Tip 166: Playing .WAV Files in Visual Basic

December 5, 1995

Abstract

This article explains how to play a waveform-audio (.WAV) file in your Microsoft® Visual Basic® application.

Using the sndPlaySound Function

Adding sound to your Microsoft® Visual Basic® application is one of the ways you can add more interest to your application. You can play a waveform-audio file by calling the Microsoft Windows® application programming interface (API) sndPlaySound function. This function's Declare statement is:

Private Declare Function sndPlaySound Lib "winmm.dll" Alias "sndPlaySoundA" 
   (ByVal lpszSoundName As String, ByVal uFlags As Long) As Long

The first argument for the sndPlaySound function is a string containing the name of the waveform-audio file. Alternatively, this string can contain an entry from the registry or WIN.INI file.

The second argument for the sndPlaySound function specifies how you want the file to be played. You can use one or a combination of the following values for this argument:

SND_ASYNC The function returns after immediately playing the file. The file is played asynchronously.
SND_LOOP Used with SND_ASYNC, the file is played repeatedly until you call the sndPlaySound function with the first argument set to NULL.
SND_MEMORY The file to be played is stored in memory.
SND_NODEFAULT If the specified file cannot be found, the function returns. The default sound file is not played.
SND_NOSTOP The function returns without playing the specified sound file if a sound file is currently being played.
SND_SYNC The function does not return until the sound file has finished playing.

In the example program below, the TADA.WAV waveform-audio file is played. The second argument to the sndPlaySound function tells the function to play the specified sound file only, without playing the default sound.

Example Program

This program shows how to play a .WAV file in Visual Basic.

  1. Create a new project in Visual Basic. Form1 is created by default.

  2. Add the following Constant and Declare statements to the General Declarations section of Form1 (note that each statement must be typed as a single line of code):
    Private Declare Function sndPlaySound Lib "winmm.dll" Alias "sndPlaySoundA" 
   (ByVal lpszSoundName As String, ByVal uFlags As Long) As Long
Const SND_SYNC = &H0         '  play synchronously (default)
Const SND_NODEFAULT = &H2    '  silence not default, if sound not found
  3. Add a Command Button control to Form1. Command1 is created by default.

  4. Add the following code to the Click event for Command1:
    Private Sub Command1_Click()
    Dim X As Long
    X = sndPlaySound("c:\windows\media\tada.wav", SND_SYNC Or SND_NODEFAULT)
End Sub

Run the example program by pressing F5. Click the Command Button control. The TADA.WAV file is played.