I''m brainstorming a for-fun project that would be a physics-based sound simulator. It would represent the air as a finite number of particles that can interact with each other and with surfaces which will have user definable properties. I want to be able to model custom accoustic environments along with creating virtual instruments. Tall order, I know but I love music and I don''t care if it takes me a few years to do, the experimentation is the part that will be fun...I should learn a good bit about sound and the way instruments work in the process. I figure basically I would have sound emitters which would be surfaces that would vibrate and disturb the air, thus generating a sound which would be propagated. The air would then distrub the surface of the microphone(s) in the scene and the magnitude of the disturbance would be stored as the amplitude of a time-sample of a time wave in memory. Then I would need to turn this sound into something that the multi-media system in Windows can actually play. In addition I would like to be able to position virtual speakers in the system that would take audio files as input or the microphone. I''ve looked at the .wav file format and its pretty gross; to be honest it skimped on too many details for a beginner in audio programming to get started. As a result I really don''t know where to turn. A site that gave a simple and clear explanation of the .wav file format and memory structure would be a help, as would a reference to an easy to use audio library that gave the level of control I am looking for (of course that may be too much to hope for; I rooted around in Java and came up empty and overwhelmed). Just to make sure no one missunderstands this post: I''m not looking for someone to teach me everything I need to become an expert in sound programming so I can take on this massive project; I''m just looking for information on good, and most importantly, basic intro-level explanations of the popular audio formats, and if the sound library of my dreams does happen to exist and you told me what its called, that would be great too. Thanks, and if anyone is interested in the project, let me know. I''m thinking it should be open source because why should I have all the fun?