AudioBufferSourceNode: buffer property

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since April 2021.

The buffer property of the AudioBufferSourceNode interface provides the ability to play back audio using an AudioBuffer as the source of the sound data.

If the buffer property is set to the value null, the node generates a single channel containing silence (that is, every sample is 0).

Value

An AudioBuffer which contains the data representing the sound which the node will play.

Examples

Note: For a full working example, see this code running live, or view the source.

js
const myArrayBuffer = audioCtx.createBuffer(2, frameCount, audioCtx.sampleRate);

button.onclick = () => {
  // Fill the buffer with white noise;
  //just random values between -1.0 and 1.0
  for (let channel = 0; channel < channels; channel++) {
    // This gives us the actual ArrayBuffer that contains the data
    const nowBuffering = myArrayBuffer.getChannelData(channel);
    for (let i = 0; i < frameCount; i++) {
      // Math.random() is in [0; 1.0]
      // audio needs to be in [-1.0; 1.0]
      nowBuffering[i] = Math.random() * 2 - 1;
    }
  }

  // Get an AudioBufferSourceNode.
  // This is the AudioNode to use when we want to play an AudioBuffer
  const source = audioCtx.createBufferSource();
  // set the buffer in the AudioBufferSourceNode
  source.buffer = myArrayBuffer;
};

Specifications

Specification
Web Audio API
# dom-audiobuffersourcenode-buffer

Browser compatibility

Report problems with this compatibility data on GitHub
desktopmobile
Chrome
Edge
Firefox
Opera
Safari
Chrome Android
Firefox for Android
Opera Android
Safari on iOS
Samsung Internet
WebView Android
WebView on iOS
buffer

Legend

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Full support
Full support
See implementation notes.

See also