One PC, several sound cards

D

Dan UCF

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Aug 3, 2003
Messages
1,087
I would like to have an mp3 station with several sound cards. The purpose of several sound cards is to have several outputs to do speakers in several rooms.
I am guessing most music software has options for you to choose which sound card it will use, and then you can have several of the same software running?
 
Just connect the soundcard output in parallel to multiple amps.
You can double up a soundcards stereo output by feeding the front speaker sound to the rears as well, so each soundcard can provide 2 stereo feeds.

If you want to play different music in different rooms at the same time, you will need separate soundcards configured as you stated.
ie when using Winamp, configure it so that more than one instance can remain open.

How do you intend to control the playback?
 
The music is just supposed to be background noise/white noise so that people outside the rooms can not hear conversations so there does not really need to be control. The idea is to just have a really long play list on repeat to last the 8-12 hour work days, but with the flexibility for one person working to select what ever genre of music they want.

Essentially Jimbo in room one wants to listen to country so he starts up the 'country' play list and goes into the room to work. Frank wants to listen to rock in room two so he fires up the 'rock' play list in the room two instance and goes to work.
 
that can't be done wiring multiple amps to one soundcard's amp

however, multiple soundcards may create some trouble for you, not to mention the way you're wanting to control this, basically you want to run X systems on one set of hardware, including audio I/O, just get a normal PA distribution setup and do it like everyone else does, otherwise you're going to spend quite a bit of money doing this
 
He only needs 2 soundcards, one for the music and the other for white noise, playing a short track on repeat.
You can double up the feeds from a single soundcard output into more than one amp without much issue.
I've done it many times and as an electronic engineer I understand exactly how it is ok as long as highest fidelity isnt an issue, its not bad like connecting 2 sets of speakers to an amp in parallel.
Also as pointed out, a single soundcard can feed 2 sets of stereo speakers - or 4+ speakers in mono.
4 mono speakers in 4 rooms might be all the op needs.

Shite, pls ignore most of the above, didnt read that the op does need more than one "music" stream playing
 
Last edited:
Just to clarify the system is to play music in place of white noise. People outside of the work spaces do not need to hear what is going on inside, so we play music relatively loud. We also do not want to take CDs into these spaces so one computer outside of the rooms running speaker cables in is a much better option.
 
Nenu said:
He only needs 2 soundcards, one for the music and the other for white noise, playing a short track on repeat.
You can double up the feeds from a single soundcard output into more than one amp without much issue.
I've done it many times and as an electronic engineer I understand exactly how it is ok as long as highest fidelity isnt an issue, its not bad like connecting 2 sets of speakers to an amp in parallel.
Also as pointed out, a single soundcard can feed 2 sets of stereo speakers - or 4+ speakers in mono.
4 mono speakers in 4 rooms might be all the op needs.

Shite, pls ignore most of the above, didnt read that the op does need more than one "music" stream playing
Click to expand...

yeah, and I'm with you, but it can't be done with a single soundcard, and multi-card will be screwy, since the playback won't work like he's dreaming of it working (the whole kiosk thing)

Dan UCF said:
Just to clarify the system is to play music in place of white noise. People outside of the work spaces do not need to hear what is going on inside, so we play music relatively loud. We also do not want to take CDs into these spaces so one computer outside of the rooms running speaker cables in is a much better option.
Click to expand...

unless theres a PA controller that does this (I don't know, I don't do install sound for retail/etc, look at Russound equipment though), there is no way to do this cheaply without having a separate system per room, you basically want N users on the same PC to be equal without the ability to influence one another's choices, using N number of unique audio outputs

thats a pretty tall order for a single user single system, let alone N user

so either bend to the limitations of commerically available products (i.e: consumer products), or spend a fortune on pro solutions that likely will not get exactly where you want to go, but will be "close"

an example of "close" (and here's where you'll say THANKS! and just do this, ignoring any warnings or issues, and probably get mad when it doesn't work like you're dreaming it will), would be something like an M-Audio Delta 1010, which can do 8 mono outputs, assuming you have something encoding for that, i.e: DAW software, this isn't exactly conducive to a kiosk where you just click and go, but physically the hardware can handle it

the issue then mostly becomes control, firstly that your users are able to select their room properly with relative ease, vs needing a highly technical understanding, and secondly that your users aren't screwing with other rooms (I don't care if you're working for the DoD or McDonalds, this kind of crap happens, theres always at least one luser user)
 
Using 2 different players you can do it, like Winamp and Foobar2000, with 2 soundcards.

Set the default audio device in Windows (control panel/sounds and audio devices - in XP) to one of the soundcards, call this soundcard A. The other will be soundcard B.
Run winamp and it will play from soundcard A.

Now run Foobar2000 and goto:
File / Preferences / Playback / Output
Select soundcard B from the list, make sure it is type DS: Direct sound, unless you want to use KS: Kernel Streaming (bypasses the windows mixer etc).
(KS: may not work depending on the soundcard.)
Now you should be able to play independent audio streams from both soundcards.

Be sure to set up the output to Analogue (not Digital/Optical...)for both soundcards before using them otherwise you may not get sound.
Unless you are using digital, but I assume you are using analogue :)


I'm using an Auzentech Prelude and onboard Azalia soundcards.
With the Azalia set to digital out and the Prelude set to analogue, I had 2 streams playing at the same.
 
Nenu said:
Using 2 different players you can do it, like Winamp and Foobar2000, with 2 soundcards.

Set the default audio device in Windows (control panel/sounds and audio devices - in XP) to one of the soundcards, call this soundcard A. The other will be soundcard B.
Run winamp and it will play from soundcard A.

Now run Foobar2000 and goto:
File / Preferences / Playback / Output
Select soundcard B from the list, make sure it is type DS: Direct sound, unless you want to use KS: Kernel Streaming (bypasses the windows mixer etc).
(KS: may not work depending on the soundcard.)
Now you should be able to play independent audio streams from both soundcards.

Be sure to set up the output to Analogue (not Digital/Optical...)for both soundcards before using them otherwise you may not get sound.
Unless you are using digital, but I assume you are using analogue :)


I'm using an Auzentech Prelude and onboard Azalia soundcards.
With the Azalia set to digital out and the Prelude set to analogue, I had 2 streams playing at the same.
Click to expand...

yeah, this does work, but I doubt its clean enough for his "kiosk controller" methodology
and can it scale beyond two instances?

overall: +1 for this suggestion, but I doubt it'll work for his fantasy
 
If two sound cards two outputs will work, then why not three?

Three is the magic number, that is how many rooms we have.
 
It should work if everything ends up equal.
The only way to find out is to try.

You will need 3 different configurable players or a player that uses local configuration files, not the registry (so you can configure which soundcard each one uses).
This is because the registry will point to one installation location and will try to use the same config each time you open the player.
Local files can store separate configs.
 
On consumer audio software, this is hard to do as they use the built in windows recording mixer and the software can usually just be set to play out the windows default outputs. On the other hand, software that uses ASIO with ASIO soundcards will allow you to use multiple outputs. For example getting a professional soundcard that supports ASIO with 8 outputs, you could have software independently output to all these different outputs without touching windows audio settings at all, as ASIO is independent of them. I can't name you any software for your specific purpose unfortunately, I only use ASIO based software on the recording and production side.
 
Nenu said:
The only way to find out is to try.
.
Click to expand...

again I have to agree, just screw with it OP

ChrisCanada said:
On consumer audio software, this is hard to do as they use the built in windows recording mixer and the software can usually just be set to play out the windows default outputs. On the other hand, software that uses ASIO with ASIO soundcards will allow you to use multiple outputs. For example getting a professional soundcard that supports ASIO with 8 outputs, you could have software independently output to all these different outputs without touching windows audio settings at all, as ASIO is independent of them. I can't name you any software for your specific purpose unfortunately, I only use ASIO based software on the recording and production side.
Click to expand...

you mean WindowsXP and Windows 2000 or earlier?
Vista and 7 don't use the Windows Audio Mixer, at least not in the same manner, ntm a number of non-pro cards have ASIO drivers, and aside from that:
http://www.asio4all.com/

not to mention that if you had a card with 8 outputs (lets say the Delta 1010 from above), you could run four stereo signals out even with its stock M-Audio drivers running on XP or 2000, even using the windows kmixer, you'd just need to set things up correctly, and most middleware mediaplayers won't work 100% ideally with this, foobar2000 and winamp probably would, but I'm not sure how they'll handle multiple instances
 
You can make it happen. The key is that the application doing the "playing" should be smart enough to specify to which sound card it is being played to. ASIO was made for this, you could actually get by with a single card with multiple outs. Winamp and foobar both do ASIO out from what i recall.

You can also do this with plain jane onboard 7.1 sound. ASIO treats them as separate outputs so you can bring your inputs and connect them up.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top