Multi-channel Sound Devices - AA compatible

If you know of a card or external converter that has multi-channel capabilities that AA can use (in other words, it has a WDM multi-driver), please post the details of it here. If there are any specific issues relating to its use with Audition, please feel free to mention them too - and if there's an associated website, then a link to it would be useful.

I may edit posts for brevity, and I will remove completely irrelevant ones - this is just supposed to be a glorified list. Also, posts repeating information will go, so please read through what's already here before posting.

Steve's original question was posed in terms of which cards have the WDM multidriver ("DirectSound"), but it might be good to define it further as cards with which 5.1 preview works correctly in the Multichannel Encoder (CEP2.x, AA1.x).

It's fine to indicate this as an additional function, if you know that it works.

The Lynx Studio Technology LynxTWO and Lynx L22 cards and the Digital Audio Labs CardDeluxe all have fully multichannel MME and (beta) WDM drivers.

 The L22 and CardDeluxe are only stereo cards, but their drivers also support multiple cards (which should have internal synchronising connectors).

Paul

MOTU 2408MKII with 324 PCICard

MOTU 2408MK3  with 424 PCICard

I have used both with no issues. Both can handle up to 24 tracks at once.

1 bank of 8 analog IO
1 bank of SPDIF (2 channel)
3 banks of ADAT Digital (8 channel each) IO
3 banks of TDIF Digital (8 channel each) IO
You can use any combo of 3 different banks at a time.

Ron

[BACK ON TOPIC:]

I drool.  I could really use 24 I/O of TDIF right now!

OK, we've got an M-Audio Delta TDIF card which is probably compliant under Windows XP, but we're not running it under that, so I can't prove it.

BACK ON TOPIC:

What are fully compliant are the best dirt-cheap not-too-bad quality cards anywhere, and come from Turtle Beach: Riviera, Santa Cruz, and Catalina.

I can recommend the Wavecenter and Dakota cards from Frontier Design Group.  These give you 8 and 16 channels of digital I/O respectively.

http://www.frontierdesign.com/

The Montana card adds 16 more channels of digital I/O to the Dakota for 32 channels if you need it.

I haven't had any problems with CEP while using the Dakota card as a stand alone recorder.  

The only issue i am aware of with using CEP/AA is when syncronizing to other recorders the sample accurate sync. is sometimes offset slightly.  The same is true of other cards when syncronizing to other devices using CEP/AA.

If by multichannel you mean recording separate tracks at the same time (some mean 5.1 surround formats) the I have no problem so far with both a RME digi9652 Hammerfall (3xADAT and spdif) and a RME digi96/8 (1xADAT or spdif). Both used with CEP1.2a and the AA demos.

http://www.rme-audio.de/

EDIT: almost forgot, I have used a Creamware Pulsar+ (first generation, 2xADAT, 1xAES and stereo analog) with CEP1.2a but never with AA. However, I do not recommend those cards for various reasons unrelated to CEP/AA.

http://www.creamware.de/

For those on a budget, the C-Port works well with AA/CEP - http://www.staudio.com .

Apparently the Hercules 1612FW Firewire system has a WDM multi-driver, although the latency levels are reportedly not good - the SOS reviewer couldn't get them below 23ms. Basically this device is quite good, but there is a high-sample-rate audio bandwidth issue - this seems not to extend beyond 21kHz at 96k sample rate.

I use to use the FW 410 by M-Audio.

It has two analog inputs (mic / line-level, switchable) and a stereo-SP/DIF input. All four inputs can be used simultaneosly in AA because the interface uses WDM-drivers by M-Audio.

The two digital inputs I feed via an interface made by M-Audio as well, the USB DUO, which I run in "stand-alone-mode".

Very good solution for four inputs in 24/96 for the price!
Works well for me.

So long
GuidoB

Along similar lines, the Echo Mia will record 4 channels simultaneously - 2 line, 2 S/PDIF. Since the driver is common to the range of PCI cards, I daresy that the others will do the same thing - only with more channels.

I use a Layla 24 with the Cardbus interface on a Vaio laptop.  I have the PCI card too but haven't had a desktop to try it in.
I use the Purewave drivers to record. Eight inputs, no problems.  I've tried the WDM drivers too and they work fine.  In the Echo control Panel you can change the driver type for each pair of channels.  I occasionally change a set of outputs or inputs to WDM for compatibility with other software.
JTC

M-Audio's Delta 1010LT card is doing a fine job for me. Very Good quality sound & recordings, lot's of input options. Works well with the Audiophile 2496 card, and can be linked with upto 4 Delta Series cards for additional inputs. Works very well with Audition, Tracktion, Windows XP service pack2, and WinDVD Platinum 6...no problems at all once it's setup properly. Midi connections also worked very well at first attempt.

For more info, goto.....

http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Delta1010LT-main.html

After making your connections though, I recommend taping the connections together with a piece of tape, as moving the computer around could cause connections to come apart. I also numbered and labled each connection with a black magic marker, for easy identification per channel/track. There are markings on each connector, but hard for me to see.

Bang for the buck is very good. I'm very happy I bought this card.  

ECHO LAYLA 3G

The MOTU Traveler does, using the MME driver. Since the driver is similar to all of the other MOTU firewire boxes, I suspect that they will too.

After searching and digesting the information in these forums, I bought a Presonus Firepod for multi-track recording with Adobe Audition 1.5. I'm very happy to report that multi-track input is fully supported and I was able to get everything set up and checked out within a few minutes. My project involves simultaneous recording of 5 separate inputs (3 microphones and 2 pre-amplified instrument pickups), so it was important to me that I could record from more than 2 inputs at a time. No problem!

In the AA device properties dialog box (Options... Device properties...), the firepod appears as a series of input pairs (firepod 1/2, firepod 3/4, firepod 5/6, firepod 7/8 ). You can set device properties for each pair separately. Then, in AA's multi-track view, I set the track properties for each track (right click on the desired track and select Track Properties... or select the track and press alt-4). I simply set Track 1 as Firepod 1/2 Left only, Track 2 as Firepod 1/2 Right only, Track 3 as Firepod 3/4 Left only, Track 4 as Firepod 3/4 Right only, etc. Each input went exactly where I wanted it: Firepod input 1 to track 1; Firepod input 2 to track 2, etc.

Cool!