Audacity Forum

First off.. I love Audacity and always will. I was very excited to read the release notes of the newest version because it said it can finally handle multi-track recording (more than two track stereo). It says "•Record more than 16 channels (hardware/drivers permitting)" . The only option I have in the Devices setup is mono or stereo.. no "multi" or "other".

I have an EMU 1212 card and have successfully recorded 8 tracks at once, and imported 8 tracks at once from my ADAT using other software like Cubase and Sonar. Thing is, I like Audacity better than those others and was eargerly anticipating the chance to do the same with it.

On a related note, I also do not see "•New "Mixer Board" view with per-track VU meters".

What am I missing?

Thanks for any and all comments and help..

Traveen

traveen wrote:It says "•Record more than 16 channels (hardware/drivers permitting)"

The key phrase here is: (hardware/drivers permitting).

Many multi-channel audio devices use ASIO drivers to support multi-channel recording, and unfortunately due to licensing restrictions Audacity can not be shipped with ASIO support. The only way that you can legally have ASIO support in Audacity is to download the ASIO SDK from Steinberg and build Audacity from the source code to include ASIO. This is not an easy thing if you have no programming experience. More information here: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/index.php? ... _Interface

To use the normal Audacity install for multi-channel recording the hardware must use a multi-channel Windows driver (assuming that we are on a Windows computer). Some hardware provides pairs of drivers for recording channels 1 and 2, another driver for 3 and 4, another for 5 and 6, and so on. This is no good for Audacity which can only access one recording source at a time. Audacity requires one multi-channel driver for recording multiple channels from multi-channel hardware.

This is not new to Audacity 1.3.8 - the thing that is new is that previous versions had a limit of 16 channels maximum (irrespective of hardware or drivers). This limitation has now been removed, so with hardware/drivers permitting, Audacity can now (theoretically) handle 24 channel input or more. I don't have suitable hardware to test this.

traveen wrote:and imported 8 tracks at once from my ADAT using other software like Cubase and Sonar.

Now this could be good news for you. It is certainly good news for me.

I do multi-channel recording on a Yamaha hard disk recorder, which can export as multiple wav files (one for each track). I create a folder on my computer and dump the WAV files into it, then in Audacity, import all the WAV files from that folder. (I prefer to edit and mix on my computer than on the recorder)

One snag that can occur is that Audacity will have no idea about any spaces between audio clips in the tracks that you have recorded. On the Yamaha recorder there is the facility to Export tracks as continuous tracks (any gaps between audio clips are converted to silence), so the tracks will then import into Audacity exactly as they were on the Yamaha. I presume that there are ways to do this on other recorders (software recorders will usually allow you to render tracks. There could be a problem with some multi-track flash card recorders).

traveen wrote:On a related note, I also do not see "•New "Mixer Board" view with per-track VU meters".

Yes, it's in the "View" menu (just below the new "Lyrics" option). I love this feature, even though it still has a lot of rough edges. Here's a picture:
Some discussion about the "rough edges":
http://n2.nabble.com/Re%3A-Mixer-board- ... l#a3322822
http://n2.nabble.com/Re%3A-More-about-t ... l#a3322888

Thanks Steve..

That Emu card I have sounds good, but the software that comes with it is called Patchmix.. and it blows big time. If you're form EMU and reading this... your Patchmix SUCKS. anyway, I digress..

I use aDAT, which means when I import it's in real time. I do no editing on Adat and download it all into my pC for any editing or mixing that I might want to do. So I need the ability to "arm" 8 or 16 tracks at once to record them all at once which I was hoping Audacity could do. As it is, I import to Cubase or Sonar because they can read my sound card as 8 individual tracks. From there I export the 8 tracks as wavs to Audacity because Cubase and Sonar suck too.

When I say Cubase and Sonar suck, I mean this from a personal use point of view (not like when I say EMU's Patchmix sucks,, because it sucks from any point of view). I use no loops, I do not sample, I use no midi.. all I want to do is push the red button and record a performance. I want no effects, I want no side chains.. just a recording device. I understand all those gadgets are good for those who use them, for me it's all a distraction and a cpu hog which is why Audacity works so well for me. It's set up as a glorified tape recorder, which I would use if the maintenance wasn't too hard and tape wasn't so costly.

I am trying to eliminate the middle man, which for me is Cubase or Sonar, and download straight into Audacity. As it is, I need to do that 2 tracks at a time and then manually align them. Since I use Adat it has to be in real time, doing 8 tacks at once means those 8 will be aligned which saves me a ton of time.

I will have to ask someone who can delve into the world of patchmix to see if it can be configured to be read "multi channel windows driver" which it seems to me it should be able to do. There's somethign like 16 different options, none of which will play anything without editing.. which is why PATCHMIX SUCKS.

Sorry, I'm starting to rant.. thanks for your help

traveen wrote:I use aDAT, which means when I import it's in real time

I'm a bit unclear about the terminology you are using. Do you mean that you have an ADAT recorder, which you have recorded on, and are transfering (or wanting to transfer) the multi-track recording in real time to the computer through the ADAT interface?

"ADAT" originally meant the recording medium (Alesis Digital Audio Tape) but has since been used to mean the Alesis digital tape recording machine (or other make that uses that format). It can also mean the digital interface data format that was developed by Alesis for these machines (ADAT Lightpipe protocol).
So I'm a bit unclear about your exact set-up and what is connected to what and in what way.

traveen wrote:So I need the ability to "arm" 8 or 16 tracks at once to record them all at once which I was hoping Audacity could do.

In Audacity you do not "arm" tracks for recording. That is something that you do on Sonar, Cubase, and most other DAW applications, but not on Audacity. For Audacity yo set the number of channels that you wish to record from in Preferences, then hit record and (if all goes well) Audacity will create the set number of tracks and start recording.

Several multi-track users have reported that they can either record one track (mono), two tracks (stereo) or the maximum number of channels that their hardware supports (be that 8, 12 or 16 channels depending on their hardware) but can not record an in-between number of tracks. This appears to be a limitation in Audacity. If. for example, they have an 8 channel card and want to record 4 channels, they have to set Audacity Preferences to use the multi-channel input and set the number of channels to 8, then make the recording with 8 channels. After the recording is finished they delete the 4 unused tracks.

Multi-channel recording is still quite experimental because the developers only have access to a limited amount of hardware. (donations welcome).

traveen wrote:When I say Cubase and Sonar suck, I mean this from a personal use point of view (not like when I say EMU's Patchmix sucks,, because it sucks from any point of view).

OK, I understand.

traveen wrote:I am trying to eliminate the middle man, which for me is Cubase or Sonar, and download straight into Audacity.

I can see exactly why you want to do that, but you may be stuck with the middle man. What is the maximum number of channels that your EMU card handles? I think ADAT is an 8 channel (maximum) format, but this is why I'm asking for a bit of clarification at the start of this post - I'm not sure if you are recording through the analogue or digital inputs of the EMU.

If you are recording through the digital input of the EMU 1212, I presume that you have that set up all correctly (you are able to record 8 channels into Cubase?)

It is quite possible that the Windows drivers do not support multi-channel digital (ADAT) input (Cubase will probably use ASIO drivers), but I can't see anything in the specification about it, so you would need to try and get an answer from EMU about that.

yes ADAT, as in an ADAT recorder. The old Alesis recorders that use SVHS tapes to record on. As I said, I'd go analog and use a 2" tape if I could afford it or do the upkeep on them. I really dislike all the crap that came with digital. The medium is fine but everyone assumes everyoen does nothing but loop, copy/paste or midi and add tons of effects through every port possible, and all the software seems to be set up to support that stuff. I'm too old, or old school, to do that stuff. I like to hear recorded performances,, flaws and all. so I record,, and then download into a pc to mix, adjust levels, maybe some panning and/or gain +/- that might be needed. That's all I want any software to do for me.

As it is, I transfer 8 tracks at a time (in real time as I know of no other way) into Cubase or Sonar and then export them as wavs and then import into Audacity. I have 16 tracks on my adat but I'm limited to 8 at a time because of the emu1212 card.

When I get more time I'll have to reread the novel known as the patchmix manual.. oh yeah, that's right. It didn't come with a manual so it's all trial and ERROR. Jackmunches.. emu, not Audacity.

thanks for your help.. again.

traveen wrote:yes ADAT, as in an ADAT recorder. The old Alesis recorders that use SVHS tapes to record on. As I said, I'd go analog and use a 2" tape if I could afford it or do the upkeep on them.

Nice - yes I liked the old 2" tape, but ouch! it was getting way too expensive (it never was cheap).

traveen wrote:I like to hear recorded performances,

Me too.

traveen wrote:so I record,, and then download into a pc to mix, adjust levels, maybe some panning and/or gain +/- that might be needed. That's all I want any software to do for me.

Assuming that you are on Windows, you might like to try "Reaper" - that type of stuff is really easy on Reaper, and you can do it all non-destructively. AND, Reaper MAY be able to record 8 channels at a time (it supports ASIO). The basic design concept of Reaper is very much like a tape recorder, only you can plug in things like Equalizers or other effects into each mixer channel if you want.