[ASIO] Combinnig multiple cards

CraziFuzzy

Let me start be saying that I love KX. It has been so integral to my little home studio for over year now. I currently have an Audigy and a Live working together to get 8 discrete inputs from an external Mic-Preamp. This has fulfiled my needs for quite some time, but I am looking to expand now. I want more channels, but I don't want to move away from kx's inherant cost effectiveness. I would like to add two more creative cards to get 8 more inputs (or maybe splurge and buy some external ADC's and just use the cards I have) to total 16 channels, but I know that currently kx displays differnt cards as different ASIO sources, which of course cannot be used together in Sonar (or any other ASIO app). I think I can get this all working with ASIO4All, but it is hardly the most elegant solution.

I have read somewhere (don't think it was here though) about people tying the clocks of the two cards to just one of the card's crystals, which would eliminate the sync issues (as long as they are cards that use the same clock freq, like same models). The only feature needed would be some sort of a bridge that would let me stack all the inputs into a single ASIO interface. Is this a feature that kx's architecture would allow? If not, has anyone heard of some sort of third party ASIO bridge driver that could fill this role? Something simple that could just access ASIO-A's 1-8, and ASIO-B's 1-8 and show them as ASIOBridge 1-16? Obviosly, this would have to depend on the cards being synced together in hardware to give adequate results, but it doens't seem like it would be TOO hard to implement.

Tril

By using Stream Boy (http://www.elevayta.net/product10.htm) , you can stream audio between two hosts. I never used it myself but from reading the description, it seems that you could load two hosts, load two different ASIO drivers and transfer the tracks with the plugin from one host to the other.

CraziFuzzy

I saw Stream Boy, and though I have't tried it, it appears it works at the VST level, which would require quite a bit of setup in Sonar, and I would imagine would also require a seperate ASIO program that supports VST to be run, to access the second host and send the streams to the StreamBoy VST's. It seams ASIO4All would be better for this, since it at elast would all work from withing one instance of Sonar, I'm just unsure of the latency. Guess I'll just have to check it out.

Doug W

Do both of your cards have the Creative Bay drives? I ask because with my setup of 2 Audigy cards, I have 8 Mono inputs but with no External bay drives.

The method used here is hardware based, using a HOST / CLIENT card setup. Each analog stereo pair input from CLIENT cards is tied to the HOST via an S/PDIF cable.

Different models of SBLives / Audigy cards have a multiple pin connector called AUD_EXT / SPDIF_EXT / AD_EXT and another 5 pin connector used by the SB0220 I think. The pinouts are shown here:
Soundblaster Live!, Audigy 1/2 and X-Fi* Pinouts

It is the same connector used for the LiveDrive or Audigy Bay Drive for the ribbon cable.

Using this method the inputs for each CLIENT card are routed to the HOST card to be one of the 16 ASIO inputs of the HOST card-so this solves sync problems.

Here is my setup
I use the AUX_IN for both of my Audigy cards which is connected to a stereo analog input. Both cards now have 4 MONO inputs. I use 2 S/PDIF outs from the Audigy 2 card AD_EXT connector. They go to the CD_SPDIF connector and pins 15, 16 on the Audigy 1 card.

This leaves me with one spare S/PDIF input (pins 5, 6) on the Audigy 1 card, so I could potentially have 10 analog inputs as far as I understand it.

The only inputs/outputs that I mess with on the AUD_EXT / AD_EXT connectors are the S/PDIF ins and outs. I don't know what some of the other ones are for and I don't know if they could be utilized also to get more than 10 ASIO inputs appearing at one card. For instance, I have no idea what these 2 pins are for:
23 GPI0 Digital Input (GP Input 0; Reserved)
24 GPI1 Digital Input, (GP Input 1; Reserved)

Maybe someone else could chime in here and explain how to obtain more than 10 inputs. I could stick a spare SBLive card in my recording computer and get the 2 more inputs but I haven't been using more than 4 inputs at a time for recording anyway. I had 3 SBLives in a computer before. At one point Win 98SE got confused and started switching around the IRQs after each boot up and spent a lot of time redecting the cards so I removed one of the cards. A few people up here have had 4 Creative cards in the same computer but I don't know how much luck they had.

CraziFuzzy

Currently, I am already using the Audigy card as my ASIO card, with the Live! only being in there as an A/D converter. If I recall correctly, I am using the Line-in on the live! for 2 channels, and the Live!Drive as a second A/D converter. I have a simple DSP setup on the Live! that routes these signals to the front and rear digital outs. Those digital outs are connectd to the CD_SPDIF and AUD_EXT-SPDIF0 on the Audigy. I then am also using the Line-in and the CD_IN on the Audigy for four more channels. This brings me up to 8 channels, which is OK, but I want more. I would prefer to build a couple of A/D converters and be able to actually USE both cards (or, more accurately, ditch the Live! for a second Audigy), in which case I should be able to climb it up to 16 channels, but there is no reasonable way to get this into Sonar from both cards. THAT is what I am asking for. If I have two cards of the same model, and I electrically tie the clocks of the cards together, I should be able to record from both without them getting out of sync (which is the problem when using multiple cards). Unfortunately, theer is lacking a software solution to do this, as Sonar assumes that different ASIO drivers couldn't possibly be in sync with each other, so it only lets you use one at a time. This is why I am proposing an extra layer to kx that would allow combining ASIO streams from multiple kx DSP's into a common ASIO interface. I understand that this should be feasable, but lack the coding skills to do this myself, I have looked at the ASIO SDK, but C++ scares me.

jiiteepee

Even Live! Drive has ADC on it's own, if you don't/can't use native ASIO w/ this card, you can set only one source at once for input (-2). If you can fix this w/ routing capability of kX then you propably can get more than just one source into use.

Arent those CD_IN and Line-In on Audigy mixed? (both uses the AnalogMix() port (original drivers) which means you can't record discrete signal from those into separate tracks (-2)). If you can set these two as separate sources w/ kX drivers then it's not mixed and you get four channels into use.

If you start using the Asio4All, it'll drop your inputs to max Two because of, you need to select the recording source through "surround mixer"/"windows recording controls" then (there is no more than one source selectable at once). If Asio4All works w/ kX drivers differently then it's maybe showing only those same I/Os you get w/ native kX ASIO.

Behringer ADA8000 (~ $300US) + E-MU 1212M (~$100US) could give you
- 8 channels w/ mic-preamps (through ADAT) +
- 2 analog mono channels +
- one stereo S/PDIF channel
w/ quality boost you can't even imagine yet.

w/ 2 x Behringer ADA8000 + RME HDSP 9652 (~$500US) you can get all those 16 Inputs (+ option for one more ADA8000 addon) w/ really high quality.
or
2 x Behringsr ADA8000 + 2xMARIAN MARC A (2x ~$130US)

Sure there are some other devices/combinations you could use for total 16 channels but w/ your present cards it's not possible.


BTW, there are also ASIO/VST SDKs for Delphi available @ http://sourceforge.net/projects/delphiasiovst/

jiitee

Maddogg6

With my card - (because it has the AC97-2 - aka 'extra codec') - I can use 2 stereo/4 mono discrete ac97 based inputs
Which are :
Line in; Aux in, CD in, Mic in (mono only), TAD in (mono only - not supported with ProFX tho)

So - I can choose 2 of the 4 above 'discretely' - if I use the latest version of ProFX/ADC

CraziFuzzy

That is what I am doing as well. Using the ProFX ADC plugin, you can choose any two of the listed analog inputs. That, combined with the 2 spdif inputs, gives me my total 4 stereo channels on the Audigy.

I'm not sure, but I think KX exposes more than just one WDM device to windows, in which case, it may be possible to use ASIO4ALL and get considerable more channels from different cards... not sure on the latency or sync reliability of this solution, and i am not in th studio to try it out.

Maddogg6

KX exposes multiple OUTPUT but only 2 Inputs - BUT 1 is the Wave HQ and the other is Wave 0/1 - AFAIK - cannot be used at the same time.

CraziFuzzy

Sounds like something that could be added ti the todo list. Either add an ASIO bridge, or multiple WDM inputs, so ASIO4ALL can be used. Either would be great!

2minikan

Hello everyone, I think this post may be addressing my question indirectly. Is there a way to route multiple channels into one card for processing and then to another card for outputing to my Amplifiers.
What I am trying to do is use an Audigy on KX drivers to manipulate each of eight channels coming from my media players but the I want to use my Meridian to output to my amps.

Doug W

You could use a card to apply effects to separate channels. With an Audigy card (with no external bay thingy), you would have a max of 4 mono analog inputs. On the Audigy 1 cards you have 3 more S/PDIF inputs that you can use if you have S/PDIF outs from your other sources;

1. CD_SPDIF input
2. GP_SPDIFIN1 on AUD_EXT connector pins 15, 16
3. GP_SPDIFIN#2 on AUD_EXT connector pins 6, 5

So you do have the potential of 10 Mono channels you could mess with on the Audigy card.

I don't know what the "Meridian" is you are talking about and it is not clear to me what the 8 media players are that you are talking about - coud you clarify these thingamajigs?

Maddogg6

I believe its a newer sound card model/brand... So I think he wants to use software to route audio from one card to another... now where did I post that one link I found for 'Virtual Audio Cable' ?? Well a forum search here maybe
Oh here it is..
http://nrcde.ru/music/software/eng/vac.html

But Dougs idea is much better IMHO - thats if the meridian has the spdif in and out - so you can use the Audigy as an 'effects loop' of sorts... Much less latency and will do what *I think* he wants.. ??

edit: Dougs way is best for ASIO - the link to the software would be best if ASIO is not possible... as its WDM only.
My editorial on dougs way is different but more addressing what Im thinking the OP is trying to accomplish

2minikan

Thank you both, the virtual audio cable seems to be what I am looking for. Doug W, thank you, I should have specified I want to use this for my HTPC. Again thank you both.

JGSF

But, how about the pins that correspond to the aux2 and line in/mic 2 (drive bay)? Aren't they "digital inputs" as well?

Can't those pins be used as digital inputs as well or am I making a mess?

Doug W

As far as I know, that is it for SPDIF inputs at the AUD_EXT connector. Someone correct me if I am wrong.

JGSF

So that makes 4 usable spdif input pins (CD spdif, spdif in, aux2, lin in/mic2)?

dj_stick

aux2 and line.mic2 are not spdif, they are I2S, and require a converter circuit

check www.electricstart.de for schematics of one

JGSF

Oh... got it...

gugusse

Here are the instructions: http://quicktoots.linuxaudio.org/toots/el-cheapo/