Making blender able to record audio with an addon

Question

I am now aware that Blender doesn’t support recording audio natively, but I’ve decided to use Pyaudio somehow. For now I intend to import to VSE, but the real issue for me is displaying “time since record start” in the information panel line (The same one that shows blender version and sometimes progress bars for baking). I’m just not sure at this point if it’s possible.

Answer 1

I am building a sound system in Blender too. There are some if not a lot of technical difficulties with sound and using Blender's APIto implement sound for various reasons, but it is not impossible.

The following code will add it to the list that can be triggered in viewport by pressing N, under view/tool/item etc. It will track time while running regardless of how many times is looped and revert to where you are on the timeline for a first loop when you stop recording:

import bpy
import time

# Define a custom property group for recording properties
class RecordingProperties(bpy.types.PropertyGroup):
    start_time: bpy.props.FloatProperty(
        name="Start Time",
        description="The time when the recording started",
        default=0.0,
    )

# Define the UI panel for the recording properties
class RecordingPropertiesPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    bl_label = "Recording Properties"
    bl_idname = "VIEW3D_PT_recording_properties"
    bl_space_type = "VIEW_3D"
    bl_region_type = "UI"
    bl_category = "Recording"

    @classmethod
    def poll(cls, context):
        return context.scene is not None

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        rec_props = context.scene.rec_props

        row = layout.row()
        row.label(text=f"Time since record start: {time.time() - rec_props.start_time:.2f} seconds")

        row = layout.row()
        row.operator("wm.start_recording")
        row.operator("wm.stop_recording")

class StartRecordingOperator(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = "wm.start_recording"
    bl_label = "Start Recording"

    def execute(self, context):
        context.scene.rec_props.start_time = time.time()
        context.window_manager.modal_handler_add(self)
        self._timer = context.window_manager.event_timer_add(1.0, window=context.window)
        return {'RUNNING_MODAL'}

    def modal(self, context, event):
        if event.type in {'TIMER'}:
            return {'PASS_THROUGH'}
        return {'RUNNING_MODAL'}

class StopRecordingOperator(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = "wm.stop_recording"
    bl_label = "Stop Recording"

    def execute(self, context):
        context.window_manager.event_timer_remove(self._timer)
        return {'FINISHED'}

# Register and unregister functions
classes = (RecordingProperties, RecordingPropertiesPanel, StartRecordingOperator, StopRecordingOperator)

def register():
    for cls in classes:
        bpy.utils.register_class(cls)
    bpy.types.Scene.rec_props = bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=RecordingProperties)

def unregister():
    del bpy.types.Scene.rec_props
    for cls in reversed(classes):
        bpy.utils.unregister_class(cls)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

I have it here too in case you need the .py: https://github.com/BrechtCorbeel/Blender-sound-recording-panel-time-tracker-live-update/blob/main/timetracker.py