XCODE - Drumming app - Laggy Sounds... How To Fix?

Question

Hey everybody, I have a drum app that I've created basing it off of AVAudioPlayer instead of the common system sounds in order to have a bit of control.

The problem is that whenever 2/more sounds are played at once, it lags and stops alls sounds, so your drum beat gets choppy and randomly stopped.

like boom boom chhhhh boom boom ch--- boom bo---- chhhhh

If you can tell at all from that onomatopoeia.

Here's the sound code, I have an array of preloaded AVAudioPlayers so that it loads faster.

- (void)triggerSound:(NSInteger)soundNumber {
    NSInteger deltaNum = soundNumber*numberOfBuffers;
    AVAudioPlayer *lowBuffer = [bufferBox objectAtIndex:deltaNum];
    Boolean soundFired = FALSE;
    // Find an unused buffer if possible, otherwise play sound from first buffer.
for (int i=0; i<numberOfBuffers; i++) {
    NSLog(@"Buffer loop: %d", i);
    NSLog(@"Buffer to load: %d", deltaNum);
    AVAudioPlayer *tempBuffer = [bufferBox objectAtIndex:deltaNum+i];
    if (!tempBuffer.playing) {
        tempBuffer.currentTime = 0;
        [tempBuffer play];
        soundFired = TRUE;
        break;
    } else if (lowBuffer.currentTime>tempBuffer.currentTime) {
        lowBuffer = tempBuffer;
    }
}
if (!soundFired) {
    lowBuffer.currentTime = 0;
    [lowBuffer play];
    soundFired = TRUE;
}
}

That method is called in the IBAction button press. ex: [drumObject triggerSound:3].

All help appreciated!

Answer 1

I've had much better experiences with the OpenAL API for some games. It is very different and more low level (you have to deal with sources and buffers) but it worked much better for me than AVAudioPlayer.