I recently designed a Sound recorder on a mac using AudioUnits. It was designed to behave like a video security system, recording continuously, with a graphics display of power levels for playback browsing.
I've noticed that every 85 minutes distortion appears for 3 minutes. After a day of elimination it appears that the sound acquisition that occurs before callback is called uses a circular buffer, and the callback's audioUnitRender function extracts from this buffer but with a slightly slower speed, which eventually causes the internal buffer write to wrap around and catch up with audioUnitRender reads. The duplex operation test shows the latency ever increasing, and after 85 minutes you hear about 200-300ms of latency and the noise begins as the render buffer frame has a combination of buffer segments at end and beginning of buffer, i.e long and short latencies. as the pointers drift apart the noise disappears and you hear clean audio with original short latency, then it repeats again 85 mins later. Even with low impact callback processing this still happens. I've seen some posts regarding latency but none regarding clashes, has anyone seen this?
osx 10.9.5, xcode 6.1.1
code details:-
//modes 1=playback, 2=record, 3=both
AudioComponentDescription outputcd = {0}; // 10.6 version
outputcd.componentType = kAudioUnitType_Output;
outputcd.componentSubType = kAudioUnitSubType_HALOutput; //allows duplex
outputcd.componentManufacturer = kAudioUnitManufacturer_Apple;
AudioComponent comp = AudioComponentFindNext (NULL, &outputcd);
if (comp == NULL) {printf ("can't get output unit");exit (-1);}
CheckError (AudioComponentInstanceNew(comp, au),"Couldn't open component for outputUnit");
//tell input bus that its's input, tell output it's an output
if(mode==1 || mode==3) r=[self setAudioMode:*au :0];//play
if(mode==2 || mode==3) r=[self setAudioMode:*au :1];//rec
// register render callback
if(mode==1 || mode==3) [self setCallBack:*au :0];
if(mode==2 || mode==3) [self setCallBack:*au :1];
// if(mode==2 || mode==3) [self setAllocBuffer:*au];
// get default stream, change amt of channels
AudioStreamBasicDescription audioFormat;
UInt32 k=sizeof(audioFormat);
r= AudioUnitGetProperty(*au,
kAudioUnitProperty_StreamFormat,
kAudioUnitScope_Output,
1,
&audioFormat,
&k);
audioFormat.mChannelsPerFrame=1;
r= AudioUnitSetProperty(*au,
kAudioUnitProperty_StreamFormat,
kAudioUnitScope_Output,
1,
&audioFormat,
k);
//start
CheckError (AudioUnitInitialize(outputUnit),"Couldn't initialize output unit");
//record callback
OSStatus RecProc(void *inRefCon,
AudioUnitRenderActionFlags *ioActionFlags,
const AudioTimeStamp *inTimeStamp,
UInt32 inBusNumber,
UInt32 inNumberFrames,
AudioBufferList * ioData)
{
myView * mv2=(__bridge myView*)inRefCon;
AudioBuffer buffer,buffer2;
OSStatus status;
buffer.mDataByteSize = inNumberFrames *4 ;// buffer size
buffer.mNumberChannels = 1; // one channel
buffer.mData =mv2->rdata;
buffer2.mDataByteSize = inNumberFrames *4 ;// buffer size
buffer2.mNumberChannels = 1; // one channel
buffer2.mData =mv2->rdata2;
AudioBufferList bufferList;
bufferList.mNumberBuffers = 2;
bufferList.mBuffers[0] = buffer;
bufferList.mBuffers[1] = buffer2;
status = AudioUnitRender(mv2->outputUnit, ioActionFlags, inTimeStamp, inBusNumber, inNumberFrames, &bufferList);
[mv2 recproc :mv->rdata :mv->rdata2 :inNumberFrames];
return noErr;
}
You seem to be using the HAL output unit for pulling input. There might not be a guarantee that the input device and output device sample rates are exactly locked. Any slow slight drift in the sample rate of either device could eventually cause a buffer underflow or overflow.
One solution might be to find and set an input device for a separate input audio unit instead of depending on the default output unit. Try a USB mic, for instance.
According to this article https://www.native-instruments.com/forum/threads/latency-drift-problem-on-macbook.175551/ this problem appears to be a usb audio driver bug in maverick. I didn't find a kext replacement solution anywhere.
After making a sonar type tester (1 cycle 22khz square wave click every 600 ms to speaker, display selected recorded frame number after click) and could see the 3 to 4 samples drift per second along with the distortion/latency drift reset experience after 1.5 hrs, I decided to look around and find how to access the buffer pointers to stabilise the latency drift, but also no luck.
Also api latency queries show no changes as it drifts.
I did find that you could reset the latency with audiounitstop then audiounitstart (same thread), but it worked only if only one audiounit bus system wide was active. Research also showed that the latency could be reset if you toggle the hardware device sample-rate in Audio Midi Setup. this is a bit aggressive and would be uncomfortable for some.
My design toggled the nominalsamplerate (AudioObjectSetPropertyData with kAudioDevicePropertyNominalSampleRate) every 60 minutes (48000 then back to 44100), with delay by way of waiting for change notification through a callback.
This cause a 2 second void in audio input and output every hour. Safari playing a youtube video would mute, and cause a 1-2 second video freeze during this time . VLC showed the same but video remained smooth during 2 second silence.
Like I said, it wouldn't work for all, but I chose system wide 2 second mute every hour over a recording that has 3 minutes of fuzzy audio every 1.5 hrs. Its been posted that a yosemite upgrade fixes this, although some have also found crackling after going up to yosemite.
Related
My goal is to record audio using an electret microphone hooked into the analog pin of an esp8266 (12E) and then be able to play this audio on another device. My circuit is:
In order to check the output of the microphone I connected the circuit to the oscilloscope and got this:
In the "gif" above you can see the waves made by my voice when talking to microphone.
here is my code on esp8266:
void loop() {
sensorValue = analogRead(sensorPin);
Serial.print(sensorValue);
Serial.print(" ");
}
I would like to play the audio on the "Audacity" software in order to have an understanding of the result. Therefore, I copied the numbers from the serial monitor and paste it into the python code that maps the data to (-1,1) interval:
def mapPoint(value, currentMin, currentMax, targetMin, targetMax):
currentInterval = currentMax - currentMin
targetInterval = targetMax - targetMin
valueScaled = float(value - currentMin) / float(currentInterval)
return round(targetMin + (valueScaled * targetInterval),5)
class mapper():
def __init__(self,raws):
self.raws=raws.split(" ")
self.raws=[float(i) for i in self.raws]
def mapAll(self):
self.mappeds=[mapPoint(i,min(self.raws),max(self.raws),-1,1) for i in self.raws ]
self.strmappeds=str(self.mappeds).replace(",","").replace("]","").replace("[","")
return self.strmappeds
Which takes the string of numbers, map them on the target interval (-1 ,+1) and return a space (" ") separated string of data ready to import into Audacity software. (Tools>Sample Data Import and then select the text file including the data). The result of importing data from almost 5 seconds voice:
which is about half a second and when I play I hear unintelligible noise. I also tried lower frequencies but there was only noise there, too.
The suspected causes for the problem are:
1- Esp8266 has not the capability to read the analog pin fast enough to return meaningful data (which is probably not the case since it's clock speed is around 100MHz).
2- The way software is gathering the data and outputs it is not the most optimized way (In the loop, Serial.print, etc.)
3- The microphone circuit output is too noisy. (which might be, but as observed from the oscilloscope test, my voice has to make a difference in the output audio. Which was not audible from the audacity)
4- The way I mapped and prepared the data for the Audacity.
Is there something else I could try?
Are there similar projects out there? (which to my surprise I couldn't find anything which was done transparently!)
What can be the right way to do this? (since it can be a very useful and economic method for recording, transmitting and analyzing audio.)
There are many issues with your project:
You do not set a bias voltage on A0. The ADC can only measure voltages between Ground and VCC. When removing the microphone from the circuit, the voltage at A0 should be close to VCC/2. This is usually achieved by adding a voltage divider between VCC and GND made of 2 resistors, and connected directly to A0. Between the cap and A0.
Also, your circuit looks weird... Is the 47uF cap connected directly to the 3.3V ? If that's the case, you should connect it to pin 2 of the microphone instead. This would also indicate that right now your ADC is only recording noise (no bias voltage will do that).
You do not pace you input, meaning that you do not have a constant sampling rate. That is a very important issue. I suggest you set yourself a realistic target that is well within the limits of the ADC, and the limits of your serial port. The transfer rate in bytes/sec of a serial port is usually equal to baud-rate / 8. For 9600 bauds, that's only about 1200 bytes/sec, which means that once converted to text, you max transfer rate drops to about 400 samples per second. This issue needs to be addressed and the max calculated before you begin, as the max attainable overall sample rate is the maximum of the sample rate from the ADC and the transfer rate of the serial port.
The way to grab samples depends a lot on your needs and what you are trying to do with this project, your audio bandwidth, resolution and audio quality requirements for the application and the amount of work you can put into it. Reading from a loop as you are doing now may work with a fast enough serial port, but the quality will always be poor.
The way that is usually done is with a timer interrupt starting the ADC measurement and an ADC interrupt grabbing the result and storing it in a small FIFO, while the main loop transfers from this ADC fifo to the serial port, along the other tasks assigned to the chip. This cannot be done directly with the Arduino libraries, as you need to control the ADC directly to do that.
Here a short checklist of things to do:
Get the full ESP8266 datasheet from Expressif. Look up the actual specs of the ADC, mainly: the sample rates and resolutions available with your oscillator, and also its electrical constraints, at least its input voltage range and input impedance.
Once you know these numbers, set yourself some target, the math needed for successful project need input numbers. What is your application? Do you want to record audio or just detect a nondescript noise? What are the minimum requirements needed for things to work?
Look up in the Arduino documentartion how to set up a timer interrupt and an ADC interrupt.
Look up in the datasheet which registers you'll need to access to configure and run the ADC.
Fix the voltage bias issue on the ADC input. Nothing can work before that's done, and you do not want to destroy your processor.
Make sure the input AC voltage (the 'swing' voltage) is large enough to give you the results you want. It is not unusual to have to amplify a mic signal (with an opamp or a transistor), just for impedance matching.
Then you can start writing code.
This may sound awfully complex for such a small task, but that's what the average day of an embedded programmer looks like.
[EDIT] Your circuit would work a lot better if you simply replaced the 47uF DC blocking capacitor by a series resistor. Its value should be in the 2.2k to 7.6k range, to keep the circuit impedance within the 10k Ohms or so needed for the ADC. This would insure that the input voltage to A0 is within the operating limits of the ADC (GND-3.3V on the NodeMCU board, 0-1V with bare chip).
The signal may still be too weak for your application, though. What is the amplitude of the signal on your scope? How many bits of resolution does that range cover once converted by the ADC? Example, for a .1V peak to peak signal (SIG = 0.1), an ADC range of 0-3.3V (RNG = 3.3) and 10 bits of resolution (RES = 1024), you'll have
binary-range = RES * (SIG / RNG)
= 1024 * (0.1 / 3.3)
= 1024 * .03
= 31.03
A range of 31, which means around Log2(31) (~= 5) useful bits of resolution, is that enough for your application ?
As an aside note: The ADC will give you positive values, with a DC offset, You will probably need to filter the digital output with a DC blocking filter before playback. https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/dc_offset.html
I've got an Adafruit Bluefruit NRF52 hooked up to the Adafruit BNO055 9-axis orientation sensor, gathering 3 axis of absolute orientation plus 3 axis of acceleration (6 floats in total) and sending over Bluetooth through bleuart. I need the bleuart to update every 7.5 milliseconds with a new line of values, but when I run it, it doesn't print more than about 20 lines new lines of values every second. Essentially I need values to update as quickly as possible, as I am measuring very high speed, high fidelity movement.
At the start of each line I also have three digit number, which represents the calibration status of each sensor on the IMU. Each printed line looks something like:
303 68.69 4.19 -2.19 -0.12 0.14 -0.40
I am currently streaming to my iphone with the latest iOs version, which in theory can handle 7.5ms intervals.
I've read that a solution may be to buffer the values and send over in a larger chunk at larger connection intervals, but am unsure on how to do this.
My relevant Arduino code is below:
Bluefruit.setConnIntervalMS(7.5, 20);
void loop()
{
imu::Vector<3> accel =
bno.getVector(Adafruit_BNO055::VECTOR_LINEARACCEL);
/* Get a new sensor event */
sensors_event_t event;
bno.getEvent(&event);
/* Display the floating point data */
bleuart.print(event.orientation.x);
bleuart.print("\t");
bleuart.print(event.orientation.y);
bleuart.print("\t");
bleuart.print(event.orientation.z);
bleuart.print("\t");
/* Display the floating point data for Linear Acceleration */
bleuart.print(accel.x());
bleuart.print("\t");
bleuart.print(accel.y());
bleuart.print("\t");
bleuart.print(accel.z());
bleuart.print("\n");
}
iOS doesn't actually support a 7.5ms connection interval. Check the connection parameters section (11.6) in the Apple developer guidelines. Just because you are specifying a CI that low doesn't mean that you'll actually get it. In this scenario the nRF52 is the slave and only requests an interval that low from the master (your phone). The master, if it so wishes, can completely disregard the request you make.
You'd be better off, as you've already eluded to, buffering your data and sending it via a custom characteristic. Figure out how many bytes you need and maybe you can pack a couple of readings into a single BLE write. If you're really struggling with throughput then you'll need a custom service with multiple characteristics. I recently worked on a project that streams 8 channels of data (~125Hz/16-bit) over BLE with three characteristics and this is bordering on the maximum throughput you can achieve.
As an aside: judging data throughput by the amount of lines printed per second is a big no no. Print functions typically have huge overheads and will drastically affect your measured throughput in a negative way.
Let me know if I can help further.
I'm writing a "play sound" program on Reapberry Pi with ALSA.
I called snd_pcm_writei every 1280 samples.
I wish to add a small LED, and let it "lighter while the sound is louder, and darker while the sound is quieter."
My plane is, if there's a callback every short time period(ex: 100ms), and I can get the instantaneous volume in the callback, I can control the LED in it.
In android, there's AudioTrack.setPositionNotificationPeriod.
However, I've no idea how to do this under Linux with ALSA.
Could anyone give me some advise?
The playback function looks like this:
// nLeftFrameSize: Total sample number.
// hDevice: Play device handle (initialized beforehand).
// lpbyBuffer: Sample buffer.
while(nLeftFrameSize > 0){
nRes = (int)snd_pcm_writei(( snd_pcm_t*)hDevice, lpbyBuffer, 1280);
nLeftFrameSize -= 1280;
}
I've tried calculate RMS in the while loop before the snd_pcm_writei(), set the LED brightness, and sleep, to make sure the LED can light up while these 1280 samples are playing. But this cause the sound discontinuous.
So I'd create another thread for the LED control, and I can sleep in that thread without bothering the playback.
I have been writing Spotify support for a project using libspotify, and when I wanted to implement seeking, I noticed that there is apparently no function to get the current playback position. In other words, a counterpart to sp_session_player_seek(), which returns the current offset.
What some people seem to do is to save the offset used in the last seek() call, and then accumulate the number of frames in a counter in music_delivery. Together with the stored offset, the current position can be calculated that way, yes - but is this really the only way how to do it?
I know that the Spotify Web API has a way to get the current position, so it is strange that libspotify doesn't have one.
Keeping track of it yourself the way to do it.
The way to look at it is this: libspotify doesn't actually play music, so it can't possibly know the current position.
All libspotify does it pass you PCM data. It's the application's job to get that out to the speakers, and audio pipelines invariably have various buffers and latencies and whatnot in place. When you seek, you're not saying "Move playback to here", you're saying "start giving me PCM from this point in the track".
In fact, if you're just counting frames and then passing them to an audio pipeline, your position is likely incorrect if it doesn't take into account that pipeline's buffers etc.
You can always track the position yourself.
For example:
void SpSeek(int position)
{
sp_session_player_seek(mSession, position);
mMsPosition = position;
}
int OnSessionMusicDelivery(sp_session *session, const sp_audioformat *format, const void *frames, int numFrames)
{
return SendToAudioDriver(...)
}
In my case i'm using OpenSL (Android), each time the buffer finish i update the value of the position like this
mMsPosition += (frameCount * 1000) / UtPlayerGetSampleRate();
Where numFrames is the frames consumed by the driver.
I wish to record the microphone audio stream so I can do realtime DSP on it.
I want to do so without having to use threads and without having .read() block while it waits for new audio data.
UPDATE/ANSWER: It's a bug in Android. 4.2.2 still has the problem, but 5.01 IS FIXED! I'm not sure where the divide is but that's the story.
NOTE: Please don't say "Just use threads." Threads are fine but this isn't about them, and the android developers intended for AudioRecord to be fully usable without me having to specify threads and without me having to deal with blocking read(). Thank you!
Here is what I have found:
When the AudioRecord object is initialized, it creates its own internal ring type buffer.
When .start() is called, it begins recording to said ring buffer (or whatever kind it really is.)
When .read() is called, it reads either half of bufferSize or the specified number of bytes (whichever is less) and then returns.
If there is more than enough audio samples in the internal buffer, then read() returns instantly with the data. If there is not enough yet, then read() waits till there is, then returns with the data.
.setRecordPositionUpdateListener() can be used to set a Listener, and .setPositionNotificationPeriod() and .setNotificationMarkerPosition() can be used to set the notification Period and Position, respectively.
However, the Listener seems to be never called unless certain requirements are met:
1: The Period or Position must be equal to bufferSize/2 or (bufferSize/2)-1.
2: A .read() must be called before the the Period or Position timer starts counting - in other words, after calling .start() then also call .read(), and each time the Listener is called, call .read() again.
3: .read() must read at least half of bufferSize each time.
So using these rules I am able to get the callback/Listener working, but for some reason the reads are still blocking and I can't figure out how to get the Listener to only be called when there is a full read's worth.
If I rig up a button view to click to read, then I can tap it and if tap rapidly, read blocks. But if I wait for the audio buffer to fill, then the first tap is instant (read returns right away) but subsiquent rapid taps are blocked because read() has to wait, I guess.
Greatly appreciated would be any insight on how I might make the Listener work as intended - in such a way that my listener gets called when there's enough data for read() to return instantly.
Below is the relavent parts of my code.
I have some log statements in my code which send strings to logcat which allows me to see how long each command is taking, and this is how I know that read() is blocking.
(And the buttons in my simple test app also are very doggy slow to respond when it is reading repeatedly, but CPU is not pegged.)
Thanks,
~Jesse
In my OnCreate():
bufferSize=AudioRecord.getMinBufferSize(samplerate,AudioFormat.CHANNEL_CONFIGURATION_MONO,AudioFormat.ENCODING_PCM_16BIT)*4;
recorder = new AudioRecord (AudioSource.MIC,samplerate,AudioFormat.CHANNEL_CONFIGURATION_MONO,AudioFormat.ENCODING_PCM_16BIT,bufferSize);
recorder.setRecordPositionUpdateListener(mRecordListener);
recorder.setPositionNotificationPeriod(bufferSize/2);
//recorder.setNotificationMarkerPosition(bufferSize/2);
audioData = new short [bufferSize];
recorder.startRecording();
samplesread=recorder.read(audioData,0,bufferSize);//This triggers it to start doing the callback.
Then here is my listener:
public OnRecordPositionUpdateListener mRecordListener = new OnRecordPositionUpdateListener()
{
public void onPeriodicNotification(AudioRecord recorder) //This one gets called every period.
{
Log.d("TimeTrack", "AAA");
samplesread=recorder.read(audioData,0,bufferSize);
Log.d("TimeTrack", "BBB");
//player.write(audioData, 0, samplesread);
//Log.d("TimeTrack", "CCC");
reads++;
}
#Override
public void onMarkerReached(AudioRecord recorder) //This one gets called only once -- when the marker is reached.
{
Log.d("TimeTrack", "AAA");
samplesread=recorder.read(audioData,0,bufferSize);
Log.d("TimeTrack", "BBB");
//player.write(audioData, 0, samplesread);
//Log.d("TimeTrack", "CCC");
}
};
UPDATE: I have tried this on Android 2.2.3, 2.3.4, and now 4.0.3, and all act the same.
Also: There is an open bug on code.google about it - one entry started in 2012 by someone else then one from 2013 started by me (I didn't know about the first):
UPDATE 2016: Ahhhh finally after years of wondering if it was me or android, I finally have answer! I tried my above code on 4.2.2 and same problem. I tried above code on 5.01, AND IT WORKS!!! And the initial .read() call is NOT needed anymore either. Now, once the .setPositionNotificationPeriod() and .StartRecording() are called, mRecordListener() just magically starts getting called every time there is data available now so it no longer blocks, because the callback is not called until after enough data has been recorded. I haven't listened to the data to know if it's recording correctly, but the callback is happening like it should, and it is not blocking the activity, like it used to!
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=53996
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=25138
If folks who care about this bug log in and vote for and/or comment on the bug maybe it'll get addressed sooner by Google.
It's late answear, but I think I know where Jesse did a mistake. His read call is getting blocked because he is requesting shorts which are sized same as buffer size, but buffer size is in bytes and short contains 2 bytes. If we make short array to be same length as buffer we will read twice as much data.
The solution is to make audioData = new short[bufferSize/2] If the buffer size is 1000 bytes, this way we will request 500 shorts which are 1000 bytes.
Also he should change samplesread=recorder.read(audioData,0,bufferSize) to samplesread=recorder.read(audioData,0,audioData.length)
UPDATE
Ok, Jesse. I can see where another mistake can be - the positionNotificationPeriod. This value have to be large enought so it won't call the listener too often and we need to make sure that when the listener is called the bytes to read are ready to be collected. If bytes won't be ready when the listener is called, the main thread will get blocked by recorder.read(audioData, 0, audioData.length) call until requested bytes get's collected by AudioRecord.
You should calculate buffer size and shorts array length based on time interval you set - how often you want the listener to be called. Position notification period, buffer size and shorts array length all have to be adjusted correctly. Let me show you an example:
int periodInFrames = sampleRate / 10;
int bufferSize = periodInFrames * 1 * 16 / 8;
audioData = new short [bufferSize / 2];
int minBufferSize = AudioRecord.getMinBufferSize(sampleRate, AudioFormat.CHANNEL_IN_MONO, AudioFormat.ENCODING_PCM_16BIT);
if (bufferSize < minBufferSize) bufferSize = minBufferSize;
recorder = new AudioRecord(AudioSource.MIC, sampleRate, AudioFormat.CHANNEL_IN_MONO, AudioFormat.ENCODING_PCM_16BIT, buffersize);
recorder.setRecordPositionUpdateListener(mRecordListener);
recorder.setPositionNotificationPeriod(periodInFrames);
recorder.startRecording();
public OnRecordPositionUpdateListener mRecordListener = new OnRecordPositionUpdateListener() {
public void onPeriodicNotification(AudioRecord recorder) {
samplesread = recorder.read(audioData, 0, audioData.length);
player.write(short2byte(audioData));
}
};
private byte[] short2byte(short[] data) {
int dataSize = data.length;
byte[] bytes = new byte[dataSize * 2];
for (int i = 0; i < dataSize; i++) {
bytes[i * 2] = (byte) (data[i] & 0x00FF);
bytes[(i * 2) + 1] = (byte) (data[i] >> 8);
data[i] = 0;
}
return bytes;
}
So now a bit of explanation.
First we set how often the listener have to be called to collect audio data (periodInFrames). PositionNotificationPeriod is expressed in frames. Sampling rate is expressed in frames per second, so for 44100 sampling rate we have 44100 frames per second. I divided it by 10 so the listener will be called every 4410 frames = 100 milliseconds - that's reasonable time interval.
Now we calculate buffer size based on our periodInFrames so any data won't be overriden before we collect it. Buffer size is expressed in bytes. Our time interval is 4410 frames, each frame contains 1 byte for mono or 2 bytes for stereo so we multiply it by number of channels (1 in your case). Each channel contains 1 byte for ENCODING_8BIT or 2 bytes for ENCODING_16BIT so we multiply it by bits per sample (16 for ENCODING_16BIT, 8 for ENCODING_8BIT) and divide it by 8.
Then we set audioData length to be half of the bufferSize so we make sure that when the listener gets called, bytes to read are already there waiting to be collected. That's because short contains 2 bytes and bufferSize is expressed in bytes.
Then we check if bufferSize is large enought to succesfully initialize AudioRecord object, if it's not then we set bufferSize to it's minimal size - we don't need to change our time interval or audioData length.
In our listener we read and store data to short array. That's why we use audioData.length instead buffer size, because only audioData.length can tell us the number of shorts the buffer contains.
I had it working some time ago so please let me know if it will work for you.
I'm not sure why you're avoiding spawning separate threads, but if it's because you don't want have to deal with coding them properly, you can use .schedule on a Timer object after each .read, where the time interval is set to the time it takes to get your buffer filled (number of samples in buffer / sampleRate). Yes I know this is using a separate thread, but this advice was given assuming that the reason you were avoiding using threads was to avoid having to code them properly.
This way, the longest time it can possibly block the thread for should be neglible. But I don't know why you'd want to do that.
If the above reason is not why you're avoiding using separate threads, may I ask why?
Also, what exactly do you mean by realtime? Do you intend to playback the affected audio using, let's say, an AudioTrack? Because the latency on most Android devices is pretty bad.