I could not find audiotrek prodigy 7.1, only prodigy 192
http://www.audiotrak.net/prodigy192.htm
will this card do ?
what is the diference betwin those two ? ( 7.1 and 192 )
http://www.audiotrak.net/prodigy192.htm
will this card do ?
what is the diference betwin those two ? ( 7.1 and 192 )
seppstefano said:
Yes, I believe USB will not present any problems, and benefits of driving DAC directly from I2S, avoiding S/PDIF altogether, apparently do yield sonic benefits. Also, this is simple and cheap (cheapest?) way to provide multiple digital outputs, if all we're interested in is bit-perfect digital output from card. This does however limit (currently) output to 44.1/48KHz, I believe?
seppstefano said:
Well, 4 USB ports are standard today on typical motherboard. And if cards support ASIO theoretically this should work using sw & plugins described in this thread, exactly in same way. I'm more inclined to Windows solution, I would like to use this PC as frontend / user interface, and I have more experience with Windows. But Linux could work fine (actually I like BruteFIR much more, it is very fast, allowing usage of old/slow PC, which may be completely passively cooled [no fans at all]).
Cheers,
Dutch
seppstefano said:
Correct, that's a very good point. For this purpose USB card with multiple inputs/outputs could be used, or any of the better PCI sound cards (Audiotrak, ESI, Terratec etc.) which provide, for example, one analog and one digital input of reasonable quality. But this does assume that such analog/digital input is secondary in importance to digital content on PC, as it will be somewhat inferior.
Cheers,
Dutch
dambrus said:
Hi Dutch,
... hmmm, I'm not willing to open a debate here, but I've listened to properly setup analogue systems and, so to say, would like to add the benefits of such a source to my ambitious project of digital processing (DRC) and x-over...
Still throwing different options.... :mumble:
Stefano
seppstefano said:
Sure, I understand... Well, you can allways use something like Lynx and RME obviously, if you want the very best AD conversion. My quest is more oriented to affordable way to get multichannel I2S out of PC, and needless to say, I'm also throwing options around...
Cheers,
Dutch
I can confirm that the EMU cards work for the purposes originally outlined at the beginning of this thread by Shinobiwan with the caveat that this will depend on the number of Inputs/Outputs you require for your needs.
The heart of the system set out by Shinobiwan is the 'Console' program. This program is what you need to host the various VST plug-ins he recommended, or any alternatives you may wish to use.
To use 'Console' your sound card must support internal routing of audio signals, as has been mentioned in a number of posts. It isn't just a question of how many Inputs/Outputs the sound card has, rather it is this ability to control the routing of audio signals that matters. As far as I can tell the cards that support this tend to be those that were designed with musicians and others who want to create and manipulate audio on their PC's, in mind. The EMU's were designed with this in mind, which is why they support internal routing as needed for sequencing software.
The Echo Gina 3G you mentioned DarkOne, looks like it should work. I can only speak about the EMU cards though, since they are the only card of this kind I have any experience with.
I am very grateful to Shinowiban for starting this thread because I've been looking for something like 'Console' for a while now. When I read his initial post I did get the impression that it would cost me a small fortune to put this sort of solution together. As I learnt over the weekend, though, if your needs and means are a little more modest you can still achieve a lot with 'Console', a compatible sound card and a few VST plug-ins. You could then work up to a more elaborate, higher quality set-up later, if required.
On page 28 of the thread dwk123 pointed out that he'd tested an EMU card with "Console' and confirmed it worked. I will just add a few further comments on using it with the free Linear Phase Equalizer, pointed out by VIL and the SIR convolver plug-in.
Here are the steps I took to create a Linear phase XO between my Main Front left and right speakers and my Subwoofer for music played on the PC with Foobar 2k
- added a Wave Input strip to PatchMix
- added a ASIO 1/2 input strip
- added a ASIO 3/4 input strip
- added a Send to the Wave strip for ASIO in 1/2 (for the main speakers)
- added a Second Send to the Wave strip for ASIO in 3/4 (for the subwoofer)
- added a Send to the I/O card LR within the ASIO in 1/2 strip
- added a Send to the ADAT/Optical out (configured for S/PDIF) within the ASIO in 3/4 strip
I'm using the EMU 1212m which comes with a daughter card for analogue ins/outs. In this set-up I'm using the Analogue outs to feed the preamp/amp that drive my main speakers and the Optical S/PDIF out to the receiver which is feeding my Subwoofer.
Under Windows there are typically two main issues that can screw up the sound, as I understand it.
1/ Kmixer, which I believe gets applied whenever WAVE or Direct sound is used
2/ Sound cards which only support 48khz and automatically upsample 44.1 kHz to 48 kHz (badly)
The second problem is not an issue with EMU cards and I suspect won't be an issue with other cards that support sequencer software, as they will tend to also support native bit perfect 44.1 khz.
I believe that the first problem still exists though for any sound card when Wave out or Direct sound is used. I don't really understand the problem, I just know it's supposed to mangle the sound.
The workaround is to use either ASIO output or Kernel Streaming within your playback software, if you can.
I set Foobar to Kernel Streaming output and this shows up within the Wave input strip within Patchmix. I don't know if that means I'm avoiding the dreaded Kmixer or not. At least I feel better though
It seems that the output of the Wave input strip had to be muted otherwise it would just go directly to the physical outputs without being routed through Console.
Back in Console, when I selected the 'Audio' button and further selected 'ASIO' then 'Channel', I was able to see the mappings between the WAVE input strip and the physical outputs that were available via the additional two ASIO input strips.
After closing the Audio box I clicked on 'Func' and dragged out a 'Wave In' box to the main Console window. This represented my sound source coming from Foobar. The Box had two inputs and outputs representing the Left and Right channels.
Next I dragged out a 'Wave Out'. This also had Inputs and Outputs marked 1 and 2 which would represent my main speakers and additional I/O's marked 3 and 4 which would be used for my Subwoofer.
Having previously installed the free LPEQ VST plug-in that Vil pointed out, into the VST plug-ins folder within the 'Console' Folder in 'Program files', I could click on the 'Plug-in' button and it would show up as one of the VST plug-ins. If you add a new VST plug-in while 'Console' is running you may need to hit the 'Scan' button for 'Console' to find it.
I dragged out two instances of the LPEQ plug-in, so that I had one box that would be the high pass XO for my main speakers and another for the low pass XO for the Subwoofer.
I took some screen shots, though unfortunately I didn't have time to transfer them to my office computer before I left this morning. I'll try to include them later.
I double clicked on the first LPEQ box. Now here is where I could still use some advice. Having no experience of creating Linear Phase Crossovers, I did what seemed to me the most obvious thing, as follows:
I started to roll off the Main speakers from 85hz downwards staritng with -1.5db at 85hz and basically doubling that until by the time I got to 38hz they were at the minimum -12db setting.
I then double clicked on the second LPEQ box representing the subwoofer XO and basically did the reverse. I set everything above 85hz to -12db then from 85hz down I increased each frequency by about 1.5 db until I reached the first frequency that became flat and set the remaining frequences to flat from that point on down.
Please don't laugh
I really am a noob at this and any advice will be much appreciated.
I linked the outputs 1 and 2 from the 'Wave in box'(Foobar output) to both the 1 and 2 inputs of the LPEQ box for the High Pass XO and the 1 and 2 inputs of the LPEQ box for the Low Pass EQ. Then I linked the 1 and 2 outputs from the Main LPEQ box to inputs 1 and 2 of the 'Wave out box' and the outputs 1 and 2 of the Sub LPEQ box to inputs 3 and 4 of the 'Wave Out' box.
How did it sound? Basically I could hear more detail and less muddying from the mains once they were free of trying to reproduce so much Bass. At the same time they seemed a bit thin and bright sounding. I believe the sub blended in better than when just using the 85hz crossover built into the receiver.
Next I set up Patchmix so that I could link in an External Analogue source. This was a bit more involved in Patchmix; but the same principles apply.
I repeated all of this for a 96 kHz sessions for both external and PC sound sources.
Finally I was able to add boxes within Console for the Sir plug-in. I loaded this plug-in with an Impulse Response file created using Denis Sbragions' DRC program, for room correction. I used the 44.1 kHz file for the 44.1 kHz session and an upsampled version of this for the 96 kHz sessions.
I purchased a Console license since I wanted to save presets of all my work.
Apologies if this has been too long. I wanted to Illustrate how much could be done with Console using my existing sound card, EMU1212m and Free VST plug-ins and other software.
Since it rained all weekend, it was probably a good time to get started with all this.
Geoff
The heart of the system set out by Shinobiwan is the 'Console' program. This program is what you need to host the various VST plug-ins he recommended, or any alternatives you may wish to use.
To use 'Console' your sound card must support internal routing of audio signals, as has been mentioned in a number of posts. It isn't just a question of how many Inputs/Outputs the sound card has, rather it is this ability to control the routing of audio signals that matters. As far as I can tell the cards that support this tend to be those that were designed with musicians and others who want to create and manipulate audio on their PC's, in mind. The EMU's were designed with this in mind, which is why they support internal routing as needed for sequencing software.
The Echo Gina 3G you mentioned DarkOne, looks like it should work. I can only speak about the EMU cards though, since they are the only card of this kind I have any experience with.
I am very grateful to Shinowiban for starting this thread because I've been looking for something like 'Console' for a while now. When I read his initial post I did get the impression that it would cost me a small fortune to put this sort of solution together. As I learnt over the weekend, though, if your needs and means are a little more modest you can still achieve a lot with 'Console', a compatible sound card and a few VST plug-ins. You could then work up to a more elaborate, higher quality set-up later, if required.
On page 28 of the thread dwk123 pointed out that he'd tested an EMU card with "Console' and confirmed it worked. I will just add a few further comments on using it with the free Linear Phase Equalizer, pointed out by VIL and the SIR convolver plug-in.
Here are the steps I took to create a Linear phase XO between my Main Front left and right speakers and my Subwoofer for music played on the PC with Foobar 2k
- added a Wave Input strip to PatchMix
- added a ASIO 1/2 input strip
- added a ASIO 3/4 input strip
- added a Send to the Wave strip for ASIO in 1/2 (for the main speakers)
- added a Second Send to the Wave strip for ASIO in 3/4 (for the subwoofer)
- added a Send to the I/O card LR within the ASIO in 1/2 strip
- added a Send to the ADAT/Optical out (configured for S/PDIF) within the ASIO in 3/4 strip
I'm using the EMU 1212m which comes with a daughter card for analogue ins/outs. In this set-up I'm using the Analogue outs to feed the preamp/amp that drive my main speakers and the Optical S/PDIF out to the receiver which is feeding my Subwoofer.
Under Windows there are typically two main issues that can screw up the sound, as I understand it.
1/ Kmixer, which I believe gets applied whenever WAVE or Direct sound is used
2/ Sound cards which only support 48khz and automatically upsample 44.1 kHz to 48 kHz (badly)
The second problem is not an issue with EMU cards and I suspect won't be an issue with other cards that support sequencer software, as they will tend to also support native bit perfect 44.1 khz.
I believe that the first problem still exists though for any sound card when Wave out or Direct sound is used. I don't really understand the problem, I just know it's supposed to mangle the sound.
The workaround is to use either ASIO output or Kernel Streaming within your playback software, if you can.
I set Foobar to Kernel Streaming output and this shows up within the Wave input strip within Patchmix. I don't know if that means I'm avoiding the dreaded Kmixer or not. At least I feel better though
It seems that the output of the Wave input strip had to be muted otherwise it would just go directly to the physical outputs without being routed through Console.
Back in Console, when I selected the 'Audio' button and further selected 'ASIO' then 'Channel', I was able to see the mappings between the WAVE input strip and the physical outputs that were available via the additional two ASIO input strips.
After closing the Audio box I clicked on 'Func' and dragged out a 'Wave In' box to the main Console window. This represented my sound source coming from Foobar. The Box had two inputs and outputs representing the Left and Right channels.
Next I dragged out a 'Wave Out'. This also had Inputs and Outputs marked 1 and 2 which would represent my main speakers and additional I/O's marked 3 and 4 which would be used for my Subwoofer.
Having previously installed the free LPEQ VST plug-in that Vil pointed out, into the VST plug-ins folder within the 'Console' Folder in 'Program files', I could click on the 'Plug-in' button and it would show up as one of the VST plug-ins. If you add a new VST plug-in while 'Console' is running you may need to hit the 'Scan' button for 'Console' to find it.
I dragged out two instances of the LPEQ plug-in, so that I had one box that would be the high pass XO for my main speakers and another for the low pass XO for the Subwoofer.
I took some screen shots, though unfortunately I didn't have time to transfer them to my office computer before I left this morning. I'll try to include them later.
I double clicked on the first LPEQ box. Now here is where I could still use some advice. Having no experience of creating Linear Phase Crossovers, I did what seemed to me the most obvious thing, as follows:
I started to roll off the Main speakers from 85hz downwards staritng with -1.5db at 85hz and basically doubling that until by the time I got to 38hz they were at the minimum -12db setting.
I then double clicked on the second LPEQ box representing the subwoofer XO and basically did the reverse. I set everything above 85hz to -12db then from 85hz down I increased each frequency by about 1.5 db until I reached the first frequency that became flat and set the remaining frequences to flat from that point on down.
Please don't laugh
I really am a noob at this and any advice will be much appreciated.I linked the outputs 1 and 2 from the 'Wave in box'(Foobar output) to both the 1 and 2 inputs of the LPEQ box for the High Pass XO and the 1 and 2 inputs of the LPEQ box for the Low Pass EQ. Then I linked the 1 and 2 outputs from the Main LPEQ box to inputs 1 and 2 of the 'Wave out box' and the outputs 1 and 2 of the Sub LPEQ box to inputs 3 and 4 of the 'Wave Out' box.
How did it sound? Basically I could hear more detail and less muddying from the mains once they were free of trying to reproduce so much Bass. At the same time they seemed a bit thin and bright sounding. I believe the sub blended in better than when just using the 85hz crossover built into the receiver.
Next I set up Patchmix so that I could link in an External Analogue source. This was a bit more involved in Patchmix; but the same principles apply.
I repeated all of this for a 96 kHz sessions for both external and PC sound sources.
Finally I was able to add boxes within Console for the Sir plug-in. I loaded this plug-in with an Impulse Response file created using Denis Sbragions' DRC program, for room correction. I used the 44.1 kHz file for the 44.1 kHz session and an upsampled version of this for the 96 kHz sessions.
I purchased a Console license since I wanted to save presets of all my work.
Apologies if this has been too long. I wanted to Illustrate how much could be done with Console using my existing sound card, EMU1212m and Free VST plug-ins and other software.
Since it rained all weekend, it was probably a good time to get started with all this.
Geoff
geofstro said:
Wow Geoff! Now that post was a monster.
Now you've got me wondering about the whole Wave/ASIO/KSIO/DirectSound and kmixer thing again.
I was going to post here that you shouldn't be worried about kmixer wrecking stuff whether it be wave or ASIO etc. because its your soundcard drivers that bypass this....
....but before I posted I thought I'd make doubley sure and playaround to see if window mixer had any effect on the playback levels. Sure enough Wave and DirectSound are both affected by the user controlled WAVE output in window mixer. So it looks like you really do have to use ASIO.
Or maybe I'm missing something?
You can download the ASIO plugs for foobar and winamp5 here:
http://otachan.com/
Please do let me know if you figure out how to decompress the files. It seems that both winrar and winace refuse to recognise the type when I try to open the archieves. So I'm stuck with an old old version of the same plugin that occasionally selects the wrong sample rate when playing back 44 and 48Khz media.
This is a good guide for Foobar2000 ASIO
http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/pcaudio/messages/9649.html
You need 7zip to extract the ASIO for Foobar2000 files
http://www.7-zip.org/
http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/pcaudio/messages/9649.html
You need 7zip to extract the ASIO for Foobar2000 files
http://www.7-zip.org/
mefistofelez,
The EMU 1212M card has 6 different outputs.
Two of those are the Analogue outputs from the Daughter I/O card
Two will be the coaxial S/PDIF outs
The remaining two will be the ADAT/Optical outs which can also be configured for S/PDIF
I use analogue for the main L/R front speakers because in my set-up this is the only way I can take advantage of 192khz sampling rate when I wish to. These go to my two channel pre-amp, which in turn feeds a separate two channel power amp.
I send the two Optical S/PDIF outs to a separate Receiver for driving the Subwoofer only.
Although this card has enough physical outputs to support 6 channels it cannot be used for a multichannel 5.1 home theatre set-up The reason is that it doesn't support Windows WDM drivers for Multi-Channel playback. This means you will only ever see a Two Channel Wave L/R Input Strip showing up in the Patchmix Signal Routing software. This is in addition to the separate L + R Strip for External Analogue inputs to the I/O Daughter card.
If I want to transition to a true multichannel system and take advatage of XO's and Room correction for all channels I'm going to have to upgrade to something like the RME Fireface recommended by Shinowiban.
Hope it helps
Geoff
The EMU 1212M card has 6 different outputs.
Two of those are the Analogue outputs from the Daughter I/O card
Two will be the coaxial S/PDIF outs
The remaining two will be the ADAT/Optical outs which can also be configured for S/PDIF
I use analogue for the main L/R front speakers because in my set-up this is the only way I can take advantage of 192khz sampling rate when I wish to. These go to my two channel pre-amp, which in turn feeds a separate two channel power amp.
I send the two Optical S/PDIF outs to a separate Receiver for driving the Subwoofer only.
Although this card has enough physical outputs to support 6 channels it cannot be used for a multichannel 5.1 home theatre set-up The reason is that it doesn't support Windows WDM drivers for Multi-Channel playback. This means you will only ever see a Two Channel Wave L/R Input Strip showing up in the Patchmix Signal Routing software. This is in addition to the separate L + R Strip for External Analogue inputs to the I/O Daughter card.
If I want to transition to a true multichannel system and take advatage of XO's and Room correction for all channels I'm going to have to upgrade to something like the RME Fireface recommended by Shinowiban.
Hope it helps
Geoff
Shinowiban,
Glad you got the answer for unzipping the asio.dll for Foobar. I've been using it for so long I forgot how I unzipped mine.
Unfortunately though, due to a limitation of the EMU card, the ASIO output from Foobar will not show up in an input strip within the EMU Patchmix software. Only the WAVE strips show up as input. I was surprised to find though, that when I select Kernel Streaming as output in Foobar, this output does show up in Patchmix; but it shows up in the Wave input strip. I have no idea as to whether this means I'm bypassing the dreaded kmixer or not. I think I am, since to me it sounds better than selecting Wave output in Foobar, even though they both show up in the same input strip.
Any feedback on my first attempt at "crafting" Linear Phase Crossovers will be much appreciated.
Once I'm happy that I've created a high quality XO using the free LPEQ plug-in I'll then need to decide whether the Waves Plug-in you originally recommended is likely to bring any further improvements, especially considering its high price and lack of a demo version.
Geoff
Glad you got the answer for unzipping the asio.dll for Foobar. I've been using it for so long I forgot how I unzipped mine.
Unfortunately though, due to a limitation of the EMU card, the ASIO output from Foobar will not show up in an input strip within the EMU Patchmix software. Only the WAVE strips show up as input. I was surprised to find though, that when I select Kernel Streaming as output in Foobar, this output does show up in Patchmix; but it shows up in the Wave input strip. I have no idea as to whether this means I'm bypassing the dreaded kmixer or not. I think I am, since to me it sounds better than selecting Wave output in Foobar, even though they both show up in the same input strip.
Any feedback on my first attempt at "crafting" Linear Phase Crossovers will be much appreciated.
Once I'm happy that I've created a high quality XO using the free LPEQ plug-in I'll then need to decide whether the Waves Plug-in you originally recommended is likely to bring any further improvements, especially considering its high price and lack of a demo version.
Geoff
mefistofelez,
I've just checked the EMU forum site and it seems that their latest drivers do support multi-channel WDM after all, in case you were thinking of using EMU or already have one. I think this only applies to the 1820 version with the separate Audio Dock. I will try it on my 1220m at the weekend though.
Hope it helps.
Details here:
http://www.productionforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=4204&postorder=asc&highlight=project&start=45
Geoff
I've just checked the EMU forum site and it seems that their latest drivers do support multi-channel WDM after all, in case you were thinking of using EMU or already have one. I think this only applies to the 1820 version with the separate Audio Dock. I will try it on my 1220m at the weekend though.
Hope it helps.
Details here:
http://www.productionforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=4204&postorder=asc&highlight=project&start=45
Geoff
geofstro said:
Hi Geoff,
Do you have an option called 'ASIO Direct Monitoring' or similar within the patchmix software?
If so you should be able to see the ASIO streams on the playback channels within patchmix. This is how the Lynx and RME cards work.
Also please email me and we'll talk about Waves LineEQ.
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