title: Playing multiple songs with MediaPlayer at the same time: only one is really playing
body: <p>I need help with playing multiple audio tracks at the same time in <code>Android</code>.</p>
  
  <p>I am supposed to play <strong>three audio tracks</strong> at the exact same time using <code>Android.Media.MediaPlayer</code>.</p>
  
  <p>Yesterday I managed to make it work doing so :</p>
  
  <pre><code>MediaPlayer track1 = MediaPlayer.create(this, R.raw.track1);
  MediaPlayer track2 = MediaPlayer.create(this, R.raw.track2);
  MediaPlayer track3 = MediaPlayer.create(this, R.raw.track3);
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>As you can see, I have <strong>three distincts instances</strong> of <code>MediaPlaye</code>r here.</p>
  
  <p>Because I am asked to, I need to have these <code>MediaPlayer</code> being played in a <strong>background thread</strong>.</p>
  
  <p>Here is the part where I start the <code>MediaPlayers</code>:</p>
  
  <pre><code>//let's suppose this code snippet is in a run() method inside a Thread (which is the case)
  track1.start();
  track2.start();
  track3.start();
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>If I say yesterday, it's because the next day, it did not work as supposed to.</p>
  
  <p>Indeed, <strong>starting a MediaPlayer seems to stop any previous playing MediaPlayer</strong>.</p>
  
  <p>I tested in debugger mode : clearly, <code>track2.start()</code> stops track1's MediaPlayer and following the same pattern, <code>track3.start()</code> stops tack2's MediaPlayer.</p>
  
  <p>So at the end, <strong>only track3 is being played</strong>, I cannot hear any of the previous tracks, whatever the volume settings are whereas <strong>I could cleary hear all of them before</strong> : it is supposed to create some sort an ambiance.</p>
  
  <p>Of course, changing the order in which the tracks are started does not change anything : only the last track will be heard.</p>
  
  <p>If I say "heard" it is because in debugger mode, checking the property <code>MediaPlayer.isPlaying</code> is returning <strong><code>true</code></strong> : <strong>all three players are saying they are playing but only one can be heard... !</strong></p>
  
  <p>Why the change ?
  Why did it work once to stop working afterwards ?</p>
  
  <p><strong>NOTE:</strong></p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>the audio files have all the same duration which is approximately about 15 minutes</li>
  <li>the audio files were <code>.mp3</code> files compressed into <code>.acc</code> files (from <code>320kbps</code> to <code>144kbps</code>)</li>
  <li>I am working under <code>Xamarin Studio</code> in <code>C#</code> but for clarety purpouse I will stick to small <code>Java</code> code snippets.</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p><strong>EDIT 1</strong></p>
  
  <p>According to this <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11025515/play-two-mp3-song-at-the-same-time">Play two mp3 song at the same time</a> my solution should be working, right ?</p>