[c#] How to play a sound in C#, .NET

I have a Windows application written in C#/.NET.

How can I play a specific sound when a button is clicked?

I think you must firstly add a .wav file to Resources. For example you have sound file named Sound.wav. After you added the Sound.wav file to Resources, you can use this code:

System.Media.SoundPlayer player = new System.Media.SoundPlayer(Properties.Resources.Sound);
player.Play();

This is another way to play sound.

Code bellow allows to play mp3-files and in-memory wave-files too

player.FileName = "123.mp3";
player.Play();

from http://alvas.net/alvas.audio,samples.aspx#sample6 or

Player pl = new Player();
byte[] arr = File.ReadAllBytes(@"in.wav");
pl.Play(arr);

from http://alvas.net/alvas.audio,samples.aspx#sample7

You can use SystemSound, for example, System.Media.SystemSounds.Asterisk.Play();.

Additional Information.

This is a bit high-level answer for applications which want to seamlessly fit into the Windows environment. Technical details of playing particular sound were provided in other answers. Besides that, always note these two points:

1. Use five standard system sounds in typical scenarios, i.e.

   • Asterisk - play when you want to highlight current event

   • Question - play with questions (system message box window plays this one)

   • Exclamation - play with excalamation icon (system message box window plays this one)

   • Beep (default system sound)

   • Critical stop ("Hand") - play with error (system message box window plays this one)
      

   Methods of class System.Media.SystemSounds will play them for you.
    

2. Implement any other sounds as customizable by your users in Sound control panel

   • This way users can easily change or remove sounds from your application and you do not need to write any user interface for this – it is already there
   • Each user profile can override these sounds in own way
   • How-to:
     • Create sound profile of your application in the Windows Registry (Hint: no need of programming, just add the keys into installer of your application.)
     • In your application, read sound file path or DLL resource from your registry keys and play it. (How to play sounds you can see in other answers.)

For Windows Forms one way is to use the SoundPlayer

private void Button_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    using (var soundPlayer = new SoundPlayer(@"c:\Windows\Media\chimes.wav")) {
        soundPlayer.Play(); // can also use soundPlayer.PlaySync()
    }
}

MSDN page

This will also work with WPF, but you have other options like using MediaPlayer MSDN page

To play an Audio file in the Windows form using C# let's check simple example as follows :

1.Go Visual Studio(VS-2008/2010/2012) --> File Menu --> click New Project.

2.In the New Project --> click Windows Forms Application --> Give Name and then click OK.

A new "Windows Forms" project will opens.

3.Drag-and-Drop a Button control from the Toolbox to the Windows Form.

4.Double-click the button to create automatically the default Click event handler, and add the following code.

This code displays the File Open dialog box and passes the results to a method named "playSound" that you will create in the next step.

 OpenFileDialog dialog = new OpenFileDialog();
 dialog.Filter = "Audio Files (.wav)|*.wav";


if(dialog.ShowDialog() == DialogResult.OK)
{
  string path = dialog.FileName;
  playSound(path);
}

5.Add the following method code under the button1_Click event hander.

 private void playSound(string path)
 {
   System.Media.SoundPlayer player = new System.Media.SoundPlayer();
   player.SoundLocation = path;
   player.Load();
   player.Play();
 }

6.Now let's run the application just by Pressing the F5 to run the code.

7.Click the button and select an audio file. After the file loads, the sound will play.

I hope this is useful example to beginners...