Expand description
maudio is an audio library built on top of miniaudio, providing both a
high-level playback-focused API and the foundation for a more flexible
low-level interface.
At the high level, audio is driven through an Engine, which offers a
simple and ergonomic way to play sounds without requiring manual audio
processing or buffer management.
The Engine is designed primarily for playback. It does not currently
support recording, loopback, or full duplex operation, and it intentionally
hides much of the complexity exposed by the low-level API. A lower-level,
more flexible interface is planned and under active development.
Under the hood, the engine consists of:
- ResourceManager: It is responsible for loading sounds into memory or streaming them. It is also responsible for refence counting them to avoid loading sounds into memory multiple times. It also has a Decoder and can decode audio either before or after it is loaded into memory.
- NodeGraph: It is a directed graph of audio processing units called Nodes. Nodes can be audio sources (such as sounds or waveforms), processing units (DSP, filters, splitters), or endpoints. Audio data flows through the graph from source nodes, through optional processing nodes, and finally into the endpoint.
- Device: An abstraction of a physical device. Represents the audio playback device and is responsible for driving the engine. Internally, it runs a callback on a dedicated audio thread, which continuously requests (pulls) audio frames from the engine. The engine, in turn, processes the node graph to produce the requested audio data.
By default, sounds created from an Engine are automatically connected to
the graph’s endpoint and played in a push-based manner. Audio generation,
mixing, and playback are handled internally by the engine, so users do not
need to manually pull or read audio data.
While basic playback can be achieved without interacting directly with the
NodeGraph, more advanced setups allow nodes to be explicitly connected,
reordered, or routed through custom processing chains.
Most types in maudio are constructed using a builder pattern, enabling
additional configuration at creation time while keeping common use cases
straightforward.
In addition to the high level Engine API, maudio exposes a low level interface for working directly with the core audio building blocks.
While the high level API provides a ready-to-use playback system, the low level API gives you the components needed to build your own.
This includes manual control over devices, audio graphs, data sources, decoding, and resource management.
The two APIs are closely related: the high level engine is built using many of the same concepts exposed by the low level API, but organizes them into a simpler, playback-focused workflow.
The low level API includes:
- Context for initializing the audio backend and enumerating devices.
- Device for creating playback, capture, loopback, or duplex streams with direct control over the audio callback.
- Decoder for reading audio from encoded formats.
- Data sources as a unified interface for producing PCM frames.
- Audio buffers for working with decoded PCM data in memory.
- Utility primitives such as ring buffers, fences, and notification systems for real-time and asynchronous coordination.
Use the low level API when you need full control over how audio is generated, processed, or delivered, or when building abstractions on top of maudio.
§Feature flags
This crate builds and links the vendored miniaudio C library and exposes raw FFI bindings.
§Backend Features
These features disable specific miniaudio backends.
| Feature | Backend |
|---|---|
no_wasapi | Windows WASAPI |
no_dsound | Windows DirectSound |
no_winmm | Windows WinMM |
no_alsa | Linux ALSA |
no_pulseaudio | Linux PulseAudio |
no_jack | JACK |
no_coreaudio | macOS/iOS CoreAudio |
no_sndio | OpenBSD sndio |
no_audio4 | NetBSD audio |
no_oss | OSS |
no_aaudio | Android AAudio |
no_opensl | Android OpenSL |
By default all backends are enabled unless explicitly disabled.
§vorbis
Enables Ogg/Vorbis decoding by compiling the stb_vorbis implementation into the miniaudio
translation unit.
- Vorbis
.oggfiles can be decoded via miniaudio’s decoding APIs.
§generate-bindings
Generates bindings at build time using bindgen.
- Required on MacOS
- Intended for maintainers when updating the vendored miniaudio version.
- Regular users should prefer the pre-generated bindings shipped with the crate.
- Adds a build dependency on clang/libclang via
bindgen.
Modules§
- audio
- Audio-related types and utilities
- backend
- Audio backends supported by miniaudio.
- context
- Audio backend context and device discovery.
- data_
source - Interface for reading from a data source
- device
- Audio device abstraction and control.
- encoder
- Audio file encoding.
- engine
- High level audio engine.
- pcm_
frames - PCM format abstraction and utilities.
- sound
- Sound playback primitives.
- util
Structs§
- Maudio
Error - Error type returned by the maudio crate.
Enums§
- Error
Kinds - Wrapper-level error kinds.