I buyed recently the interface Audiobox1818VSL. But, I can’t record the 8 channels simoultaneos, in the case appearing or line 1/2 or 3/4 or 5/6 or 7/8 and not all 1 - 8 channels; in the both cases - with Windows Direct and Windows WDM-KS it is the same situation.
Of course, Asio driver is unusable in Audacity DAW.
One can solve this question with this interface (with its Virtual StudioLive) and Audacity, to record my rock band in the same time (vocals, guitar, bass, keyboard, drums), not as a overdubbing methode? What settings are necessary for this? I must install the ASIO driver? But what I can make Audacity to work wih ASIO?
Thanks a lot for your solutions to use this expensive interface named Audiobox 1818VSL!
Unless you have experience building programs from source code you may find that building Audacity with ASIO support is quite a long and difficult job. Instructions are here: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/ASIO_Audio_Interface
Unfortunately, the recording inputs available to Audacity is dependent on the Windows drivers, If the drivers present multiple stereo channels rather than a single 8 channel device, then Audacity is only able to access one pair of inputs at a time. ASIO is very likely to solve that problem, but as I said, it’s not an easy solution.
Another option would be to use some other software (that supports ASIO) to make the original recording. Audacity could be used later for editing and mixing down the recording. Possible programs include Reaper and Krystal Audio.
I forgot to mention that I used Audacity 2.0.3 and 2.0.4 for multitrack recording the interface ESSI ESU1818 without problems.
Of course, with Windows Direct or Windows WDM-KS. Conclusion: Audacity is a true multitrack DAW!!!
Why two Windows drivers do not work for multitrack with Audacity 2.0.4 and the interface Presonus Audiobox 1818VSL?
Presonus Audiobox Interface 1818VSL can not work with these drivers sound due to his own appointment (only with ASIO)?
It can remedy this situation?
I like so much Audacity, that I want to work only this DAW, even if I’ll use the new interface Audiobox 1818VSL .
Help me, please! I ask you an easy solution, if it this exists.
Thak you for your answers!
Dan
Yes, Audacity is capable of recording multiple tracks simultaneously, but currently Audacity is limited to recording from only 1 “device” at a time.
Whether or not a multi-channel audio interface appears as “1 multi-channel device” or “4 stereo devices” is entirely down to the design of the interface and its drivers.
On Linux and Mac OS X it is possible to create a “virtual device” (Mac OS X refers to this as a “aggregate device”) that takes inputs from real hardware devices and outputs to the recording application as one multi-channel device. By setting up a virtual device like this, Audacity can be set to record from the “virtual” device and record from all of the input devices that are connected to the virtual device. Windows does not have this ability built in, but it may be possible to rig up something similar using Virtual Audio Cable. VAC is not free, but a free demo is available if you want to try it.
There has also been some work done recently in Audacity, developing support for WASAPI and WDM-KS, which may in the future improve Audacity’s support for mult-channel devices. Unfortunately this has had a bit of a set back because some older sound card drivers (and poorly written new sound card drivers) can cause the computer to crash if WASAPI or WDM-KS are fully enabled. The Audacity developers are trying to find a way to work around these problems.
but isn’t WASAPI only partly implemented? Weren’t there some problems with implementing it fully? Sorry for going over old ground, but not being on Windows myself I find it hard to keep up with the current state of things on Windows.
Yes only loopback (recording of computer playback) is enabled for WASAPI. So you can’t record mic or line-in with WASAPI yet.
But the WASAPI (non-loopback) problems are to do with things like latency and excessive “error opening sound device”. Not to do with causing the computer to blue screen or causing Audacity to not start.
Actually we could consider turning WASAPI back on fully for 2.0.6-alpha and see if the PortAudio update in 2.0.5 has fixed some of the WASAPI problems.
But fixing PortAudio’s issues with WDM-KS are the higher priority.
Today I tested (under Windows XP SP3) the Windows WDM-KS driver with the interface ESSI ESU 1818 in the free DAW Audacity 2.0.4 as multitrack (multiinput). This chain worked perfectly for 18 channels simultaneously even at 96000 Hz.
First conclusion: The Windows WDM-KS driver can be used in multitracking, not only as stereo channels. This driver is similar with ASIO driver, a driver not included in Audacity DAW.
Second conclusion: The interface Audiobox 1818VSL has’nt a driver to work with WDM-KS. Why? When it will be upgraded with this WDM-KS, a driver can be used with others DAW-s, not only Studio One with ASIO?
Third conclusion: I wait as simple way (instructions step-by-step) to introduce the driver ASIO in Audacity 2.0.4. I’m not an informatician or computer engineer, so I know few aspects of programming PC (at a level for a civil engineer and a guitar player and a semi-professional studio engineer). You can give a replay at adress …
Thanks a lot!
With the best regards,
Dan Olaru
Moderator note: I removed your email address, this is a public debate forum where all need to “share and enjoy” - plus you really don’t want your address harvested by spambots.
WDM-KS will be removed from Audacity 2.0.5 release, but we’ll continue to work on the WDM-KS crashes for 2.0.6.
Could you also record 18 channels using Windows DirectSound in Audacity?
You will need to ask Presonus about that, but some manufacturers write “E-WDM” drivers for their devices that mean Audacity can record multi-channel even with Windows DirectSound. Other devices may require ASIO or WDM-KS to record multi-channel, and others may only record multi-channel with ASIO.
Yes, Audacity 2.0.4 works also very well for the 18 simoultaneous channels of
ESSI ESU 1818 with Windows DirectSound (in Win XP SP3). Without measurements,
it seems that the lowest latency is under WSM-KS.
When Audacity 2.0.5 or 2.0.6 were been published? And why the authors
eliminated WDM-KS?
ESU 1818 has only 4 inputs with preamps, the rest are lines (4 with 10 kHz impedance
and 8 with 20 kHz impedance, each group only a single volum control). In some cases,
I have to add other preamps in the recording chains for line inputs,
plus compression devices and the final results is a great tangle of wires…
My problem is that I want to go to his Presonus interface (8 great preamps for all Octane
type inputs), but I’ll want continue to use my favorit DAW - Audacity.
It’s a unsolvable situation?
The engineers of Presonus have avoided to give me a concrete answer why the Audiobox 1818VSL
interface has a malfunction (only single or stereo and not multichannels) under
DirectSound or WDM-KS. So, I must to introduce ASIO in Audacity… or to change my DAW with
other (maibe unsatisfactory for me).
2.0.5 is currently scheduled for release in a couple of weeks.
2.0.6 is provisionally scheduled for release around the New Year.
Because after 2.0.4 was released, user feedback indicated that on some computers Audacity would fail to launch. or in a few cases launching Audacity would cause the computer to crash. The problem has been identified as being caused by badly behaved sound card drivers, but nevertheless the symptoms are unacceptable for Audacity’s quality control, so WDM-KS will be temporarily disabled until a satisfactory solution is found. The developers seem to be making good progress on a fix, but the immediate priority is to prevent crashes for those affected by the crash/hang.
Some of those affected by problems with WDM-KS have been helping with testing and progress is looking good, but because the problem only affects a small minority of machines, the more widespread the testing can be the better. Delaying re-release of WDM-KS until 2.0.6 allows more opportunity for testing. Needless to say, the problem with 2.0.4 has not been reproducible by the Audacity developers or the QA testers, which is why the problem was unknown until it was publicly released.
Unfortunately this is not uncommon. There are other multi-channel sound cards that work fine with ASIO, but are crippled with only basic functionality when used with native Windows drivers. I have a 4 channel M-Audio USB device that has the same problem. My (possibly slightly cynical) explanation is that developing drivers is expensive in developer time, and manufacturers often think that everyone will be using commercial software with ASIO, so why bother with the expense of developing full-featured Windows drivers (just as they usually don’t bother writing drivers for Linux).