Is it overkill to use this package just to overlay audio clips?

[KrisLau]

My use case for ffmpeg-kit would be to overlay two tracks into one so that they overlap (play at the same time but start at different points; think of baseball walk ups where the player introduction plays and the music comes in midway through). I can't do it with Web Audio API because I'm working with React Native. I also tried looking for APIs but strangely enough could not find any APIs or packages other than ffmpeg.

I'm a little worried about ffmpeg being a bit overkill for the job? From what I can tell from some discussions linked below, the package is very large and I'm not quite sure how to find out which packages to enable/disable for just overlaying audio.

• https://github.com/tanersener/ffmpeg-kit/issues/374
• https://github.com/tanersener/ffmpeg-kit/issues/193
• https://github.com/tanersener/ffmpeg-kit/issues/30

Apps that do similar things to what I am trying to achieve:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bpdj.ballparkdj
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.upallnitesoftware.walkoutsongdj&hl=en_US&gl=US

I would do it server side but the users would need it in real time to adjust the timing of the introduction voice over and the music. Are there any alternatives (packages/API) that might be able to do simple merges/overlays of audio or am I just worrying to much? Thanks in advance!

[tanersener]

It is possible to use ffmpeg-kit packages in production. But, they were not created for that.
The original idea was to use packages to test ffmpeg-kit API and see how easy it is to integrate ffmpeg-kit into an app. When it comes to releasing that app, we always recommend building your own version by disabling components you don't need. https://github.com/tanersener/ffmpeg-kit/wiki/Building wiki includes details about that. We know it is not easy. But that's the ultimate solution.

[KrisLau]

Oh ok I understand, thank you for taking the time to reply! So there are no other alternative options for audio manipulation like an API other than ffmpeg?

Also how do I find which packages to enable/disable for just overlaying audio? That's the part I was kind of struggling to understand

[tanersener]

So there are no other alternative options for audio manipulation like an API other than ffmpeg

There are platform specific libraries. But you are asking for a solution on React-Native, right? I don't remember any cross-platform libraries to edit audio.

Also how do I find which packages to enable/disable for just overlaying audio?

Well, I don't know an easy way to do that. You might try asking this to ffmpeg developers. They may know a shortcut for that. I created https://github.com/tanersener/ffmpeg-kit/wiki/How-to-Decrease-Binary-Size that you can use for the start. But you still need to do a lot of googling.

[siddharth-kt]

Hi @tanersener,
1.) I am facing hard time building my own version (https://github.com/tanersener/ffmpeg-kit/wiki/Building), its causing various errors continuously, I am on windows 10 and can't understand how to follow https://github.com/tanersener/ffmpeg-kit/wiki/Android-Prerequisites
because these prerequisites i think can not be installed on windows (am i wrong?).
2.) Why you don't recommend directly using ffmpeg-kit packages in production, I mean can it cause any issues?
3.) Since i am using react-native and i don't have much knowledge with android-native modules so even if i somehow creates a custom android build will i be able to use it ?

Thanks.

[tanersener]

Build scripts in the project, target Unix-like systems. Our documentation and wiki also assume that you're on a Unix-like system. Because Windows doesn't come with a standard way to build open source libraries. Therefore, we didn't test the scripts there and we don't guarantee that the scripts will work on Windows.

Application size is important for mobile platforms. Having a big application means some users won't be able to install your app even if they want to. Since users don't have unlimited disk space on their mobile devices. If you're not concerned about this, then there is nothing to worry about using the prebuilt ffmpeg-kit packages.

I don't know what you're asking in your last question. Hybrid platform plugins (Flutter, React-Native) depend on the native libraries. If you build a custom native library, then replace the native library dependency in the hybrid plugin with your new build and it will work as it was working with the original one.

[siddharth-kt]

Ok, i got it.
Thanks for answering.