Surround Sound

Here's my predicament.  I'm a sculpture professor at the university of
nebraska.  I'm working on a project where sound will travel around a
room.  I'm planning on 10 -20 independent speakers.  I know this is an
easy question but how do I make audio from my computer sweep from one
speaker to the next.

The usual answer to this is to use a multichannel sound device (there are plenty around that should just about manage this, I think) and have each speaker fed from its own track, where the track concerned just has the sound for that speaker. Or possibly more sensibly, a pair of speakers per stereo track (you can still keep each one separate - that's not a problem).

Then all you do is to arrange the playback to take place in multitrack view, with the correct track allocations, get enough power amps and speakers connected to your sound device, and off you go...

It's not ideal for the purpose, (it's not got quite enough I/O), but my MOTU traveler will, if I connect something like a Behringer ADA8000 to its ADAT port, produce 16 discrete outputs like this. I'm sure that any device that would let you connect two ADAT devices (2 ADA8000s, perhaps, because they are relatively cheap) and use its own built-in outputs as well would get you there. Whatever outputs you have, Audition should see, and let you drive independently. The sweeping, you arrange in the software - almost without limits!

If you want possibly a more reliable playback (not relying on a PC), then go out and buy a cheap multitrack recorder, put the files on that and use the discrete outputs it will already have to drive the power amps. For an installation, I think that this is the way I'd prefer to go, in fact.

Thanks steve ,

this is tremendously helpful.

There are many ways to make and present a sound recording. The simplest method, and the one used in the earliest sound movies, is called monaural or simply mono. Mono means that all the sound is recorded onto one audio track or channel (a single spiraled groove in a record, for example, or a single magnetic track on tape), which is typically played on one speaker.

Why dig up a months-old post only to post a reply that has no relevance to the original question?

Spam - we're dealing with it in a slightly different way from now on, to discourage this sort of behaviour somewhat. We get quite a few of these, and normally I just delete them before anybody notices. I'm still thinking about this one, but it will probably go, along with any additional posts it generates.