Playback of Sine Wave in NAudio

In this post I will demonstrate how to create and play a sine wave using NAudio. To do this, we need to create a derived WaveStream, or more simply, a class that implements IWaveProvider.
One awkwardness of implementing IWaveProvider or WaveStream, is the need to provide the data into a byte array, when it would be much easier to write to an array of floats for 32 bit audio (or shorts for 16 bit). To help with this, I have created the WaveProvider32 class (likely to be committed into the source for NAudio 1.3), which uses the magic of the WaveBuffer class, to allow us to cast the target byte array into an array of floats.

public abstract class WaveProvider32 : IWaveProvider
{
    private WaveFormat waveFormat;
    
    public WaveProvider32()
        : this(44100, 1)
    {
    }

    public WaveProvider32(int sampleRate, int channels)
    {
        SetWaveFormat(sampleRate, channels);
    }

    public void SetWaveFormat(int sampleRate, int channels)
    {
        this.waveFormat = WaveFormat.CreateIeeeFloatWaveFormat(sampleRate, channels);
    }

    public int Read(byte[] buffer, int offset, int count)
    {
        WaveBuffer waveBuffer = new WaveBuffer(buffer);
        int samplesRequired = count / 4;
        int samplesRead = Read(waveBuffer.FloatBuffer, offset / 4, samplesRequired);
        return samplesRead * 4;
    }

    public abstract int Read(float[] buffer, int offset, int sampleCount);

    public WaveFormat WaveFormat
    {
        get { return waveFormat; }
    }
}

Now we can derive from WaveProvider32 to supply our actual sine wave data:

public class SineWaveProvider32 : WaveProvider32
{
    int sample;

    public SineWaveProvider32()
    {
        Frequency = 1000;
        Amplitude = 0.25f; // let's not hurt our ears            
    }

    public float Frequency { get; set; }
    public float Amplitude { get; set; }

    public override int Read(float[] buffer, int offset, int sampleCount)
    {
        int sampleRate = WaveFormat.SampleRate;
        for (int n = 0; n < sampleCount; n++)
        {
            buffer[n+offset] = (float)(Amplitude * Math.Sin((2 * Math.PI * sample * Frequency) / sampleRate));
            sample++;
            if (sample >= sampleRate) sample = 0;
        }
        return sampleCount;
    }
}

Using it is straightforward. We choose our output sample rate, the frequency of the sine wave and amplitude. You can even adjust them in real-time.

private WaveOut waveOut;

private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    StartStopSineWave();
}

private void StartStopSineWave()
{
    if (waveOut == null)
    {
        var sineWaveProvider = new SineWaveProvider32();
        sineWaveProvider.SetWaveFormat(16000, 1); // 16kHz mono
        sineWaveProvider.Frequency = 1000;
        sineWaveProvider.Amplitude = 0.25f;
        waveOut = new WaveOut();
        waveOut.Init(sineWaveProvider);
        waveOut.Play();
    }
    else
    {
        waveOut.Stop();
        waveOut.Dispose();
        waveOut = null;
    }
}

Please note, that you will need to be using the latest NAudio code from source control to use this (until 1.3 is released).