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Geekpedia » C# Tutorials » Get and set the wave sound volume

Get and set the wave sound volume

You will learn how to retrieve and change the current wave volume of the sound card by using waveOutGetVolume() and waveOutSetVolume() from the unmanaged Windows API in C# through P/Invoke.

On Tuesday, April 4th 2006 at 11:21 AM

By Andrew Pociu (View Profile)

(Rated 4.8 with 47 votes)

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You will learn how to retrieve and change the current wave volume of the sound card by using waveOutGetVolume() and waveOutSetVolume() from the unmanaged Windows API in C# through P/Invoke.

Download this project (Visual Studio 2005)

Volume Control

The .NET Framework has a multitude of methods you can use to retrieve and set different system settings, however controlling the output volume of the soundcard is not one of them. As a result, we will have no other option than to call the unmanaged Windows API, more exactly the waveOutGetVolume() and waveOutSetVolume() functions from the winmm.dll library.

Start by creating a Windows Application project inside Visual Studio 2005. You can use Visual Studio 2003 just as well, only that the project attached to this tutorial was created inside Visual Studio 2005.
Inside the Windows Application form, place a label and TrackBar object entitled trackWave which we'll use to change the sound volume.

The form with its label and trackWave TrackBar should look similar to the following:

Wave Volume Control Form

You can, by the way, change the orientation of the TrackBar object to vertical so that it looks like the one in the popular Volume Control Windows application, using the Orientation property. There's no need to change other properties of the TrackBar control - the Minimum and Maximum properties should be left to their default values, 0 and 10 respectively. This will give us 10 steps to control the volume of the wave sound. Obviously, you can later tweak this to your preference, in case you want to give the user the possibility of a finer volume level adjustment.

Switch to code view, and add the following using directive, since we'll be calling an unmanaged DLL:

using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

Now that we have this using statement in place, we can call the two functions from the winmm.dll. This DLL is located in the Windows System32 directory and has a size of about 172 KB.

[DllImport("winmm.dll")]
public static extern int waveOutGetVolume(IntPtr hwo, out uint dwVolume);

[DllImport("winmm.dll")]
public static extern int waveOutSetVolume(IntPtr hwo, uint dwVolume);

Now we are ready to make function calls, but unlike other Windows API calls, these two are a little more difficult and we need to do a few calculations before being able to get and set the volume.

To make our application work correctly, the first thing we need to do is retrieve the current sound volume level and set it on our TrackBar (trackWave), otherwise it will always stay at its default value of 0. We want to do that when the application loads, so that the user immediately sees a well adjusted TrackBar when the application has started.
Thus, inside the constructor of our form (Form1()) right after InitializeComponent() place the following lines of code:

// By the default set the volume to 0
uint CurrVol = 0;
// At this point, CurrVol gets assigned the volume
waveOutGetVolume(IntPtr.Zero, out CurrVol);
// Calculate the volume
ushort CalcVol = (ushort)(CurrVol & 0x0000ffff);
// Get the volume on a scale of 1 to 10 (to fit the trackbar)
trackWave.Value = CalcVol / (ushort.MaxValue / 10);

At this time you can compile the application, and you should see the trackbar adjusted to your current wave volume level.
Now we are ready to change the volume using waveOutSetVolume(). We will do that in the Scroll event of trackWave (the TrackBar). To get to that event handler, you can simply double click the control in the form designer. Now inside the trackWave_Scroll() event handler, use the following lines of code:

// Calculate the volume that's being set
int NewVolume = ((ushort.MaxValue / 10) * trackWave.Value);
// Set the same volume for both the left and the right channels
uint NewVolumeAllChannels = (((uint)NewVolume & 0x0000ffff) | ((uint)NewVolume << 16));
// Set the volume
waveOutSetVolume(IntPtr.Zero, NewVolumeAllChannels);

Now you should be able to compile the application successfully and move the trackbar to adjust the wave volume.

Here is the complete code of Form1.cs, in case you want to have an overall look:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Data;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

namespace VolumeControl
{
   public partial class Form1 : Form
   {
      [DllImport("winmm.dll")]
      public static extern int waveOutGetVolume(IntPtr hwo, out uint dwVolume);

      [DllImport("winmm.dll")]
      public static extern int waveOutSetVolume(IntPtr hwo, uint dwVolume);

      public Form1()
      {
         InitializeComponent();
         // By the default set the volume to 0
         uint CurrVol = 0;
         // At this point, CurrVol gets assigned the volume
         waveOutGetVolume(IntPtr.Zero, out CurrVol);
         // Calculate the volume
         ushort CalcVol = (ushort)(CurrVol & 0x0000ffff);
         // Get the volume on a scale of 1 to 10 (to fit the trackbar)
         trackWave.Value = CalcVol / (ushort.MaxValue / 10);
      }

      private void trackWave_Scroll(object sender, EventArgs e)
      {
         // Calculate the volume that's being set
         int NewVolume = ((ushort.MaxValue / 10) * trackWave.Value);
         // Set the same volume for both the left and the right channels
         uint NewVolumeAllChannels = (((uint)NewVolume & 0x0000ffff) | ((uint)NewVolume << 16));
         // Set the volume
         waveOutSetVolume(IntPtr.Zero, NewVolumeAllChannels);
      }
   }
}

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Current Comments

by German Gachevski on Thursday, November 16th 2006 at 04:24 AM

Awesome tutorial! Now let\'s see if I can get it to work...

by Andrej Schäfer on Tuesday, December 18th 2007 at 04:54 PM

Nice tutorial! Very well done!
Gonna try it...

by Jared on Friday, January 25th 2008 at 09:00 PM

Thanks, I've been looking for some low level volume calls in C# to write in CLI for a couple of weeks. This is perfect.

by belal on Sunday, February 3rd 2008 at 05:03 PM

it\\\'s a good way
you are the most intelligance programmer

by talip on Thursday, February 14th 2008 at 08:23 AM

thanks. do you know how to reach the other controls such as front,rear controls?

by tlx on Monday, March 10th 2008 at 05:13 PM

Excellent!
Add-on: Just use CoreDll.dll to make the same code work on .net Compact Framework.

by jeremiah alfa on Wednesday, July 16th 2008 at 02:02 AM

thank 4 it!!!!!! success 4 us

by JeanValxa on Wednesday, August 13th 2008 at 03:06 AM

Thanks very much. It is easy to understand and work well. It is greate.

Next:- can you provide how can I concatnate to wave files? thanks

by Clau on Thursday, November 13th 2008 at 11:49 AM

Very good and straight tutorial. Now we need just how to have a more adjustment ;), then change the whay it looks like =) (little more programming).

by phil on Wednesday, December 3rd 2008 at 01:13 AM

not working in Vista 64bit...

by Khamza Davletov on Saturday, January 10th 2009 at 12:30 PM

It did not work for me. Even the compiled example.
Shit, why everybody just got euphoric for this piece of shit!?

by Khamza Davletov on Saturday, January 10th 2009 at 12:33 PM

... like "great, great. You're the one!! Let me kiss ur ass!". Is this the way, to thank a person in your country?

by Pheobie Danish on Sunday, February 1st 2009 at 09:15 PM

heeyy ya'll whats happenin ha ha ha ::::

by fael on Saturday, February 14th 2009 at 10:01 AM

uhmm... i got a question... where can i find everything that can be found in winmm.dll?

by Omid on Monday, March 16th 2009 at 04:46 PM

http://pinvoke.net/

by Ben on Monday, April 20th 2009 at 10:08 AM

Thanks very much, very well written!

by Searock on Tuesday, April 21st 2009 at 02:05 AM

thanks a lot:)