What is the modern way to play sound data in 'snd ' resource format?

Question

Sound Manager functions such as SndPlay() are deprecated and not available in 64-bit. The AudioServices functions are modern but only seem to deal with files and are not documented to handle this format.

Answer 1

Core Audio is definitely what you want. However, I believe you're mistaken on the Core Audio documentation. The table you linked to includes an entry for "NeXT/Sun Audio (.snd, .au)".

You mention that Core Audio "only seems to deal with files", but this isn't true. You can setup a graph with the source being of type kAudioUnitType_Generator and subtype kAudioUnitSubType_ScheduledSoundPlayer.

I wrote a morse code program that mixes multiple audio sources that are generated in memory. It might be a useful example. MTPlayer.m would be a reasonable place to start looking at the code.

Answer 2

I'm not sure that there is a modern API to play them, perhaps because the format is both quite ancient and complicated, starting out in System 7 and being extended several times since.

What I found written about the 'snd ' resource:

System sound files are simply type 1 'snd ' resources stored with a type of 'sfil' and a creator of 'movr'. The Mac OS provides the familiar icon for them and permits playback in the Finder by double-clicking on them. An 'snd ' is a type of resource which consists of a series of commands for use by the Sound Manager. In addition to digitized sound samples, 'snd ' resources can contain direct frequency-modulated and wave table-based sounds. Any number of the three types can be combined with various effects to produce complex sound files. Simple Beep is an example of a non-digitized 'snd '. There are two types of 'snd ' resources, amazingly called type 1 and type 2. Type 1 is the format described above and is referred to as the System sound format. Type 2 is for use with HyperCard and can contain only a sampled (digitized) sound. SoundApp can play both types but will only convert sampled sounds. For more information on 'snd ' files consult Inside Macintosh VI or Inside Macintosh: Sound. A familiarity with the Resource Manager would also be helpful. 8-bit samples are stored as unsigned bytes, like SoundCap/Edit, but 16-bit samples are signed, like AIFF. Stereo 'snd ' resources are also possible, but Sound Manager 3.0 or later is required to play 16-bit samples directly. The possible types of compression for 'snd ' resources are the same MACE, IMA and µ-law types used in AIFF-C files.

Source: http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~franke/SoundApp/formats.html#system7

I would think that your best option is to re-record any such sounds into an intermediate lossless format for archival purposes, and then convert them into the best format for the requirements of your app.