Playing Audio in Python: A Simple Guide

Audio processing is an important aspect of various applications, ranging from simple media players to more complex digital audio workstations. If you are interested in playing audio files in your Python project, this blog post is for you.

Prerequisites

• Python installed on your system.
• A .wav or .mp3 audio file.

Libraries

There are multiple libraries available for playing audio in Python. Some of the popular ones include:

• PyDub
• pygame
• playsound

PyDub

PyDub is a powerful library for audio manipulation. It can be installed via pip:

pip install pydub

To play audio using PyDub:

from pydub import AudioSegment
from pydub.playback import play

audio = AudioSegment.from_file("your_audio_file.mp3", format="mp3")
play(audio)

pygame

pygame is often used for game development but has a dedicated audio module. Install it with:

pip install pygame

Here's a sample code:

import pygame.mixer
pygame.mixer.init()
pygame.mixer.music.load("your_audio_file.mp3")
pygame.mixer.music.play()

playsound

playsound is the simplest and easiest to use. Install it using pip:

pip install playsound

To play an audio file:

from playsound import playsound
playsound('your_audio_file.mp3')

Depending on your project’s requirements, you can choose the library that best suits your needs. PyDub offers extensive audio manipulation capabilities, pygame is useful if you are already developing a game, and playsound is quick and easy for simple audio playback.