Carputer equipment discussion

[xencloud]

www.zalmanusa.com

good site for low noise solutions for cooling, etc.....thanks for the suggestion azzurro......

Those dual core pentium M's (Yonah) and Turion 64's look very promising, both being released very soon....can't wait to see the price, lol

Can these console apps be run on Windows XP 64? Or are any current programs compatible with that OS? I'm kinda foggy as to how to utilize 64 bit processing power for this project right now.......

[lextasy623]

I tried reading this and its like im back in french class, i dont understand a word!









Good luck with whatever you decide, im sure it will be a sick setup

[xencloud]

Yeah, I'm learning a lot as I go along too!

It takes a lot of reading....this is total mix of two things I love to mess with...audio and computers.....the issues I'm trying to work out are special requirements needed to run a computer efficiently in a car environment.....

Back to the thread:

I know I had covered laptops at one time, and vlad_a had mentioned something about needing a ground wire, and azzurro, you mentioned p/s problems.

I was looking through the mp3.com forums and it looks like people are working through a lot of the problems in p/s startup and shutdown. Of course, running an internal sound card would be impossible I guess.....that's the biggest hangup with that....these console sound processing programs don't run on external usb soundcards (at least I don't think they do) Can anyone confirm that?

[azzurro]

Zalman's stuff is great. Some of their stuff is really, really expensive.

64 bit is not an advantage at the moment. I believe that Sonar is now 64 bit, but I don't know of any other 64-bit audio apps.

You need to wait for more 64 bit programs before this will be useful.

You get to use extra RAM, will see some performance advantages (64 bit algorithms on a 64 bit processor may be faster than a 32 bit version on a 32 bit processor), and will hear some very likely inaudible sound quality improvements.

But realistically, it may be years before we start realizing these advantages.

Another great link: http://www.kvraudio.com

Great community. Everything you could possibly want to know about computer-based music production (which can easily be adapted to audio processing).

[azzurro]

Originally Posted by xencloud

Of course, running an internal sound card would be impossible I guess.....that's the biggest hangup with that....these console sound processing programs don't run on external usb soundcards (at least I don't think they do) Can anyone confirm that?

You could definitely run these applications (console + all those plug-ins) on an external sound card.

I would recommend M-Audio's product line because they are a lot less expensive than other pro audio cards, and they are very high quality. They have some great external sound cards. Their Audiophile line is great, and you get tons of in's and out's.

All that you need to look for is a card with ASIO drivers.

[xencloud]

So let's recap the laptop problems, because I'd still prefer to do that IF possible, why not keep it mobile?

1)power on/off issues: These are being worked out as we type on mp3.com forums......

2)external soundcard could be used

What other problems would have to be overcome?

[xencloud]

Also, just got an update on the soundcard situation as to what will work with that console program and all of these plugins:

"Won't work with anything other than RME 'Hammerfall' DSP based cards, Lynx TWO B or AudioTrak 'Envy24' based cards. The reason is because you need both multiclient and internal loopback functions."

He also mentioned the RME Fireface for an external solution, but watch out when you're buying a soundcard for this, it needs to be compatible!

[xencloud]

So I've been told by the guys who are doing this:

Audiotrak Prodigy 7.1LT is the only cheaper soundcard they know works, and it only offers 8 channel processing with no expandability for more channels. He said RME and Lynx cards are the only ones that will give you that number of channels, and the higher end M-Audio cards are questionable/unknown at this time.........

[azzurro]

Well... I'm really, really confused.

You aren't routing anything "back into" itself, so I couldn't figure out why you would need a card that can do internal routing.

You're taking an audio file on your computer, running it through multiple instances of a linear phase EQ (one for each channel) responsible for the XO functionality, each of which is connected to another EQ doing DRC, and then into a delay plugin for TA.

Now, tuning this stuff takes some skill, but simply connecting this stuff is not a big deal.

I know for a fact that I can easily run all of those plugins, on a lower end card, and do the EXACT same thing, if I loaded a sound, or a full song for that matter, into a software sampler.

Then I see posts like this:

The "internal routing" is what allows you to take standard windows "WDM" output and re-route it as input for your ASIO software. You need this feature in order to process sound generated inside the PC.

I don't see how this is any different. I must be missing something.

I'm going to do some digging.

Edit: I've been thinking and I can see why this is the case. I still think that there has to be a way.

[xencloud]

I don't know the specifics, but the guy (a very knowledgable guy soundcard guy I might add) who has done this said it has to do with the console software ITSELF being designed on cards that have these features. It just so happens that high end audiophile cards are just about the only ones that can properly run the software.

I think the card should also have "wordclock" (not sure what that is exactly).

That RME external card is $1400, so no-go for me!

The cheapest solution I've found so far to run 10 channels is one of the RME cards with the expansion ports, which still will run $600. I have one more source I can use to verify this soundcard info, I'll update when I know the answer!

[azzurro]

In response to your PM, this is the source of confusion

Wordclocks are for synchronization. If you start adding a bunch of cards for a bunch of extra I/O, I would think that you would need to synchronize them somehow, although I don't have any experience with more complicated setups.

Console itself was designed for music production. If you are composing entirely using your PC (i.e. don't need the inputs), you gain nothing by having a high end card. The processor itself does all of the processing. Now, whether you can hear the difference is another matter, but the sound waves that are generated will be identical, whether you are running a $30 card or a $2000 card. (After that, there is a D/A conversion which will influence the sound that you actually *hear*.)

I am 99 percent sure that I could play with Console right now and setup the exact same XO/DRC/TA system and it would work perfectly fine, provided that I use some sort of sampler instrument to feed as my input. The only issue is taking any WDM output, as opposed to my sampler example, and feeding it in. This is where the specific way that Console is implemented may be problematic.

Using the kX drivers, can't you apply FX to the output directly? This would do the exact same thing as the elaborate Console project. If you use the same plugins, sound quality should be very similar.

(One thing about kX... I'm not sure if Creative has cards with enough outputs.)

Also... how are you pulling 10 channels? For your 3 ways, are you not going to be using the XOs that they come with? Or do they not come with XOs at all?

[xencloud]

hmmmm interesting......

For my 3-way setup, I do not have passive crossovers. I am buying individual drivers that match up, and I will totally tune the system myself.

Just to include some good links for everyone, here's an alternative for software, you can probably use lower end cards for this, but not as many channels as I would like:

KX Project Driver:

http://kxproject.lugosoft.com/index.php?skip=1

KX Room Correction thread:

http://www.driverheaven.net/showthread.php?t=66801

RoomEQWizard ! :

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/john.mulcahy/roomeq/

and finally, "THE JACKPOT", a free console like download that doesn't require tons of processing supposedly, and does everything the others do too, including room correction in a easy to use app! Someone try this out! :

http://pcazeles.perso.cegetel.net/acxo.htm




That computer still used a Lynx card though, and I'm still not sure if it's required or not to use some of these high-end cards.......




p.s.-one more link to a free program that could be useful:

http://www.soundslogical.com/product...0-summary.html

[xencloud]

Ok, I got some info confirmed:

For the Console software, what I said before is TRUE. You can't run the console software on any soundcards but the ones I listed. This has to do with the fact that Console is a standalone audio processing suite, and it needs that those type of features to interact properly with the soundcard. Only certain soundscards can run Console.

As far as the KX driver for Soundblaster cards etc., that suite can do X-over, EQ, DRC, etc., but has far less features than the Console+Waves+Voxengo combo (not saying you need all of that though), and it is NOT a standalone processing program, which means you have to play all of your audio through it, just like you'd use Win Media Player, you'd have to always use KX as the player.

I still have to find out about the ACXO program and see if it's standalone or not...........

[azzurro]

Stay tuned... looks like I may have found a solution for using Console without a super $$$$ sound card.

I will try it out and then report my findings. Don't get your hopes too high

Originally Posted by xencloud

For my 3-way setup, I do not have passive crossovers. I am buying individual drivers that match up, and I will totally tune the system myself.

Beautiful!

Great findings too. All of that software looks very nice.

[azzurro]

Boo yeah... mission successful (Thank you KVR )

I have "minor" detail to work out, but the routing is definitely taking place and working properly.

The solution? Virtual cables. You need to basically create a Windows device driver, with Wave In and Wave Out ports. You set your app that's making the sound to use this device driver. In Console, you set this fake device driver as your input (Wave In), do all your routing, and then set your real sound card as the output (Wave Out).

Listening to some music right now, routed through some fake cables and out through Console and then to my ears.

So, how to make the cables...

NTONYX VAC
http://www.ntonyx.com/vac.htm

It will let you make sixty four cables, and I believe each can be two channels wide, so no worries there. Actually, it looks like you can get by with only one cable (two channels), because you can route the same output as input to an unlimited number of other plugins from within Console. Just verified this right now.

The minor detail might prove to be major, but I hope not. The problem is that I'm not sure if you can actually use ASIO drivers with this method.

I'll keep you posted...