Sound System

  • Thread starter Thread starter Waldo
  • Start date Start date
W

Waldo

Does anyone know of anything that I can run 20 speakers from and all have a
different sound coming out of them? I would like to plug a speaker into a
port and run just one sound from that speaker and then another speaker that
is plugged into a different port to play a different sound. I need something
that I can use for Halloween.
 
Does anyone know of anything that I can run 20 speakers from and all have a
different sound coming out of them? I would like to plug a speaker into a
port and run just one sound from that speaker and then another speaker that
is plugged into a different port to play a different sound. I need something
that I can use for Halloween.
Click to expand...

No WinXP unifies control of 20 different sound inputs and
20 different sound outputs. If the OP wanted to perform
20 steps each altering a single sound input to produce a
single sound output, this might be done by reiteration
(and enable saving the different output file after each
iteration, which might be helpful too.)
 
Looking more for something that i can use for a sound system for halloween
like a sound system server
 
Waldo said:
Looking more for something that i can use for a sound system for
halloween like a sound system server
Click to expand...

I can find some hardware, but I don't know what software goes best
with it.

http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/ProFire2626.html

Page 11 of the user manual, shows the internal connectivity.

http://www.m-audio.com/images/global/manuals/080528_PF2626_UG_EN01.pdf

It has 8 analog outputs and two ADAT optical channels. Each ADAT
carries eight channels. That gives a total of 24 channels.

These boxes are ADAT to analog, to make the remaining 16 analog
output signals. This is just to illustrate the concept. I haven't
seen a price for these. I expect more than one company makes these.

http://www.pacrad.com/soundpals/adat2.pdf

You connect to the ProFire via Firewire, and if the controlling
computer doesn't have a Firewire card, you can get a PCI Firewire
card for not a lot of money. But the ProFire, the two ADAT
boxes and the like, could easily cost a couple thousand.

*******

There is another concept. An alternate API for sound is ASIO.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_Stream_Input/Output

There is a piece of software, which can run on top of ordinary
sound cards that have WDM drivers, to make them ASIO devices.
"ASIO4All" is free for personal use.

http://tippach.business.t-online.de/asio4all/intro.html

In principle, you could have four 7.1 sound cards, and have
all of them run under ASIO4All. The problem then, is similar
to the first solution above. I still cannot find a software
player that mentions the ability to open multiple sound cards.
Apparently, the Steinberg SDK for ASIO, only includes the
ability to open a single sound card, but the concept does
not preclude opening multiple cards. It would require a
software developer, to do work over and above what is provided
in the Steinberg software. So if someone writes a music player,
or a plugin, to drive ASIO devices, and they use Steinberg code
as a base, and they're lazy, then the player may not be able to
blast channels all over the place.

So the ASIO4All path, might allow building a cheaper solution.
When you use four separate sound cards, their word clocks are
not aligned, so unlike the ProFire2626, it will be possible
for some channels to drift with respect to others, after
half an hour of usage. The ProFire would keep all the digital
samples frequency aligned. And that would be important for
special effects with your 20 speakers, such as having an
"apparition" appear to be "flying" from speaker to speaker.
It wouldn't take a lot of time domain error to ruin that.
Cheap consumer sound cards, don't appear to have word clock
inputs and outputs, that I can see. The idea would be,
one sound card would be master, and send a clock signal
to the other cards (at say 48KHz). Then, all the cards
could pump out the digital samples at exactly the same rate,
maintaining any time alignment you set in your audio editor.

The section here on "Digital Audio Workstation" or DAW,
gives the names of some software.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recording_studio

Maybe there is a newsgroup that specializes in recording
studios or DAWs ?

Even the 20 amplified speakers you plan to use, are going to
cost you a chunk of change. This project could end up costing
as much as a small foreign car :-)

Good luck,
Paul
 
Waldo said:
Looking more for something that i can use for a sound system for
halloween like a sound system server
Click to expand...

(Sorry for the repost - the other server is filtered out
by Microsoft...)

I can find some hardware, but I don't know what software goes best
with it.

http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/ProFire2626.html

Page 11 of the user manual, shows the internal connectivity.

http://www.m-audio.com/images/global/manuals/080528_PF2626_UG_EN01.pdf

It has 8 analog outputs and two ADAT optical channels. Each ADAT
carries eight channels. That gives a total of 24 channels.

These boxes are ADAT to analog, to make the remaining 16 analog
output signals. This is just to illustrate the concept. I haven't
seen a price for these. I expect more than one company makes these.

http://www.pacrad.com/soundpals/adat2.pdf

You connect to the ProFire via Firewire, and if the controlling
computer doesn't have a Firewire card, you can get a PCI Firewire
card for not a lot of money. But the ProFire, the two ADAT
boxes and the like, could easily cost a couple thousand.

*******

There is another concept. An alternate API for sound is ASIO.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_Stream_Input/Output

There is a piece of software, which can run on top of ordinary
sound cards that have WDM drivers, to make them ASIO devices.
"ASIO4All" is free for personal use.

http://tippach.business.t-online.de/asio4all/intro.html

In principle, you could have four 7.1 sound cards, and have
all of them run under ASIO4All. The problem then, is similar
to the first solution above. I still cannot find a software
player that mentions the ability to open multiple sound cards.
Apparently, the Steinberg SDK for ASIO, only includes the
ability to open a single sound card, but the concept does
not preclude opening multiple cards. It would require a
software developer, to do work over and above what is provided
in the Steinberg software. So if someone writes a music player,
or a plugin, to drive ASIO devices, and they use Steinberg code
as a base, and they're lazy, then the player may not be able to
blast channels all over the place.

So the ASIO4All path, might allow building a cheaper solution.
When you use four separate sound cards, their word clocks are
not aligned, so unlike the ProFire2626, it will be possible
for some channels to drift with respect to others, after
half an hour of usage. The ProFire would keep all the digital
samples frequency aligned. And that would be important for
special effects with your 20 speakers, such as having an
"apparition" appear to be "flying" from speaker to speaker.
It wouldn't take a lot of time domain error to ruin that.
Cheap consumer sound cards, don't appear to have word clock
inputs and outputs, that I can see. The idea would be,
one sound card would be master, and send a clock signal
to the other cards (at say 48KHz). Then, all the cards
could pump out the digital samples at exactly the same rate,
maintaining any time alignment you set in your audio editor.

The section here on "Digital Audio Workstation" or DAW,
gives the names of some software.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recording_studio

Maybe there is a newsgroup that specializes in recording
studios or DAWs ?

Even the 20 amplified speakers you plan to use, are going to
cost you a chunk of change. This project could end up costing
as much as a small foreign car :-)

Good luck,
Paul
 
Back
Top