Building a Music Player in React

Introduction

Whoever is learning React and wants to build a project with React. There are a variety of blogs and articles to guide a such projects for developers. I do go through those articles but one kind of project is always missing in them. The missing projects are the music player and video player. Both of the projects will give you the opportunity to handle audio and video. You will learn many things such as handling audio for playing and pausing audio.

Today, we are going to build a music player in React. We will look into the following topics:

• Setting up the environment
• Playing/Pausing audio
• Handling time of audio(In term of current time and complete duration of audio)
• Adding a range slider for the timeline of audio

After completing the project, our music player will look like this.

If this excites you then let's get started.

Prerequisite and Setting up the Environment

I assume that you have knowledge about the following technologies as prerequisite:

• JavaScript
• HTML/CSS
• Basic React

The environment setup is easy. You should have node.js pre-installed for running the node related command in the terminal.

Navigate to the directory in which you want to create the project. Now, run the terminal and enter the below command to install react project.

npx create-react-app react-music-player

Remove all the boilerplate and unnecessary code. We are now good to go.

Dependencies

We need to install the following libraries to our project:

• use-sound: This will handle the audio file. It will load, play, and pause the audio along with other features.

Install with the below command:

npm i use-sound

• react-icons: For adding icons of play, pause, next and previous into our player.

Install it with the below command:

npm i react-icons

Player.js

Create a component directory in the src folder. Inside that create a component with the name Player.js. This component will be our music player.

Imports

As per the library to import in the file. You can look at it here:

import { useEffect, useState } from "react"; 
import useSound from "use-sound"; // for handling the sound
import qala from "../assets/qala.mp3"; // importing the music
import { AiFillPlayCircle, AiFillPauseCircle } from "react-icons/ai"; // icons for play and pause
import { BiSkipNext, BiSkipPrevious } from "react-icons/bi"; // icons for next and previous track
import { IconContext } from "react-icons"; // for customazing the icons

You can look into comments for the explanation of the imports.

Playing and Pausing the audio

Let's implement the mandatory feature of the player which is playing and pausing the audio.

At the top, we have a isPlaying state for storing the current status of the player. This will be helpful in conditional rendering the play/pause icon according the status of the player.

const [isPlaying, setIsPlaying] = useState(false);

We need to initialize the useSound with audio. It will return the play, pause, duration, and sound method.

const [play, { pause, duration, sound }] = useSound(qala);

play and pause is for playing and pausing the audio. duration is for the length of the track in milliseconds. sound will provide us with the howler.js method for the sound.

Create a function for handling the play and pause buttons. Here is the code for it.

  const playingButton = () => {
    if (isPlaying) {
      pause(); // this will pause the audio
      setIsPlaying(false);
    } else {
      play(); // this will play the audio
      setIsPlaying(true);
    }
  };

Now, it's time to add the UI component of the player into the return. Here is the code for it.

  return (
    <div className="component">
      <h2>Playing Now</h2>
      <img
        className="musicCover"
        src="https://picsum.photos/200/200"
      />
      <div>
        <h3 className="title">Rubaiyyan</h3>
        <p className="subTitle">Qala</p>
      </div>
      <div>
        <button className="playButton">
          <IconContext.Provider value={{ size: "3em", color: "#27AE60" }}>
            <BiSkipPrevious />
          </IconContext.Provider>
        </button>
        {!isPlaying ? (
          <button className="playButton" onClick={playingButton}>
            <IconContext.Provider value={{ size: "3em", color: "#27AE60" }}>
              <AiFillPlayCircle />
            </IconContext.Provider>
          </button>
        ) : (
          <button className="playButton" onClick={playingButton}>
            <IconContext.Provider value={{ size: "3em", color: "#27AE60" }}>
              <AiFillPauseCircle />
            </IconContext.Provider>
          </button>
        )}
        <button className="playButton">
          <IconContext.Provider value={{ size: "3em", color: "#27AE60" }}>
            <BiSkipNext />
          </IconContext.Provider>
        </button>
      </div>
    </div>
  );

For the cover image, I have used the Loren Picsum for generating a random image.

You can look here for the CSS of the file:

body {
  background-color: #e5e5e5;
}

.App {
  font-family: sans-serif;
  text-align: center;
}

.component {
  background-color: white;
  width: 25%;
  max-width: 600px;
  margin: 1em auto;
  padding-bottom: 2em;
  border: 0.1px solid black;
  border-radius: 10px;
}

.musicCover {
  border-radius: 10%;
}

.playButton {
  background: none;
  border: none;
  align-items: center;
  justify-content: center;
}

.subTitle {
  margin-top: -1em;
  color: #4f4f4f;
}

.time {
  margin: 0 auto;
  width: 80%;
  display: flex;
  justify-content: space-between;
  color: #828282;
  font-size: smaller;
}

.timeline {
  width: 80%;
  background-color: #27ae60;
}

input[type="range"] {
  background-color: #27ae60;
}

@media (max-width: 900px) {
  .component {
    width: 50%;
  }
}

Run the react server. If everything goes well you will be able to see the below screen.

Click on the play button to play the audio.

Adding audio timeline with the current time and duration of the audio

Now, let's add the timeline to the player. The timeline will controllable by the user. Any changes to it will change the audio's current position.

Let's look into the state that we are using. You see the comments for an explanation of each state.

  const [currTime, setCurrTime] = useState({
    min: "",
    sec: "",
  }); // current position of the audio in minutes and seconds

  const [seconds, setSeconds] = useState(); // current position of the audio in seconds

We are grabbing the duration props from the useSound. As the duration is provided in milliseconds, we have converted it into minutes and seconds.

useEffect(() => {
  const sec = duration / 1000;
  const min = Math.floor(sec / 60);
  const secRemain = Math.floor(sec % 60);
  const time = {
    min: min,
    sec: secRemain
  };

Now, for the current position of the audio, we have the sound.seek([]) method. We are running this function every second to change the current position of the audio. After getting the position of the audio which is in seconds. We are converting it into minutes and seconds. After converting, we are setting the state with the current value. Here is the code for it.

useEffect(() => {
    const interval = setInterval(() => {
      if (sound) {
        setSeconds(sound.seek([])); // setting the seconds state with the current state
        const min = Math.floor(sound.seek([]) / 60);
        const sec = Math.floor(sound.seek([]) % 60);
        setCurrTime({
          min,
          sec,
        });
      }
    }, 1000);
    return () => clearInterval(interval);
  }, [sound]);

Now for the return. Here is the code.

      <div>
        <div className="time">
          <p>
            {currTime.min}:{currTime.sec}
          </p>
          <p>
            {time.min}:{time.sec}
          </p>
        </div>
        <input
          type="range"
          min="0"
          max={duration / 1000}
          default="0"
          value={seconds}
          className="timeline"
          onChange={(e) => {
            sound.seek([e.target.value]);
          }}
        />
      </div>

The value of the range input is the second state. It will provide us with the current position of the audio. On change in the range by the user. We are calling the soud.seek() method to change the current position of the audio.

Output

After successfully completing the project, you will be able to see the below output.

Note: The music is coming into my speaker.

I have created a codesandbox. You can look at it for the complete project with code and the output.

Note: The song that I used is Rubaaiyaan from Qala. All credit to the creator.

Additional Features

You can work on the music player to add more features such as:

• It currently plays one song and loads many songs into it. Use the next and the previous icons for changing audio.
• Change the name and album of the audio as per the song.
• Add more features that you wish a music player should have.

Conclusion

We have created our own music player. This project will help you in handling audio files in React. We have added features of play and pause with the function. Also added an audio timeline with the range input. Users can change the current position of the audio with the timeline. Feel free to add more features to the project.

I hope this project has helped you in understanding a method of handling music in React. Let me know in the comment if you want a video player tutorial too. Thanks for reading the blog post.

Comments

[Maazi Uche Nnamani]

Nice write-up. Could you explain the broiler plates to be removed? Could you also indicate if the Player.js component should has a CSS file for styling. I became lost midway as some of the steps appeared confusing to a person that started learning React recently.

Great article all the same.

[Suraj Vishwakarma]

You can look at the codesanbox for the code that we are required. You can keep that much and remove other files and code. As for the styling, we have used styles.css for codesanbox. It is being imported into the index.js file.

Let me know about anything that you want more explanation about.

[Maazi Uche Nnamani]

Thank you very much.

Like I said, some of the steps might not be easy for a person learning React newly.

Here are my questions?

1. Where was the music downloaded from?

2. I saw that you used the following line ' import qala from "../assets/qala.mp3" ' Is this music available for download?

Perhaps, I'm not smart enough to understand this. Could please appear as if you are explaining the steps to a-5 year old?

Thanks in advance.

[Suraj Vishwakarma]

1. You can use any music for it. I have used a Hindi film song which is not available free for commercial uses. I used it for educational purposes. I like that song. I used any YouTube video to MP3 converter to get the audio.

2. The source is the directory in which I have added the audio. As I said, you can use the music at individual level and educational purposes but will not recommended for any other uses of the song.

Everyone starts form zero. Even today, I get confused sometimes. Leaning is life long process. So, go for it and make as you want.

[Maazi Uche Nnamani]

Thank you very much, sir.

[Suraj Vishwakarma]

Don't call me sir. We are all together in this.

[Maazi Uche Nnamani]

Haha

[Dennis Hüttner]

I find the article very helpful and detailed. It's good to see that topics like creating a music player in React are also covered, as these types of projects are often missing in tutorials. The article covers all the important aspects, from setting up the environment to adding buttons for playing and pausing audio. The explanations and code examples are detailed and easy to understand, so I feel like I could recreate the project myself. I look forward to being able to apply what I have learned to my own project. Thank you for sharing this article.

[Suraj Vishwakarma]

Glad that it help you 🔥

[⚡Abiola⚡]

Thanks very much. This tutorial brought me back to dev.to after being absent for a long time. I'm also learning react, and this has always been one of my project.

I'm gonna try this, and also extend it beyond, by God's grace. Thanks.

[Suraj Vishwakarma]

Awesome that you like it. Feel free add more features to it.

[Katielly Reis]

Hello, I'm new to react and I'm trying to run this project but it gives an error with eslint [ Line 103:16: 'time' is not defined no-undef]. Can anyone help me?

[Suraj Vishwakarma]

I think there is missing of this code:

useEffect(() => {
  const sec = duration / 1000;
  const min = Math.floor(sec / 60);
  const secRemain = Math.floor(sec % 60);
  const time = {
    min: min,
    sec: secRemain
  };

[Katielly Reis]

This code snippet is here but it keeps pointing out this error

[thiendz2611]

[thiendz2611]

You should remove the useEffect

[Katielly Reis]

thank you so much now it's run, very nice project

[Chandrashekhar Mehta]

It's a cool app and the documentation is amazing.
like each and every feature of the app is explained in such a simple way. Hats's off!!

[Suraj Vishwakarma]

Thanks for your word

[Champi]

Check this one out github.com/champi-dev/react-playli...

[Jacob D. Chamberlain]

There is CSS for something called "track" and "track-inner" - where are these located in the Player component?
Also, what is the second <p> tag with time.min and time.sec used for?

[Suraj Vishwakarma]

I previously used track and track-inner to style the control button but remove them later. The CSS was from that part which I forgot to remove. Now, it's removed and thanks for it.

The second tim.min and time.sec is the complete duration of the audio in minutes and seconds respectively.

[Gbadamson]

Awesome

[Suraj Vishwakarma]

Thanks 👍

[Eray]

awesome

[Suraj Vishwakarma]

Thanks⚡

[Pavan Belagatti]

Looks amazing, I'll try this

[Suraj Vishwakarma]

Great. Add more features to it as per your requirement.

[Siddharth Singh Baghel]

Awesome 🌟, I will be trying to add the favorite adding feature further

[Suraj Vishwakarma]

That's looks cool 🔥 if possible share the code snippet here for others

[Daniel Bowen]

This looks cool! A bit different to other React projects. Only skim read it - but I think I'm going to give it a go over the next few days.

[Suraj Vishwakarma]

Glad that you like it⚡

[Aritra Bose]

How to add some DEBOUNCE to the slider ?

[Suraj Vishwakarma]

What other features are looking to add it?

[Bruno Kristo]

Thank you for your writing.
This is very helpful for me. I have followed from scratch and it works on my pc.
But I can't dynamically import music sources in Download folder.
Could you please explain about this too?