http://www.portaudio.com/ PortAudio is a free, cross-platform, open-source, audio I/O library.  It lets you write simple audio programs in 'C' or C++ that will compile and run on many platforms including Windows, Macintosh OS X, and Unix (OSS/ALSA). It is intended to promote the exchange of audio software between developers on different platforms. Many applications use PortAudio for Audio I/O.