SoundSystem LibraryJOAL Mixer Isn't Working

[bgroenks96]

I'm using SoundSystem with LibraryJOAL plugin and JOrbis for OGG audio.

When I start a new streaming sound from a URL at any given position, I get no attenuation or positioning effects.

Am I missing something?  Do I need to set something before this works on JOAL?  The same code was working fine with positioning on LibraryJavaSound.

This is a Linux Mint 15 system btw running a Sun/Oracle JDK7 VM.

[Paul]

Make sure it is a mono sound (3D positioning doesn't function in OpenAL for stereo sounds)

[bgroenks96]

Make sure it is a mono sound (3D positioning doesn't function in OpenAL for stereo sounds)

Really?  Does the sound still play in stereo?  I know I've heard SoundSystem used in games like Minecraft before and I never noticed the sounds being mono.

Do you know why it is that OpenAL has to have mono?

[bgroenks96]

You were right, though.  That was the problem.  Thanks Paul!

[Paul]

Stereo has left and right audio information that are not necessarily both the same.  3D effects are accomplished by adjusting the volume of the left and right data independently of each other.  Unless left and right data of a sound is the same, the result of the 3D effects are unpredictable.  When I wrote the 3D calculation code for the JavaSound library plugin, I left that unpredictability up to the user to decide whether or not it was acceptable.  The developers of OpenAL, though, simply prevented stereo sounds from being affected by positional information at all, limiting 3D effects to mono sounds only.