BBC BASIC Programmers' Reference

by Richard Russell, April 2013

If you want to play just a section of a WAV file, you can do so using code similar to the following:

  SYS "mciSendString", "open """ + wavfile$ + """ alias wav1", 0, 0, 0
  SYS "mciSendString", "play wav1 from 10000 to 20000", 0, 0, 0

Where wavfile$ is the path and file specification.

Here the start (from) and finish (to) positions are specified as constants (in milliseconds) but you can easily construct a suitable command string using variables:

  SYS "mciSendString", "open """ + wavfile$ + """ alias wav1", 0, 0, 0
  SYS "mciSendString", "play wav1 from " + STR$(start%) + " to " + STR$(finish%), 0, 0, 0

Ideally once the file has finished playing you should close the device as follows:

  SYS "mciSendString", "close wav1", 0, 0, 0