Audacity Forum

Hello, im new to audacity and quality sound in general, but here goes

Ive set up my hub with my xbox 360, computer, and surround sound. I want to be able to record what i play on xbox into audacity from my new 7.1 surrond sound card through its spdif(digital-optical) input, record said audio, and then send that same audio back through to my sound cards spdif output to my speakers.(with no delay IF possible but not neccesary) for machinima. So right now I have my 360 outputing Dolby Digital 5.1, through a digital optical audio cable into the Turtle Beach Montego DDL sound card, and i have the sound card outputing 5.1 to my speakers... but when i set it all up to record all i got was an annoying high pitched clicking. I checked the cords to make sure everything was plugged in and everything, but i cant figure out what is wrong... my whole setup it pretty much new... the sound card, speakers, and 360 being in here... so it might just be some settings i have wrong... but whatever help you can give me would be great THANKS!

First off, you need to use Audacity 1.3.4 in order to make surround sound files. Audacity 1.2.6 does not have this capability.

You can get your surround signal to your computer and get it routed through the sound card and out to the speakers. So you're setup to do hardware monitoring correctly. I think that's by default with that card, but in any case, that's good.

Now you just need to get Audacity setup to record all 6 channels (or 8 if you're going to switch to 7.1).

Ideally all you should have to do is open Audacity and click edit -> preferences -> audio i/o. Select the right input device here (your SPDIF interface), and then change the number of channels to 6 (or 8).

You may have to fiddle around with your sound card driver software in order to enable the SPDIF input instead of the analog inputs. The website has this to say:

Optical S/PDIF input for recording digital audio from external sources at resolutions of up to 24 bit at 96 kHz (16 bits at 48kHz sampling rate in Vista). Settings are in the Control Panel main tab.

Once you get it all going, you should be able to record a surround signal. You'll end up with 6 mono channels, all panned center by default (there's no way around this at the moment).

Audacity cannot currently play back surround sound audio, but you can still make surround sound files and play them back using different software. In order to do that you need to go to the edit -> preferences -> audio files menu. Here, select "Use Custom Mix" in the "When Exporting Tracks..." section. Now, when you export a wav file (I don't think that mp3s can handle the surround format), you'll get a new dialog box and will be able to send each track in the Audacity project to it's own surround track in the file.

alatham wrote:First off, you need to use Audacity 1.3.4 in order to make surround sound files.

i already have that :

alatham wrote:You can get your surround signal to your computer and get it routed through the sound card and out to the speakers. So you're setup to do hardware monitoring correctly. I think that's by default with that card, but in any case, that's good.

not sure what you mean by hardware monitoring, but at the moment i have my spdif out going to one channel on my surround sound, and my xbox 360 going to another channel on my surround sound. I would LIKE to get it set up to flow through my computer but that is where my problem started. so right now i CANNOT get my 360's audio to my computer and then to the speakers, just directly to the speakers(if thats what you meant then sorry i types this lol)

alatham wrote:Now you just need to get Audacity setup to record all 6 channels (or 8 if you're going to switch to 7.1).

ok i set that up RIGHT now thanks

alatham wrote:Ideally all you should have to do is open Audacity and click edit -> preferences -> audio i/o. Select the right input device here (your SPDIF interface), and then change the number of channels to 6 (or 8).

ok i had that setup correctly(minus the correct number of channels

alatham wrote:You may have to fiddle around with your sound card driver software in order to enable the SPDIF input instead of the analog inputs. The website has this to say:

Optical S/PDIF input for recording digital audio from external sources at resolutions of up to 24 bit at 96 kHz (16 bits at 48kHz sampling rate in Vista). Settings are in the Control Panel main tab.

ok i have no trouble with selecting the spdif ports, and i just changed my preferences in audacity to match the 24 bit-96kHz

alatham wrote:Once you get it all going, you should be able to record a surround signal. You'll end up with 6 mono channels, all panned center by default (there's no way around this at the moment).

Audacity cannot currently play back surround sound audio, but you can still make surround sound files and play them back using different software. In order to do that you need to go to the edit -> preferences -> audio files menu. Here, select "Use Custom Mix" in the "When Exporting Tracks..." section. Now, when you export a wav file (I don't think that mp3s can handle the surround format), you'll get a new dialog box and will be able to send each track in the Audacity project to it's own surround track in the file.

ok thats fine as long as the end product(wav file) can be surround, and im going to try these chagnes now...and wow... its works! kinda lol, i got the 360's sound to come through now, allowing me to record, thats great! Now i guess i would like to know if there is a way to play the sound that is being recorded? as its being recorded. the "software playthrough" doesnt work, it causes me to get the static again., also i have a quick Question, will people to able to listen to a 5.1 compiled sound clip if they dont have surround sound? i tryed playing a test clip in WMP and it came through as static... but then i played it in VLC player and it worked, surround and all... so is this software dependant? as i said i want to do this for machinima so if there is an aucience that will just get static id like to know so i can change it to just stereo compiling... well thanks for the help!

i would like to know if there is a way to play the sound that is being recorded

Hmm, good question. I've never worked with surround sound, so I have no hands on experience. Most of this will just be guesswork on my part. I'm certain that "software playthrough" will not give you what you want, that should be turned off. "Software playthrough" tells Audacity to spit out the audio it's hearing as soon as it hears it, but since Audacity can't play a surround signal it won't work right (which is why you hear static).

You're trying to monitor the input signal (that's always a good idea). What I meant by "hardware monitoring" is that your sound card will immediately play back any sound that's coming in before it gets to a piece of software. We call it 'monitoring' when you listen to the signal that's being recorded, so 'hardware monitoring' just means that only the hardware is touching the audio that you're listening to. This is the only way to listen without any delay since software is not in a good position to give you a good monitoring signal.

I read your original post wrong (as far as how you have things plugged in). Ideally, you should just be able to run a cable from the 360 -> sound card input and a second cable from the sound card output -> surround receiver. I think that the sound card will just spit the input signal back out immediately. This would be true hardware monitoring. If this doesn't work by default, then you'll have to tell your sound card drivers to make it work, I can't tell you how to do that. Usually it's just a matter of turning up the "input" volume in the driver software, but it's not universal and it depends on how the drivers were written.

So it looks like you're able to record a surround signal and listen back to it once you've made a multi-channel wav. That's great. I can now tell people with certainty that it is possible to do this.

i have a quick Question, will people to able to listen to a 5.1 compiled sound clip if they dont have surround sound? i tryed playing a test clip in WMP and it came through as static... but then i played it in VLC player and it worked, surround and all... so is this software dependant? as i said i want to do this for machinima so if there is an aucience that will just get static id like to know so i can change it to just stereo compiling

I do not think that a 5.1 channel wav file will work correctly for people who don't have a surround sound setup. Since you're making a video, it's probably best to ask this at a video forum, they should be able to answer you more solidly than I can (I just use Audacity record stereo music in the second bedroom, I have no experience with surround sound or video). There's a chance that it will depend on having the right codecs installed, but I'm really out of my element here.

I just ran a test. I made a 4 channel and 6 channel file with one drum sample a piece (so I could count each channel as it plays). I could hear each drum sample, but the stereo was odd. I heard each alternating channel in the opposite ear. So odd numbered channels (1, 3, and 5) sounded in the left ear, and even numbered channels showed up in the right channel. I used Windows Media Player to play the files and it didn't complain (or spit out static). If this works universally, then people with a stereo setup will hear a lot of clipping (since the channels will all add up), and things won't be panned properly. But you heard static through Windows Media Player so I don't know what's going on. My personal advice is to make a stereo mix first, worry about surround sound only if you feel like remixing the audio later.

I do know that DVDs have several different sound mixes, so if you're playing a DVD in stereo, there's a separate mix with only two channels. I don't think a standard DVD player will take a 5.1 mix and spit it out as a stereo signal. I think it requires a separate mix for each speaker format (although there are receivers that will "upmix" a stereo signal and spit it out as a surround signal, I don't know if "downmixing" works the same way).

ah, well im truely grateful for your help thus far, i still dont know how to do the hardware monitering but i will dig around and see what i find(now that i know what to look for). and again THANK YOU!