Audacity Forum

I have successfully configured Audacity and the ASIO driver on Windows to record 32 channels from my Behringer x32 sound board.
However, I'm trying to use Audacity to playback those 32 channels (recordings) back into the Behringer x32 via the ASIO (USB) as well.
The recording dropdown gives me the options of 1 through 32 channels to choose from.

The problem is the Audacity ASIO device for playback does not give me the option for playing back more than 2 channels.
Is there something I missed in compiling the ASIO driver into Audacity to give me 32 channels as an option for playing back?
Or is playing back more than 2 channels through ASIO devices not supported by Audacity?

If it is not supported, is it on the roadmap?

Thanks,
Eric

I have successfully configured Audacity and the ASIO driver on Windows

By that you mean you recompiled Audacity from the source code to support ASIO? As far as I know, that's the only way to make full ASIO work—someone will correct me.

Koz

Yes that's correct. I recompiled Audacity with the ASIO driver.
Audacity is working perfectly for me to record 32 channels at one time from the ASIO device (Behringer x32).
But Audacity is not allowing me to playback 32 channels to the ASIO device at one time. It only gives me mono and stereo options (1 and 2 ch) for output to the same ASIO device.

Eric

I'm out.

Koz

Audacity currently only supports mono/stereo playback.
Multi-channel playback is one of the highest rated feature requests, but currently we don't have a developer to work on it.
I've added your vote for this feature.

@Gale:

Could you please add my vote too?

Thx!

cyrano wrote:@Gale:

Could you please add my vote too?

Thx!

And mine as well.

Thx

Robert

cyrano wrote:Could you please add my vote too?

Robert J. H. wrote:And mine as well.

Votes added.

steve wrote:Audacity currently only supports mono/stereo playback.
Multi-channel playback is one of the highest rated feature requests, but currently we don't have a developer to work on it.
I've added your vote for this feature.

Thanks so much for the clarification.
Would it be possible to add this information to the ASIO section of the wiki or in the FAQ please?

When the wiki says Audacity supports ASIO (when recompiled), to me that implies both recording and playback.

Thanks,
Eric

rmwigdnal wrote: When the wiki says Audacity supports ASIO (when recompiled), to me that implies both recording and playback.

When compiled with ASIO, Audacity can use ASIO for both recording and playback. That is not where the 2 channel limit comes from. Audacity is limited to a maximum of 2 channel playback regardless of what sound system is used.

I don't think that it is an appropriate issue for the FAQ because it is very rarely asked about (I think I vaguely recall one person asking about this a few years ago), certainly not a "frequently" asked question.

There is a note at the end of the section about exporting multi-channel files:

There is no support at the moment for multichannel playback of audio in Audacity - playback of a multichannel file in Audacity will always be mixed down to stereo.
Similarly, the Tracks > Mix and Render and Tracks > Mix and Render to New Track commands only mix down to mono or stereo.

http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/ad ... tions.html
I agree that this is not very prominent in the manual, but it only affects a very small percentage of users and we can't make everything prominent.