Introduction

The discord.js voice system allows your bot to join voice channels and play audio. This guide will teach you how to make simple music bots and give you tips to optimize performance!

This voice guide targets discord.js v12, which features an improved audio system. Much of the example code in the voice guide is unsuitable for v11 and below–to access this content, please update discord.js to v12!

"Voice" refers to the ability of a bot to send audio in voice channels. discord.js makes it easy for you to get up and running with voice!

Quick example

async function play(voiceChannel) {
	const connection = await voiceChannel.join();
	connection.play('audio.mp3');
}

Installing dependencies

At the bare minimum, you'll need:

• An Opus library:
  • @discordjs/opus (opens new window) (best performance)
  • node-opus (opens new window)
  • opusscript (opens new window)

You may also choose to install the following dependencies.

• FFmpeg (recommended) – allows you to play a range of media (e.g. MP3s).
  • This guide will assume you have installed FFmpeg.
  • ffmpeg (opens new window) - install and add to your system environment
  • ffmpeg-static (opens new window) - to install FFmpeg via npm
• Faster encryption packages
  • sodium (opens new window) (best performance)
  • libsodium-wrappers (opens new window)

TIP

Outside a development environment, it is recommended for you to use @discordjs/opus and sodium to improve performance and improve the stability of audio playback!

If you're struggling to install these dependencies, make sure you have build tools installed first. On Windows, this is as easy as running npm install --global --production --vs2015 --add-python-to-path windows-build-tools!