title: Best approach for playing a single tone audio file?
body: <p>Can anyone tell me the best approach to playing single-tone, audio (.mp3) files in a Windows Phone 8 app? Think of a piano app, where each key would represent a button, and each button would play a different tone. </p>
  
  <p>I'm looking for the most efficient way to go about this - I've got 8 different buttons that need to play a different tone when tapped.</p>
  
  <p>I tried using the <code>MediaElement</code>:</p>
  
  <pre><code>MediaElement me;
  
  public MainPage()
  {
      InitializeComponent();
  
      me = new MediaElement();
      me.AutoPlay = false;
      me.Source = new Uri("/Sounds/Sound1.mp3", UriKind.Relative);
  
      btnPlay.Click += btnPlay_Click;
  
  }
  
  private void btnPlay_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
  {
      me.Play();
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But nothing happens, either in the emulator or on a device (testing w/ a Lumia 822). Am I doing something wrong here? It seems like it should be pretty simple. Or would using <code>MediaElement</code> even be the best thing to use for my scenario?</p>
  
  <p>Would this fall under the <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsphone/develop/hh202978%28v=vs.105%29.aspx" rel="nofollow">Background Audio</a> category? I've read through this example but it seems overkill for what I want to do.</p>
  
  <p>I've also read about using XNA's <code>SoundEffect</code> to do the job, but then I'd <a href="http://mnjoe.wordpress.com/2012/12/13/windows-phone-8-playing-sounds/" rel="nofollow">have to convert my .mp3 files to .wav</a> (which isn't necessarily a problem, but I'd rather not go through that if I don't need to).</p>
  
  <p>Can anyone tell me either what I'm doing wrong in my example above or guide me to a better solution for playing quick &lt;1s audio tones?</p>