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AudioBufferSourceNode: loopStart property

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since ⁨July 2015⁩.

The loopStart property of the AudioBufferSourceNode interface is a floating-point value indicating, in seconds, where in the AudioBuffer the restart of the play must happen.

The loopStart property's default value is 0.

Value

A floating-point number indicating the offset, in seconds, into the audio buffer at which each loop should begin during playback. This value is only used when the loop parameter is true.

Examples

>

Setting loopStart

In this example, when the user presses "Play", we load an audio track, decode it, and put it into an AudioBufferSourceNode.

The example then sets the loop property to true, so the track loops, and plays the track.

The user can set the loopStart and loopEnd properties using range controls.

let audioCtx;
let buffer;
let source;

const play = document.getElementById("play");
const stop = document.getElementById("stop");

const loopstartControl = document.getElementById("loopstart-control");
const loopstartValue = document.getElementById("loopstart-value");

const loopendControl = document.getElementById("loopend-control");
const loopendValue = document.getElementById("loopend-value");

async function loadAudio() {
  try {
    // Load an audio file
    const response = await fetch("rnb-lofi-melody-loop.wav");
    // Decode it
    buffer = await audioCtx.decodeAudioData(await response.arrayBuffer());
    const max = Math.floor(buffer.duration);
    loopstartControl.setAttribute("max", max);
    loopendControl.setAttribute("max", max);
  } catch (err) {
    console.error(`Unable to fetch the audio file. Error: ${err.message}`);
  }
}

play.addEventListener("click", async () => {
  if (!audioCtx) {
    audioCtx = new AudioContext();
    await loadAudio();
  }
  source = audioCtx.createBufferSource();
  source.buffer = buffer;
  source.connect(audioCtx.destination);
  source.loop = true;
  source.loopStart = loopstartControl.value;
  source.loopEnd = loopendControl.value;
  source.start();
  play.disabled = true;
  stop.disabled = false;
  loopstartControl.disabled = false;
  loopendControl.disabled = false;
});

stop.addEventListener("click", () => {
  source.stop();
  play.disabled = false;
  stop.disabled = true;
  loopstartControl.disabled = true;
  loopendControl.disabled = true;
});

loopstartControl.addEventListener("input", () => {
  source.loopStart = loopstartControl.value;
  loopstartValue.textContent = loopstartControl.value;
});

loopendControl.addEventListener("input", () => {
  source.loopEnd = loopendControl.value;
  loopendValue.textContent = loopendControl.value;
});

Specifications

Browser compatibility

Desktop Mobile
Chrome Edge Firefox Opera Safari Chrome Android Firefox for Android Opera Android Safari on IOS Samsung Internet WebView Android WebView on iOS
loopStart 24 12 25 15 7 25 25 14 7 1.5 4.4.3 7

See also

© 2005–2025 MDN contributors.
Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License v2.5 or later.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/AudioBufferSourceNode/loopStart