libgdx-audio-lifecycle

libGDX Audio

Quick reference for libGDX audio APIs. Covers Sound, Music, platform gotchas, and common audio patterns.

Audio: Sound vs Music

Formats: WAV, MP3, OGG all supported. OGG not supported on iOS — use WAV or MP3.

Sound API

Sound snd = Gdx.audio.newSound(Gdx.files.internal("click.wav"));

// play() returns instance ID (long).
long id = snd.play();                          // default volume
long id = snd.play(volume);                    // volume: [0, 1]
long id = snd.play(volume, pitch, pan);        // pitch: [0.5, 2.0], pan: [-1, 1]

long id = snd.loop();                          // same overloads as play()
long id = snd.loop(volume, pitch, pan);

// Per-instance control (pass the id from play/loop)
snd.setVolume(id, volume);
snd.setPitch(id, pitch);
snd.setPan(id, pan, volume);                   // NOTE: pan+volume together
snd.setLooping(id, true);
snd.stop(id);
snd.pause(id);
snd.resume(id);

// All-instance control (no id)
snd.stop();
snd.pause();
snd.resume();

snd.dispose();                                 // MUST call when done

In non-trivial projects, prefer loading audio via AssetManager rather than raw Gdx.audio.newSound(). AssetManager handles disposal via unload() and supports async loading.

Gotchas:

• Pan only works on mono sounds (stereo sounds ignore pan).
• Android: uncompressed PCM must be <1MB for Sound. Use Music for larger files.
• play() on an already-playing Sound plays it concurrently (new instance).
• Behavior when exceeding platform limits is backend-dependent — sounds may silently fail to play. Do not rely on the return value to detect this.
• play() called in create() can silently fail on Android before the audio system is fully initialized. Defer initial sound playback to the first render() frame or use a boolean flag.