Computer Audio Processing (VxD, WDM and DirectX Audio)

[Ignite]

I'm currently working with creating software that would provide a method of using a computer as nearly any piece of audio hardware aside from amplifiers and speakers. Namely crossovers, equalizers and DSPs. With a well-designed system one could tune performance and counter imperfections in sound output, just as they could utilize thier computer as a digital active crossover network of any parameters. I was toying with how the software could be integraded into a computer. Of course, the most streamlined approach is creating a virtual device driver or equivalent DirectX Audio or WDM driver that proccessed and outputted waveform information to actual audio devices. However, I quickly noticed that using DirectX or Windows MM API from within a driver is in most situations extremely difficult (however I'm not quite sure about DirectX Audio / DirectSound). I then considered the alternative of having some sort of API and a series of plugins for audio programs, which seems much more cumbersome. The other alternative is writing a simple driver that simply updates a memory buffer with the waveform data, and an accompanying program that reads the buffer, processes and outputs it. However, I have little experience in this sort of driver development, so it will not be an easy task to complete. If anybody has comments / ideas / alternatives / suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

 

[Petter]

DirectX chain

Can you chain DirectX plugins together and host them in Cool-edit or Soundforge?

I have seen some directX plugins that do frequency compensation (relatively simple filters), but never figured out how to put them together.

Nuendo or perhaps better still Cubase VST24 might be a better hosting environment.

Then all you have to do is test, + write the missing plugins (such as phase compensation?)

This is so cool!

Petter