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Play recorded sound on PC-based audio output device

    Note:   wavplay has been removed. Use audioplayer instead.




wavplay(y,Fs) plays the audio signal stored in the vector y on a PC-based audio output device. Fs is the integer sample rate in Hz (samples per second). The default value for Fs is 11025 Hz. wavplay supports only 1- or 2-channel (mono or stereo) audio signals. To play in stereo, y must be a two-column matrix.

wavplay(y,Fs,mode) specifies how wavplay interacts with the command line. The string mode is one of the following:

  • 'sync' (default): You do not have access to the command line until the sound has finished playing (a blocking device call).

  • 'async': You have immediate access to the command line as soon as the sound begins to play on the audio output device (a nonblocking device call). If you call wavplay again in async mode while the audio is playing, wavplay blocks access to the command line until the original playback completes.

The audio signal y can be one of four data types. The number of bits used to quantize and play back each sample depends on the data type.

Data Types for wavplay

Data Type


Double-precision (default value)

16 bits/sample


16 bits/sample

16-bit signed integer

16 bits/sample

8-bit unsigned integer

8 bits/sample


The MAT-files gong.mat and chirp.mat both contain an audio signal y and a sampling frequency Fs. Load and play the gong and the chirp audio signals. Change the names of these signals in between load commands and play them sequentially using the 'sync' option for wavplay.

load chirp;
y1 = y; Fs1 = Fs;
load gong;
wavplay(y1,Fs1,'sync') % The chirp signal finishes before the 
wavplay(y,Fs)          % gong signal begins playing.

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The wavplay function is for use only with 32-bit Microsoft® Windows® operating systems. To play audio data on other platforms, use audioplayer.

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