At the request of Don Stuart, here is some information about the formats supported by different sound libraries.
In-memory data formats
In-memory sound formats are fairly diverse.
Reading and writing sound files
| Library
|
Sound file format
|
| HCodecs
|
(Audible a) => DiffUArray Int a
|
| hsndfile
|
MArray with Float and Double
|
| HSoundFile
|
[[Double]]
|
| ALUT
|
OpenAL.AL.Buffer
|
| WAVE
|
[[Int32]]
|
Playing sounds
| Library
|
Sound file format
|
| OpenAL
|
Ptr UInt8, Ptr Int16, 1-N channels
|
| SDL-mixer
|
ForeignPtr ChunkStruct, ForeignPtr MusicStruct
|
Sound processing libraries
| Library
|
Sound file format
|
| dsp
|
Array a, [a]
|
| Synthesizer
|
[a], StorableVector.Lazy a, (StateT s Maybe a, s)
|
| jack
|
Operates via mapping functions
mainMono :: (CFloat -> IO CFloat) -> IO ()
mainStereo :: ((CFloat, CFloat) -> IO (CFloat, CFloat)) -> IO ()
|
MIDI-based
| Library
|
Sound file format
|
| HCodecs
|
Reads and writes MIDI files
|
| midi
|
Reads and writes MIDI files
|
| alsa-midi
|
Uses midi library
|
| Haskore
|
Uses midi library
|
| YampaSynth
|
Stand-alone program
|
Special-purpose APIs only (FFIs, etc.)
| Library
|
Sound file format
|
| hCsound
|
CsoundPtr
|
| HasSound / Haskore
|
OrcExp
|
| hsc3
|
UGen
|
No public sound-buffer API
| Library
|
Sound file format
|
| hbeat
|
The relevant source files are missing!
|
| hogg
|
Very low-level API for Ogg internals only
|
| libmpd
|
No sound buffer API
|
| sonic-visualizer
|
No sound buffer API
|
| truelevel
|
Stand-alone program (uses WAVE)
|
| wavconvert
|
Stand-alone program
|