Multiple Sound Cards

[kharney]

Mike,

I have a question about the capabilities of SCS Pro Plus. The theatre that I do MOST of my work in has 14 speakers set up in it that are preset all of the time. I was wondering if SCS can run 2 sound cards at the same time. For Example, what I am thinking is that I would get 2 FP 10's and thus have 20 outputs available. For the 14 channels and maybe a couple extras left over for monitors or head phones or something as needed. Am I reading the specs correctly that I could in fact do this but I guess I would be limited to 16 channels correct? Any ideas if you would run the 2 FP10's independantly or daisy chained together. I am getting ready to upgrade my entire system and want to make sure all of my ducks are in a row first. Any other suggestions from everyone would be greatly appreciated. I do want the system to be VERY portable as I work in many theatres but I do do most of my work in this one and this one is the most technically advanced of them all. I am thinking that if I have one output to each speaker it would provide me with the greatest flexibility in programming any way I choose for all of the different types of shows that I do. Thanks a million. I have been using SCS for YEARS and I love it but time to upgrade to the next version (ok actually I skipped a couple versions) and I want to make sure that all of my upgrades will work together as seemlessly as possible.

Kevin

[Mike Daniell]

With SCS Pro Plus you can run up to 16 devices, which may span multiple sound cards. I've no experience of FP10's (Presonus?) but if the FP10 driver publishes it's outputs as stereo pairs then with SCS Pro Plus you would be able to define 5 stereo pairs on each of two FP10's, thus accessing all 20 FP10 outputs using 10 SCS devices.

hth.

[kharney]

And so if they are not published in pairs. Which I believe they are not. Then I would be able to output to 16 channels/speakers as hit by the max from SCS while the FP10 is capable of 10 each and I can run 3 at a time for a total of 30. Is that you read on it ? Yes FP10 is a Presonus. Website for Presonus seems a little unclear too and I need to talk with them as well. Web site says 1 unit can ouput 10 channels but 2 can output 16 and 3 can output 24 - not sure where the other channels have dissappeared to ?!?!?!?!?!? In any case 16 outs would suit me fine for 99% of my work for now and the forseeable future but knowing I can go up to 24 lateris a nice benefit

[Mike Daniell]

Can anyone provide more info on the FP10 or Presonus drivers in general? If the FP10 doesn't publish stereo pairs then it gets messy trying to play stereo files to output pairs, especially using WDM drivers. Not such a problem with ASIO.

[kharney]

I am not sure if it helps or not but when I was talking to Presonus yesterday they asked if SCS was ASIO compatible and I told them that I thought I had read that it was. He said then that would be no problem to use the FP10 with it if that was the case. BUT he suggested that perhaps the FireStudio Project might be the better choice for my needs. Anyone aware of the differences and benefits of both. My basic understanding from him was that the Studio Project was the newer version of the FP10.

[kharney]

It seems that the FP10 is being slowly replaced by the FireStudio Project which is basically the same thing. I am wondering about what you mean when you say
Support for up to 16 sound cards or channels on a multi-channel card
Each FireStudio Project has 8 Analog out balanced channels. Does that mean that I can run 16 Firestudios? Or does that mean I can run 2 Firestudios? Any plans to support more channels in the near future? I can daisy chain upto 3 FireStudios on the same computer. Am I limited by SCS to 2 ?

Thanks

[kharney]

FireStudio info can be found here ....

http://presonus.com/products/Detail.aspx?ProductId=43

[Mike Daniell]

I am wondering about what you mean when you say
Support for up to 16 sound cards or channels on a multi-channel card
Each FireStudio Project has 8 Analog out balanced channels. Does that mean that I can run 16 Firestudios? Or does that mean I can run 2 Firestudios? Any plans to support more channels in the near future? I can daisy chain upto 3 FireStudios on the same computer. Am I limited by SCS to 2 ?

In the SCS Production Properties you will initially see something like this:


The scrollbar on the right is only visible for SCS Professional Plus users, and enables you to scroll down to define up to 16 Device Names. So you can define up to 16 logical devices, and (in SCS Professional Plus) you can use up to 8 of these logical devices per audio file subcue.

To map a logical device to a physical device you select from the drop-down list under Physical Device. This list is populated from device names published by the sound card drivers, which is why I can't be specific about what you will see with the FP10 or FireStudio Project, since I have neither of these. I have an Edirol UA-101, an Echo Gina 24, and an M-Audio Delta 44, and all these device drivers publish their outputs as stereo pairs, and the M-Audio also publishes a multi channel output. None of them publish each of the outputs as a single mono output (although ASIO outputs are all mono, but I'm mainly referring to WDM outputs).

SCS allows you to select any physical device from the drop-down list of device names published, so technically you could use a different sound card for each SCS logical device. So if you have SCS Professional Plus you could use up to 16 sound cards. HOWEVER, apart from the absurdity of that idea, there is a limitation that seems to affect all ASIO devices afaik, and that is that you can only use ONE ASIO sound card. Whether or not the daisy-chaining overcomes that I do not know.

Although ASIO has the benefit of low latency, ASIO support is only available in SCS if you use the SCS Internal Mixer. This feature was added in SCS 10 and the internal mixer is enabled by default. However, due to the small playback buffer required by the internal mixer, some users have turned off the feature. With the internal mixer turned off, SCS only supports WDM drivers, not ASIO. According to the FireStudio Project manual, this device does support both WDM and ASIO.

The Speakers/Outputs column you can usually leave at the default setting of Left and Right (Stereo), assuming you are using stereo output pairs, and then pan left or right as required.

Regarding enhancing SCS to support more than 16 logical devices, that can easily be done - it's basically just a matter of increasing the sizes of some arrays.

[kharney]

My problem is that some of this terminology is over my head. I do know that the Fire Studio publishes 4 pairs of outputs (1 & 2, 3&4, ...) so you consider each pair a device correct? So I can concievably run 16 devices which means with a L and R on each device that there are actually 32 speakers ? If that is the case then SCS is actually more powerful than the FireStudio which can handle a max of 12 pairs or 24 speakers.

For the terminology what is ASIO and what is WDM ? Sorry I just have physical experience here and very little book smarts to back it up.

[Mike Daniell]

I do know that the Fire Studio publishes 4 pairs of outputs (1 & 2, 3&4, ...) so you consider each pair a device correct? So I can concievably run 16 devices which means with a L and R on each device that there are actually 32 speakers ?

Correct. There are many possible scenarios, but the simplest is using stereo pairs. With SCS Professional Plus you can therefore define 16 logical devices (ie Device Names) for a production, and if each of them is mapped to a stereo pair then you have access to 32 speakers.

For the terminology what is ASIO and what is WDM ?

The following is not necessarily 100% correct. Other Forum users feel free to correct or add further info.
WDM stands for Windows Driver Model. Basically, it is the default architecture in Microsoft Windows for audio processing. It uses DirectSound, a component of DirectX which is shipped with Microsoft Windows.

One of the criticisms of WDM is the latency, eg the delay between when a program starts playing a file and when the audio signal is sent to the speakers or other output device. Steinberg (www.steinberg.net) developed ASIO (Audio Stream Input Output) as a low latency driver, which bypasses DirectSound.

Even though ASIO was developed to reduce latency, I would think that the WDM latency would not be noticable for most SCS uses. For example, in a production I'm currently working on I have a gun shot sound, and I can't observe any delay at all between activating the cue and hearing the gun shot.

[kharney]

Then the Fire Studio MUST be ASIO because it has Zero Latency. Thanks that helps me out tremendously.

[Mike Daniell]

Then the Fire Studio MUST be ASIO because it has Zero Latency.

There are a few references to WDM in the FireStudio User's Manual, so I think you'll find the product supports both WDM and ASIO. Regarding "zero latency", that may be for certain products or for certain components in the chain. Note that under System Requirements in that manual they state: "A more powerful system (faster processor with more RAM)
allows for lower latency (signal delay) and better overall performance." That implies a latency above zero.