# Any Processing Sound Library Supporting .m4a?
**URL:** https://discourse.processing.org/t/any-processing-sound-library-supporting-m4a/13722
**Category:** Libraries
**Created:** [August 31, 2019, 1:42pm UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/any-processing-sound-library-supporting-m4a/13722 "2019-08-31T13:42:09Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@processingCendrum](https://discourse.processing.org/u/processingCendrum)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2019, 1:42pm UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/any-processing-sound-library-supporting-m4a/13722/1 "2019-08-31T13:42:09Z")
I’m trying to create an interface to play and browse my music. Thing is, most of it is in .m4a, and neither the Sound library nor the Minim library seem to support that format.
All my music is either in .m4a or in .mp3, and all I need to be able to do is play, pause, change playback speed and/or skip forward/backward, although I wouldn’t loathe having more functions to play with. Is there any library you can think of that would suit my needs?
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### Author:  [@kll](https://discourse.processing.org/u/kll)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2019, 1:45am UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/any-processing-sound-library-supporting-m4a/13722/2 "2019-09-01T01:45:32Z")
? also
> Beads
failed
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### Author:  [@processingCendrum](https://discourse.processing.org/u/processingCendrum)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2020, 4:28pm UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/any-processing-sound-library-supporting-m4a/13722/3 "2020-01-26T16:28:41Z")
I can now confirm through testing that Beads will indeed work with .mp3 but not with .m4a files.
As far as I recall that was the case with minim too, as with the original Sound library, that couldn’t play .mp3, and I’m out of sound libraries I know here.
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### Author:  [@quark](https://discourse.processing.org/u/quark)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2020, 4:59pm UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/any-processing-sound-library-supporting-m4a/13722/4 "2020-01-26T16:59:28Z")
I just did a search on m4a audio format and I found this [article](https://whatis.techtarget.com/fileformat/M4A-Unprotected-AAC-audio-file). What was surprising is that it suggests some media players will only play it if you rename the file with mp3 extension. You might try this on a copy of one of your music files.
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### Author:  [@processingCendrum](https://discourse.processing.org/u/processingCendrum)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2020, 3:31pm UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/any-processing-sound-library-supporting-m4a/13722/5 "2020-01-28T15:31:56Z")
First of all, many, many thanks!
Second of all, it actually says files work when renamed to _mp4_. Though both solutions seem to work fine: the file will still play just fine.
Except on beads, where it won’t, throwing the same error as when I tried to play it in its .m4a guise.
Well, does it work with the Sound library?
Nope.
Well, this is mildly frustrating. We need to fix that, don’t we.
So now the Sound library won’t even decode the .mp3 file I’d tested it with!
It won’t decode ANY file!
Now that’s more like the frustration we want to see!
At this point I should mention beads too decided it didn’t want to play some .mp3 files. Some it did, some it didn’t. I couldn’t spot any criteria.
🤬 🤬 🤬 🤬 🤬 🤬 🤬 🤬 🤬 🤬 🤬 🤬