multiple sounds from a pc

we shall soon find out how windows behaves as soon as i get a chance to install the soundcard.

Gaston said:

we shall soon find out how windows behaves as soon as i get a chance to install the soundcard.

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I look forward to hearing the results.

i'm not haveing much luck. i used a program called cinematicmp3 that lets you create a sound file that is supposed to be six mono channles. the first thing that seems funny to me is it saves it as a wav file. i played it throuh media player and it is the a mix of two sounds coming out of each speaker. i downloaded a program that is supposed to be able to play 5.1 on a pc but when i go to start the program it says its missing dsound.dll. the file was there so i downloaded it from a site and overwroteit but still have the same problem. im thinking about loading linux and seeing what i can do with that

you don't have to "load" linux, just download Knoppix or Ubuntu and run it off the cd.

to play a wav file containing more than 2 channels, you need a surround sound aware application. Winamp is I believe, as are most of the DVD player programs. Regular media player just handles plain stereo.

I had a sound card in my other comp and ran the motherboard with both of them leading to the same output, and TEH SOUND on the motherboard went: KAPOP!, so now I use a sound card only and the entire block of mic input, sound output, etc on the MB is shot

I have a soundblaster 16 in it right now, with a nvidia 7300 and 2 gigs of ram, but winblows XP has to be put back in it because it would not save the changes for teh new video card

Hopefully I get it back today.

so if i run linux off of the cd i wouldn't have to load any drivers ?

Gaston said:

so if i run linux off of the cd i wouldn't have to load any drivers ?

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If the drivers are included on the distribution...

justDIY said:

ok, so if you have a PC with onboard sound, there's 6 rooms... now add two or three more 5.1 sound cards (they're real cheap on ebay, sb live 5.1), that gives you 18-24 channels total. if the rooms are close to each other, cheap pairs of PC speakers could be divided between two adjoining rooms, each playing a different sound stream but sharing a common amplifier and stereo cable back to the PC

I have a script for linux that picks random files from a directory and plays them, that might help you or not.

edit:

this is the sound card I was referring to:

**broken link removed**

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3 out of 4 of those are isa cards somebodys got a bloody nerve selling those

when i was building pc based karaoke/disco machines, i used usb sound cards (cost about £15 GBP each) and had 5 connected to the computer, thus giving me 5 discreet stereo channels. If i had needed more then i could just plug in more, simple as. (although limited by processor speed - which i'll get too)

As each usb sound card was installed - it was named by windows as - for example 'USB Sound', 'USB Sound 1'....ect

::WINDOWS ONLY::
DirectSound is very simple to set up, provided you just want to play sounds or music, eg mp3's, and you address the sound cards by name.

so i made a very small program (about 50 lines of code max) in vb, to allow me to play different mp3's on each of the different sound cards. worked brilliant. then later was built up so that each of the sound cards run to a disco mixer and improved the software to suit our machine, choosing songs ect. (side note: directSound is REALLY powerful, and can do some amazing things with sounds, and even more with the sound buffer)

(this was before usb mixers were affordable)

I also used the same setup on my home automation computer (ERIC - Electronic Resource Integration Computer - couldnt come up with a better accrynym) anyways, this setup allowed me to run my multi-room sound system, with each room being able to choose their music from the panel on the wall, all playing off the one computer (which also handles loads of other stuff round the house)

I imagine that it would meet your criteria quite well, and you can add usb sound cards (they use very low bandwidth) as you see fit, up to a maximum of around 16 or so i would say (on a 1ghz pc), and if you used usb 2 sound cards (not sure if they exist, but im sure they do) and a faster processor - i cant see why you couldn't run up to 50 or 60 indipendent stereo channels.

hope this helps, i choose this method for my project because it scales up so easily.

weegee that sounds like what im looking for. i looked up direct soound and from what i found its a part of direct x. is that correct? if so how would i access that. would i need some kind of another program to use it? i know you said you wrote a vb script for it but thats beyond my capabilities at this time.

yes directSound is part if directX, so the chances are VERY high that youve got it and running it.

How are your sounds triggered, are they based on a switch being set/unset, or based on a timing - eg after start of ride, 'Sound A' occurs after 15 secs, 'Sound B' after 22 secs, ect or do they just play by clicking a button on the pc?

if it is a simple setup, i could possibly knock together a very simple program for you in vb depending on requirements.

but it would be a getting you started type program, you would need to develop it more yourself.

the sounds would either be looped or triggered by just a high or low from another pc that handles the prop triggeres and timing through an i/o board on the parralle port.if you couold get me going that would be great. thanks

Can you tell me how the 2 computers (the trigger, and the mediaplayer) will be connected? eg network, serial cable, ???

If you can let me know that - i'll knock up a simple 2 or 3 channel mediaplayer that plays the required channel when a trigger is recieved.
you can then take it from there. I will include the source code for you to look at.

i would make a buffer for the parralel port and input the trigger that way

so triggered by the parallel port of the multimedia pc then.

I will have a play after i've had food and see what i can come up with.

Just to let you know i've not forgot, and i'll have something soon, its been a few years since i used directx (im a linux convert)

thanks...i going to load linux on a pc soon. i feel like im missing out on something by not learning it

i loaded ubuntu on a computer and it looks like something i could get into. im just haveing a little trouble getting started. i tried loadind alsa the windows way...dowloading it and executing an install file. but soon found out thats not the way. i did some reading online and found that you use synaptics to load programs.then i found out that alsa is supposed to be on there already. i just cant figure out how to run it. i see there is a button at the top called applications and there are some programs under there for music but not alsa. or is alsa not a program? overall i think im going to like fooling with ubuntu after i get used to it

i will upload the exe for you in an hour or two, but i cant find my i/o box, so i cant add the trigger by printer port for you, but you'll get the idea (clicky buttons just now), adding the printer port trigger is trivial (mabey 10 lines of code)

thanks weegee.