Soundboard

A Soundboard written in C++

Technologies

• Qt (front-end)
• PortAudio (audio device back-end)
• libsndfile (audio decoding)
• libsamplerate (samplerate conversion)
• QHotkey (hotkey back-end)
• SingleApplication (application manager)

Building

1. Install Qt 5.12.6+ (the free open source version is fine)

2. Clone this repository git clone https://github.com/qwertysam/Soundboard

3. Install qdep

   • Refreshing the Soundboard.pro project in Qt Creator should automatically install the QHotkey and SingleApplication dependencies

4. Install libsndfile

   • Without MP3 support:

     • On Linux sudo apt install libsndfile-dev
     • On Windows
       • Download the windows installer from here
       • Add the bin folder to your PATH variable (This will make sure it can run from Qt Creator)
   • With MP3 support: (THIS IS A WIP)

     • On Linux
       • For Linux (MAYBE BROKEN???):
         • git clone --single-branch --branch mpeg-support https://github.com/arthurt/libsndfile
           • Until the main libsndfile repo gets mp3 support, clone arthurt's fork & the mpeg-support
         • ./autogen.sh
         • ./configure --enable-experimental --enable-mpeg
           • According to the MPEG pull request on the main repo, you need the --enable-experimental tag
         • make
         • sudo make install
       • For Windows (BROKEN!!):
         • Install 64-bit MingW with sudo apt install mingw-w64
         • git clone --single-branch --branch mpeg-support https://github.com/arthurt/libsndfile
           • Until the main libsndfile repo gets mp3 support, clone arthurt's fork & the mpeg-support
         • ./autogen.sh
         • ./configure --enable-experimental --enable-mpeg --host=x86_64-w64-mingw32
           • According to the MPEG pull request on the main repo, you need the --enable-experimental tag
         • make
         • Then copy ./libsndfile/src/.libs/libsndfile-1.dll to the Qt installation bin folder C:\Qt\VERSION\mingw73_64\bin\
         • Then copy ./libsndfile/src/.libs/libsndfile.dll.a to the Qt installation lib folder C:\Qt\VERSION\mingw73_64\lib\
     • On Windows
       • Good luck?

5. Install libsamplerate

   • On Linux sudo apt install libsamplerate-dev
   • On Windows:
     • I couldn't find pre-compiled binaries for windows, so what I did was open a Linux terminal and...
     • sudo apt install mingw-w64
     • git clone https://github.com/erikd/libsamplerate
     • cd libsamplerate
     • ./autogen.sh
     • ./configure --host=x86_64-w64-mingw32.shared
     • make
     • Then just copy all the files manually from the libsamplerate build to our Windows Qt mingw64 installation

       ./src/.libs/libsamplerate.a     ->  C:\Qt\VERSION\mingw73_64\lib\libsamplerate.a
       ./src/.libs/libsamplerate.dll.a ->  C:\Qt\VERSION\mingw73_64\lib\libsamplerate.dll.a
       ./src/.libs/libsamplerate-0.dll ->  C:\Qt\VERSION\mingw73_64\bin\libsamplerate-0.dll
       ./src/samplerate.h              ->  C:\Qt\VERSION\mingw73_64\include\samplerate.h
       ./samplerate.pc                 ->  C:\Qt\VERSION\mingw73_64\lib\pkgconfig\samplerate.pc
       

   • Building it yourself
     • Note: Be sure to configure PortAudio with ./configure --enable-cxx
     • Compile and install on the system

6. Install PortAudio

   • On Linux sudo apt install libportaudio2
   • On Windows: might need to set up MSYS2 with mingw64 to compile PortAudio
     • I couldn't get it to compile or install properly no matter what, so what I did is...
     • Installed MSYS2
     • pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-portaudio
     • Then just copy all the files manually from the msys64 mingw64 installation to our Windows Qt mingw64 installation

       C:\msys64\mingw64\lib\libportaudio.a         ->  C:\Qt\VERSION\mingw73_64\lib\libportaudio.a
       C:\msys64\mingw64\lib\libportaudio.dll.a     ->  C:\Qt\VERSION\mingw73_64\lib\libportaudio.dll.a
       C:\msys64\mingw64\bin\libportaudio-2.dll     ->  C:\Qt\VERSION\mingw73_64\bin\libportaudio-2.dll
       C:\msys64\mingw64\include\portaudio.h        ->  C:\Qt\VERSION\mingw73_64\include\portaudio.h
       C:\msys64\mingw64\pkgconfig\portaudio-2.0.pc ->  C:\Qt\VERSION\mingw73_64\lib\pkgconfig\portaudio-2.0.pc
       

   • Building it yourself
     • Note: Be sure to configure PortAudio with ./configure --enable-cxx
       • On Linux: make sure the configuration ends with ALSA ... yes and JACK ... yes
         • If JACK ... no then sudo apt install libjack-dev
     • Compile and install on the system

7. Build the project! (e.g. Import the project via Soundboard.pro into QT Creator and hit the build button

Linux (AppImage) deployment

8. Install linuxdeploy, linuxdeploy-plugin-qt, linuxdeploy-plugin-appimage, and AppImageKit, and make sure they're all visible to your environment's PATH variable.
   • Note: Personally, I download each one as their .AppImage from the releases page, and I rename all the files from linuxdeploy-x86_64.AppImage to linuxdeploy, appimagetool-x86_64.AppImage to appimagetool, etc.
9. Run ./appimage.sh <linuxdeploy executable> <build dir> [optional: Qt's qmake executable]
   • For example, mine looks like ./appimage.sh linuxdeploy ../build-Soundboard-Desktop_Qt_5_12_5_GCC_64bit-Debug/ ~/Qt/5.12.5/gcc_64/bin/qmake
   • If the program errors Failed to run plugin: qt (exit code: 6), try running export QMAKE=/path/to/Qt/qmake first. For example, I would type export QMAKE=~/Qt/5.12.5/gcc_64/bin/qmake
10. If everything went according to plan, it should've exported a Soundboard AppImage to the current working directory

Windows deployment

Windows deployment is done through the windows.bat script. Usage for windows.bat is as follows:

windows.bat <soundboard executable> <windeployqt.exe> [binarycreator.exe] [installerbase.exe]

Note: the two arguments at the end are only required if you wish to deploy a Windows installer. You can find more about that process here if you'd like to contribute to it. The windows.bat script takes care of all that, and the only step you need to do is install a QT installer framework (look under "Using a prebuilt version") to get the necessary binaries binarycreator.exe and installerbase.exe.

For example, this is what my command looks like for generating an installer windows.bat C:\Users\my_username\Documents\GitHub\build-Soundboard-Desktop_Qt_5_12_6_MinGW_64_bit-Release\release\Soundboard.exe C:\Qt\5.12.6\mingw73_64\bin\windeployqt.exe C:\Qt\QtIFW-3.2.0\bin\binarycreator.exe C:\Qt\QtIFW-3.2.0\bin\installerbase.exe

NOTE: The 5.14.0 MingW64 windeployqt.exe is bugged. You just need to get an un-bugged file, which can be found in this thread

Also NOTE: When building, may need to initially say "no" when the script asks if the program didn't run okay, then copy libportaudio-2.dll, libsamplerate-0.dll, and libsndfile-1.dll into Soundboard/lib, then continue.

Common Compile Errors (Linux)

• error: 'portaudio.h' file not found
  • Solution: sudo apt install libasound-dev portaudio19-dev
• error: X11/XKBlib.h: No such file or directory
  • Solution: sudo apt install libx11-dev
• error: cannot find -lGL
  • Solution: sudo apt install libgl1-mesa-dev