This is a very old question, But this came up first in my search results So other people with the same issue will probably come upon this page eventually.
Unlike what some others have said, you can in fact use MediaPlayer for small sounds without using a lot of memory. I'll put in a little modified snippit from my soundboard app to show you what I'm getting at.
private MediaPlayer mp;
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.your_layout);
mp = new MediaPlayer();
}
private void playSound(int soundID){
mp.reset();
AssetFileDescriptor sound = getResources().openRawResourceFd(soundID);
try {
mp.setDataSource(sound.getFileDescriptor(),sound.getStartOffset(),sound.getLength());
mp.prepare();
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
mp.start();
}
with the way I set it up, you create on MediaPlayer object that you reuse everytime you play a sound so that you don't use up too much space.
You call .reset() instead of .release() because .release() is only used if you are disposing of an object, however you want to keep your MediaPlayer Object.
You use an assetfiledescriptor to set a new soundfile for your mediaplayer to play instead of setting a new object to your mediaplayer address because that way you are creating new objects within the method that aren't being handled properly and you will eventually run into the same error as you described.
This is only one of many ways to use MediaPlayer but I personally think it is the most efficient if you are only using it for small sound applications. The only issue with it is that it is relatively restrictive in what you can accomplish, but that shouldn't be much of an issue if you are indeed using it for small sound applications.