Audio challenges with installation

mattgolsen's picture

So I'm planning on migrating my current installation from a laptop per display, to several Mac Pro's running a number of them (not sure on how many per MP, need to investigate how well it handles it).

My challenge is this, I'm going to be running X number of instances of this composition, with each one needing a separate audio device. Is there anyway I can assign an audio device to a composition/program, and if so, does anyone have any experiences with hardware for something like this?

cybero's picture
Re: Audio challenges with installation

What you are looking for is to have a single audio device to act as the audio input for all the composition instances rendered, correct?

Would something like http://www.serviio.org/ help out?

gtoledo3's picture
Re: Audio challenges with installation

Sure, just use the Kineme Audio Device Info to return a list of your attached hardware. Then use the device id with the Kineme Audio Input patch, and you will see whatever firewire or usb devices you have attached (as well as the internal audio). You should be able to get multi-channel audio going with the Kineme Audio Input; at least up to 8 (if not more, depending on the device (?)... untested).

The stock audio patch can do the same thing (sort of) via settings. It will show a menu with all of your attached devices, except that it will only put out the first two channels of a given device, even if it has more available.

Go mac pro (tower), and firewire if you're doing more than two channel audio, or be prepared to shed tears :-)

mattgolsen's picture
Re: Audio challenges with installation

Ah this is exactly what I'm looking. Can you recommend any hardware that would show up as multiple audio interfaces, ie. a single Firewire cable with X number of audio outputs?

gtoledo3's picture
Re: Audio challenges with installation

Well, you won't see multiple interfaces exactly, what you will see is that the kineme audio input will give you a structure of all of the channels, and then you sort that by index.

Mmm, the thing that irritates me is that when I look at the market for firewire interfaces, I don't see some of the options on the low-end stuff that I used to see. Remember, you don't need a great deal of audio quality for this kind of scenario, because all you're doing is getting volume peaks.

If I saw anything that had added limiting, compression, pads, or built in gating (especially gating), I would DEFINITELY go with that. That said, any run of the mill thing should work ok; I would recommend going with something m-audio or presonus for the lower end.

Another thought...I wouldn't tend to use behringer if I was doing real audio engineering, but for something like this, the price might be right, and it might get the job done.

mattgolsen's picture
Re: Audio challenges with installation

I'm looking at the M-Audio ProFire 610, it seems like it would do a competent job, nothing too fancy.

Now, I say different audio devices, but I think I'm going to run into a problem because really what I'm doing is using this MacPro as a video distribution server. So I'm using Vade's Movie Player plugin, but I think I'm going to run into some problems as it handles audio outside of QC (I think). I may have to talk to Vade about that.