PC Sofware, Need Help!!!

[kinser]

Hi all, havnt posted here in a while.

On to topic:
My friend's dad is opening a Mini Golf Club and we need a serious PA system, which im in-charge of finding prices and stors.

So basicly we will have between 6-12 PA speakers (about 2-4 speakers per section, since the place is got main 3 sections)
and we will have 3-6 PA amps (1-2 pre section depending on the amount of speakers we use).

Now, here is were i need help:
My friend's dad wants a diffrent music theme for each section, and wants the audio source to be from a PC... so we will buy a PC with a good sound card, but i dont know what software to use.

Basicly we will need a program that will play 3 tracks at the same time, when each track is directed to a diffrent output on the sound card and then to the amp's which drive the speakers in each section.

Did i explaine it well enough? (i hope i did lol)

Thanks,

David Resnik

 

[sivan_and]

You need 3 PCI based sound cards and three different media players create playlists with each media player and set each media player output to respective sound cards...and u have 3X stereo channels.

 

[jcx]

I wouldn't bet on most soundcard drivers supporting 3 boards in one machine

I assume a "7.1" soundcard is a better bet at the low price end - or you could try sneaking in the beginings of a good digital multiway source for yourself with something better (RME?)

for better advice try asking elsewhere

http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/pcaudio/bbs.html

http://www.productionforums.com/

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?act=idx

 

[johnthedoctor]

Does it have to be stereo?

If not, couldn't the 3 different mono music files be 'merged' into 3 channels for a 5.1 soundcard?

 

[kinser]

Thanks for the replys,

Amm, yeah it has to be stereo. because we might also have Stanton Final Scratch conected to it also.

Thanks,

David Resnik

 

[Dick West]

Will someone explain how to get 3 different sound cards working in one PC and how to get each one to work with its own copy of Windows Media Player? Is this possible? Which operating system to use and which version of Media Player?

Now, if separate cards is possible, I would recommend the Chaintech sound card. I just got one from NEWEGG.COM for $24 + shipping. It has great stereo output, either from its digital connection (toslink) or analog. Many recommend this card for great stereo sound at a low price and I agree.

But, how to get 3 cards to work independent of the other two? Also, I assume that their sound sources would be music pre-recorded to a hard drive, or can 3 different CD players work independently?

Interesting.............

 

[kinser]

If it was 3 cd players then there would be no problem, but its probbly gonna be mp3's on the HDD, also i dont think it is possible to run WMP 3 times at once.. operating system will be Windows XP and i would personaly prefer iTunes

also if it were to be playing off CD's i would just go pic up 3 Pioneer CDJ-100's (since we might also have a dj booth with 2xCDJ-1000 and a DJM-600 or DJM-909 mixer, and we could get big discounts).

Thanks,
Kinser

 

[kinser]

I just came up with an idea!!! no ideal but its better then nothing!


I use Native Instruments software - Traktor DJ Studio and Final Scratch.
and the new Traktor DJ Studio 3 has 4 decks and a 4 channle mixer. a while ago i wanted to try somthing with 2 decks and an external mixer, and you can assignee each deck to a seperate output. so i could use 3 decks with a 7.1 sound card!

What makes it not so ideal is its hard to use and complicated for you avrage person to use.

Thanks for all of you help guys! appreciated! if u have any suggestions they are more than welcome!

David Resnik

 

[lykkedk]

I think you should have a look at Linux, as your OS, with JACK http://jackit.sourceforge.net/
Together with ALSA http://www.alsa-project.org/

Might be interesting for you, and meight be your'e best solution. (Could be hard to get working thrugh) ;-)

 

[jleaman]

I think winamp will do this. You can run winamp and have multiple sound card's.

 

[kinser]

lykkedk, thanks for that info

But we will have to stick to Microsoft's OS becuase as i said befor we are using Final Scratch, and also Office XP, for dealing with financial stuff, and add's and so on.. but thansk anyway may be useful for the next project!

David Resnik

 

[jleaman]

lykkedk, thanks for that info

But we will have to stick to Microsoft's OS becuase as i said befor we are using Final Scratch, and also Office XP, for dealing with financial stuff, and add's and so on.. but thansk anyway may be useful for the next project!

David Resnik

I would not run financial stuff on the same machine you are going to use for the music. keep them separate.. Don't mix the 2 together.

 

[kinser]

think so to.. ill bring it up wene ill talk about all of this with the main person in this whole thing.

well, thnaks again, im off to sleep now (got skool tmrw)!

good night all!


David Resnik

 

[Schaef]

My thoughts on this include putting three sound cards into the machine and using either winamp or foobar for the media playback. I'm not sure how well multiple cards in a machine play together, but I also see major headaches trying to send different sources to different channels in a 5 or 7.1 setup as well.

With something like foorbar or winamp, you can specify the output to use, not to mention they run nicely with playlists and are easy to use.

Just my thoughts.

Oh, and I agree, finance goes on a separate computer, and there are other options to officexp. (OpenOffice immediately comes to mind) However, both foobar and winamp run fine under windows.