Node-wav-player NPM

node-wav-player

The node-wav-player is a Node.js module which allows you to play a wav file on the host computer. It supports Windows 11, MacOS X, and some Linux distros.

This module can plays a wav file on:

Windows
- A wav file is played using SoundPlayer Class of .NET Framework through PowerShell. This module was tested on Windows 11.
Mac OS X
- A wav file is played using afplay command.
Linux
- A wav file is played using Alsa aplay command. This module was tested on:

Basically you don't have to install any additional libraries in most environments.

Though this module is intended to play a wav file, it probably can play some audio formats. That depends on the OS. For example, a mp3 file could be played on Mac OS X. But at least on Windows, the supported audio format is only wav.

Dependencies

Tested on Node.js 20

Installation

$ cd ~
$ npm install node-wav-player

Quick Start

The code blow plays a wav file:

const player = require('node-wav-player');
player.play({
  path: './speech.wav',
}).then(() => {
  console.log('The wav file started to be played successfully.');
}).catch((error) => {
  console.error(error);
});

That's it. If this code is run successfully, you will hear the audio from your computer.

`WavPlayer` object

In order to use the node-wav-player, you have to load the node-wav-player module as follows:

const player = require('node-wav-player');

In the code snippet above, the variable player is a WavPlayer object. The WavPlayer object has methods as described in sections below.

play() method

The play() method plays a wav file specified to the path parameter. This method returns a Promise object.

This method takes a hash object containing the properties as follows:

Property	Type	Required	Description
`path`	String	Required	Path of a wav file (e.g., `"./speech.wav"`)
`loop`	Boolean	Optional	If `true`, the wave file will be played repeatedly until the `stop()` method is called. The default value is `false`.
`sync`	Boolean	Optional	If `true`, this method calls the `resove()` after finishing to play the wav file. Otherwise, if `false`, this method calles the `resolve()` immediately after starting to play the wav file. The default value is `false`. If the `loop` is set to `true`, this parameter is ignored (i.e., this parameter is set to the default value `false` ).

If you want to wait for the end of the audio, you can set the sync to true as follows:

const player = require('node-wav-player');
player.play({
  path: './speech.wav',
  sync: true
}).then(() => {
  console.log('The wav file was played through.');
}).catch((error) => {
  console.error(error);
});

stop() method

The stop() method stops playing the wav file. This method returns nothing. Note that this method is not asynchronous but synchronous.

The code blow starts to play a wav file. Then it stops playing the wav file in 1 second.

const player = require('node-wav-player');
player.play({
  path: './speech.wav',
}).then(() => {
  console.log('The wav file started to be played successfully.');
}).catch((error) => {
  console.error(error);
});

setTimeout(() => {
  player.stop();
  console.log('Stopped.')
}, 1000);

Release Note

v1.0.0 (2024-07-22)
- Rewrote all codes in modern coding style using class, async, await, etc.
- Added TypeScript definitions (Thanks to @Stephen-Hamilton-C, #11)
v0.2.0 (2020-10-27)
- Added error catching to spawn child process (Thanks to @Tmp2k, #7)
v0.1.0 (2018-10-26)
- Added the loop parameter to the play() method. (Thanks to @TmpR, #3)
v0.0.2 (2018-10-21)
- Fixed the bug on Win7 + PowerShell. (Thanks to @Joe-Kerr, #1, #2)
v0.0.1 (2018-01-03)
- First public release