HydrogenAudio

Lossy Audio Compression => Ogg Vorbis => Ogg Vorbis - General => Topic started by: Power2All on 2011-05-31 11:38:18

Title: How recording from 2 soundcards, to 1 ogg file (3 channels)
Post by: Power2All on 2011-05-31 11:38:18
Hi,

Im looking into a option, for Windows if possible, to record 3 channels.
I have here 2 soundcards from which I want to record into 1 ogg file.
This means, 2 channels from one (LINE input), and 1 channel from the other (MIC input).
Since we use a seperate soundcard hooked to USB, thats why I'm talking about 2 soundcards.
If there is a application that can read from both the soundcards, and forward it to like oggenc2, would be sufficient for me as well.

Anybody got a idea ?

Ow yea, so you know, we got our own frontend, so if there is any command-prompt app that can do it, would be sweet
Title: How recording from 2 soundcards, to 1 ogg file (3 channels)
Post by: AndyH-ha on 2011-05-31 11:53:46
You need to be aware that these separate ADCs will be on separate clocks and will not stay in synch with each other. This may not matter much on short recordings but is generally unsatisfactory if the recording is not short.

Using multiple soundcards is very common in professional work, but means are provided to run all of the cards (even if of different manufacturers) on one central clock. Professional soundcards generally have the facilities for this, a USB microphone almost certainly does not.

Almost any multi-track recording application will support multiple soundcards. However, a single computer will only allow one audio device at a time to operate if ASIO drivers are used. Some soundcards, such as many of the M-Audio Delta series, will support multiple soundcards as one under ASIO, maybe other brands do too, but it may not be possible to get cards from different manufacturers to play together.
Title: How recording from 2 soundcards, to 1 ogg file (3 channels)
Post by: Power2All on 2011-05-31 11:56:30
It doesn't matter if its out of sync.
We extract them seperately anyway, for parsing.
Title: How recording from 2 soundcards, to 1 ogg file (3 channels)
Post by: DVDdoug on 2011-05-31 20:22:49
There are a few applications that can record directly to a compressed format, but typically you'd record to a non-compressed format (WAV or AIFF) and compress as a separate step.  And assuming you are editing, compression is normally done as the final step after all editing. 

If your recording application doesn't support more than one soundcard at a time and you are not concerned about sync, you should be able to open multiple instances of the recording program, and record multiple sources (from different devices).  You'll have two separate files, but you should be able to combine them into one multichannel file and compress later.

Lots of things can go wrong when recording with a computer (or when you're doing anything with a computer  ).  So if you are recording anything "critical",  it would be better keep things as simple as possible and get a multichannel interface.