only bytes by doing this:
var btAllFrames = GetRawMp3Frames("MyMp3.mp3");

EDIT: Looks like this is a dupe question that was answered better here.
ORIGINAL:
Sounds like you want a full MP3 decoder that outputs the main_data chunks instead of decoding them.
Two options:
Build your own reader (complete with bit reservoir calculations for layer III), or
Remove the audio decode logic from an existing decoder and insert your output logic instead.
There are probably some tricks you can apply that would allow you to short-circuit decoding at least some of the header / side info, but that will take a thorough understanding of the specifications.
If you need a place to start for option #2, try searching for NLayer, JLayer, libmad, or "dist10 source".

Apparently NAudio uses NLayer.
This worked for me
byte[] data = File.ReadAllBytes("path/to/file.mp3");
var memStream = new System.IO.MemoryStream(results);
var mpgFile = new NLayer.MpegFile(memStream);
var samples = new float[mpgFile.Length];
mpgFile.ReadSamples(samples, 0, (int)mpgFile.Length);

Playing a sound from a generated buffer in a Windows 8 app

I'm porting some C# Windows Phone 7 apps over to Windows 8.
The phone apps used an XNA SoundEffect to play arbitrary sounds from a buffer. In the simplest cases I'd just create a sine wave of the required duration and frequency. Both the duration and frequency can vary greatly, so I'd prefer not to rely on MediaElements (unless there is someway to shift the frequency of a base file, but that will only help me with the single frequency generation).
What is the equivalent of an XNA SoundEffectInstance in WinRT?
I assume I'll need to use DirectX for this, but I'm not sure how to go about this from an otherwise C#/XAML app. I've had a look at SharpDX, but it didn't seem to have the DirectSound, SecondaryBuffer, SecondaryBuffer classes that I assume I'd need to use.
I've made a number of assumptions above. It may be I'm looking for the wrong classes or there is an entirely separate way to generate arbitrary sound from a Windows 8 app.
I found an example using XAudio2 from SharpDX to play a wav file via an AudioBuffer. This seems promising, I'd just need to substitute my generated audio buffer for the native file stream.
PM> Install-Package SharpDX
PM> Install-Package SharpDX.XAudio2
public void PlaySound()
{
XAudio2 xaudio;
MasteringVoice masteringVoice;
xaudio = new XAudio2();
masteringVoice = new MasteringVoice(xaudio);
var nativefilestream = new NativeFileStream(
#"Assets\SpeechOn.wav",
NativeFileMode.Open,
NativeFileAccess.Read,
NativeFileShare.Read);
var soundstream = new SoundStream(nativefilestream);
var waveFormat = soundstream.Format;
var buffer = new AudioBuffer
{
Stream = soundstream.ToDataStream(),
AudioBytes = (int)soundstream.Length,
Flags = BufferFlags.EndOfStream
};
var sourceVoice = new SourceVoice(xaudio, waveFormat, true);
// There is also support for shifting the frequency.
sourceVoice.SetFrequencyRatio(0.5f);
sourceVoice.SubmitSourceBuffer(buffer, soundstream.DecodedPacketsInfo);
sourceVoice.Start();
}

The only way to generate dynamic sound in Win8RT is to use XAudio2, so you should be able to do this with SharpDX.XAudio2.
Instead of using NativeFileStream, just instantiate a DataStream directly giving your managed buffer (or you can use an unmanaged buffer or let DataStream instantiate one for you). The code would be like this:
// Initialization phase, keep this buffer during the life of your application
// Allocate 10s at 44.1Khz of stereo 16bit signals
var myBufferOfSamples = new short[44100 * 10 * 2];
// Create a DataStream with pinned managed buffer
var dataStream = DataStream.Create(myBufferOfSamples, true, true);
var buffer = new AudioBuffer
{
Stream = dataStream,
AudioBytes = (int)dataStream.Length,
Flags = BufferFlags.EndOfStream
};
//...
// Fill myBufferOfSamples
//...
// PCM 44.1Khz stereo 16 bit format
var waveFormat = new WaveFormat();
XAudio2 xaudio = new XAudio2();
MasteringVoice masteringVoice = new MasteringVoice(xaudio);
var sourceVoice = new SourceVoice(xaudio, waveFormat, true);
// Submit the buffer
sourceVoice.SubmitSourceBuffer(buffer, null);
// Start playing
sourceVoice.Start();
Sample method to fill the buffer with a Sine wave:
private void FillBuffer(short[] buffer, int sampleRate, double frequency)
{
double totalTime = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < buffer.Length - 1; i += 2)
{
double time = (double)totalTime / (double)sampleRate;
short currentSample = (short)(Math.Sin(2 * Math.PI * frequency * time) * (double)short.MaxValue);
buffer[i] = currentSample; //(short)(currentSample & 0xFF);
buffer[i + 1] = currentSample; //(short)(currentSample >> 8);
totalTime += 2;
}
}

You can also use WASAPI to play dynamically-generated sound buffers in WinRT. (xaudio2 isn't the only solution).
I wrote sample code for it in VB here (the C# will be essentially the same):
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/460145/Recording-and-playing-PCM-audio-on-Windows-8-VB
I believe that the NAudio guy is planning to translate+incorporate my sample code into NAudio, for a Win8-supported version, so that'll be easier to use.

File Chunking Performance in C#

I am trying to empower users to upload large files. Before I upload a file, I want to chunk it up. Each chunk needs to be a C# object. The reason why is for logging purposes. Its a long story, but I need to create actual C# objects that represent each file chunk. Regardless, I'm trying the following approach:
public static List<FileChunk> GetAllForFile(byte[] fileBytes)
{
List<FileChunk> chunks = new List<FileChunk>();
if (fileBytes.Length > 0)
{
FileChunk chunk = new FileChunk();
for (int i = 0; i < (fileBytes.Length / 512); i++)
{
chunk.Number = (i + 1);
chunk.Offset = (i * 512);
chunk.Bytes = fileBytes.Skip(chunk.Offset).Take(512).ToArray();
chunks.Add(chunk);
chunk = new FileChunk();
}
}
return chunks;
}
Unfortunately, this approach seems to be incredibly slow. Does anyone know how I can improve the performance while still creating objects for each chunk?
thank you

I suspect this is going to hurt a little:
chunk.Bytes = fileBytes.Skip(chunk.Offset).Take(512).ToArray();
Try this instead:
byte buffer = new byte[512];
Buffer.BlockCopy(fileBytes, chunk.Offset, buffer, 0, 512);
chunk.Bytes = buffer;
(Code not tested)
And the reason why this code would likely be slow is because Skip doesn't do anything special for arrays (though it could). This means that every pass through your loop is iterating the first 512*n items in the array, which results in O(n^2) performance, where you should just be seeing O(n).

Try something like this (untested code):
public static List<FileChunk> GetAllForFile(string fileName, FileMode.Open)
{
var chunks = new List<FileChunk>();
using (FileStream stream = new FileStream(fileName))
{
int i = 0;
while (stream.Position <= stream.Length)
{
var chunk = new FileChunk();
chunk.Number = (i);
chunk.Offset = (i * 512);
Stream.Read(chunk.Bytes, 0, 512);
chunks.Add(chunk);
i++;
}
}
return chunks;
}
The above code skips several steps in your process, preferring to read the bytes from the file directly.
Note that, if the file is not an even multiple of 512, the last chunk will contain less than 512 bytes.

Same as Robert Harvey's answer, but using a BinaryReader, that way I don't need to specify an offset. If you use a BinaryWriter on the other end to reassemble the file, you won't need the Offset member of FileChunk.
public static List<FileChunk> GetAllForFile(string fileName) {
var chunks = new List<FileChunk>();
using (FileStream stream = new FileStream(fileName)) {
BinaryReader reader = new BinaryReader(stream);
int i = 0;
bool eof = false;
while (!eof) {
var chunk = new FileChunk();
chunk.Number = i;
chunk.Offset = (i * 512);
chunk.Bytes = reader.ReadBytes(512);
chunks.Add(chunk);
i++;
if (chunk.Bytes.Length < 512) { eof = true; }
}
}
return chunks;
}
Have you thought about what you're going to do to compensate for packet loss and data corruption?

Since you mentioned that the load is taking a long time then I would use asynchronous file reading in order to speed up the loading process. The hard disk is the slowest component of a computer. Google does asynchronous reads and writes on Google Chrome to improve their load times. I had to do something like this in C# in a previous job.
The idea would be to spawn several asynchronous requests over different parts of the file. Then when a request comes in, take the byte array and create your FileChunk objects taking 512 bytes at a time. There are several benefits to this:
If you have this run in a separate thread, then you won't have the whole program waiting to load the large file you have.
You can process a byte array, creating FileChunk objects, while the hard disk is still trying to for-fill read request on other parts of the file.
You will save on RAM space if you limit the amount of pending read requests you can have. This allows less page faulting to the hard disk and use the RAM and CPU cache more efficiently, which speeds up processing further.
You would want to use the following methods in the FileStream class.
[HostProtectionAttribute(SecurityAction.LinkDemand, ExternalThreading = true)]
public virtual IAsyncResult BeginRead(
byte[] buffer,
int offset,
int count,
AsyncCallback callback,
Object state
)
public virtual int EndRead(
IAsyncResult asyncResult
)
Also this is what you will get in the asyncResult:
// Extract the FileStream (state) out of the IAsyncResult object
FileStream fs = (FileStream) ar.AsyncState;
// Get the result
Int32 bytesRead = fs.EndRead(ar);
Here is some reference material for you to read.
This is a code sample of working with Asynchronous File I/O Models.
This is a MS documentation reference for Asynchronous File I/O.

Use NAudio to get Ulaw samples for RTP

I've been looking over the NAudio examples trying to work out how I can get ulaw samples suitable for packaging up as an RTP payload. I'm attempting to generate the samples from an mp3 file using the code below. Not surprisingly, since I don't really have a clue what I'm doing with NAudio, when I transmit the samples across the network to a softphone all I get is static.
Can anyone provide any direction on how I should be getting 160 bytes (8Khz # 20ms) ULAW samples from an MP3 file using NAudio?
private void GetAudioSamples()
{
var pcmStream = WaveFormatConversionStream.CreatePcmStream(new Mp3FileReader("whitelight.mp3"));
byte[] buffer = new byte[2];
byte[] sampleBuffer = new byte[160];
int sampleIndex = 0;
int bytesRead = pcmStream.Read(buffer, 0, 2);
while (bytesRead > 0)
{
var ulawByte = MuLawEncoder.LinearToMuLawSample(BitConverter.ToInt16(buffer, 0));
sampleBuffer[sampleIndex++] = ulawByte;
if (sampleIndex == 160)
{
m_rtpChannel.AddSample(sampleBuffer);
sampleBuffer = new byte[160];
sampleIndex = 0;
}
bytesRead = pcmStream.Read(buffer, 0, 2);
}
logger.Debug("Finished adding audio samples.");
}

Here's a few pointers. First of all, as long as you are using NAudio 1.5, no need for the additional WaveFormatConversionStream - Mp3FileReader's Read method returns PCM.
However, you will not be getting 8kHz out, so you need to resample it first. WaveFormatConversionStream can do this, although it uses the built-in Windows ACM sample rate conversion, which doesn't seem to filter the incoming audio well, so there could be aliasing artefacts.
Also, you usually read bigger blocks than just two bytes at a time as the MP3 decoder needs to decode frames one at a time (the resampler also will want to deal with bigger block sizes). I would try reading at least 20ms worth of bytes at a time.
Your use of BitConverter.ToInt16 is correct for getting the 16 bit sample value, but bear in mind that an MP3 is likely stereo, with left, right samples. Are you sure your phone expects stereo.
Finally, I recommend making a mu-law WAV file as a first step, using WaveFileWriter. Then you can easily listen to it in Windows Media Player and check that what you are sending to your softphone is what you intended.

Below is the way I eventually got it working. I do lose one of the channels from the mp3, and I guess there's some way to combine the channels as part of a conversion, but that doesn't matter for my situation.
The 160 byte buffer size gives me 20ms ulaw samples which work perfectly with the SIP softphone I'm testing with.
var pcmFormat = new WaveFormat(8000, 16, 1);
var ulawFormat = WaveFormat.CreateMuLawFormat(8000, 1);
using (WaveFormatConversionStream pcmStm = new WaveFormatConversionStream(pcmFormat, new Mp3FileReader("whitelight.mp3")))
{
using (WaveFormatConversionStream ulawStm = new WaveFormatConversionStream(ulawFormat, pcmStm))
{
byte[] buffer = new byte[160];
int bytesRead = ulawStm.Read(buffer, 0, 160);
while (bytesRead > 0)
{
byte[] sample = new byte[bytesRead];
Array.Copy(buffer, sample, bytesRead);
m_rtpChannel.AddSample(sample);
bytesRead = ulawStm.Read(buffer, 0, 160);
}
}
}

Reading samples directly from a converted MP3 file using NAudio

I am trying to read PCM samples from a (converted) MP3 file using NAudio, but failing as the Read method returns zero (indicating EOF) every time.
Example: this piece of code, which attempts to read a single 16-bit sample, always prints "0":
using System;
using NAudio.Wave;
namespace NAudioMp3Test
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
using (Mp3FileReader fr = new Mp3FileReader("MySong.mp3"))
{
byte[] buffer = new byte[2];
using (WaveStream pcm = WaveFormatConversionStream.CreatePcmStream(fr))
{
using (WaveStream aligned = new BlockAlignReductionStream(pcm))
{
Console.WriteLine(aligned.WaveFormat);
Console.WriteLine(aligned.Read(buffer, 0, 2));
}
}
}
}
}
}
output:
16 bit PCM: 44kHz 2 channels
0
But this version which reads from a WAV file works fine (I used iTunes to convert the MP3 to a WAV so they should contain similar samples):
static void Main(string[] args)
{
using (WaveFileReader pcm = new WaveFileReader("MySong.wav"))
{
byte[] buffer = new byte[2];
using (WaveStream aligned = new BlockAlignReductionStream(pcm))
{
Console.WriteLine(aligned.WaveFormat);
Console.WriteLine(aligned.Read(buffer, 0, 2));
}
}
}
output:
16 bit PCM: 44kHz 2 channels
2
What is going on here? Both streams have the same wave formats so I would expect to be able to use the same API to read samples. Setting the Position property doesn't help either.

You probably need to read in larger chunks. NAudio uses ACM to perform the conversion from MP3 to WAV, and if your target buffer isn't big enough, the codec may refuse to convert any data at all. In other words, you need to convert a block of samples before you can read the first sample.
WAV files are a different matter as it is nice and easy to read a single sample from them.