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Date:      Fri, 14 Dec 2012 13:58:26 +0100
From:      Ralf Mardorf <ralf.mardorf@rocketmail.com>
To:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: [Bulk] Re: audio playback with variable tempo
Message-ID:  <1355489906.3755.59.camel@q>
In-Reply-To: <20121214095253.25bc9b40.freebsd@edvax.de>
References:  <50C912D4.6060305@dreamchaser.org> <20121213075126.4d021d07.freebsd@edvax.de> <50CA6B43.4070305@dreamchaser.org> <20121214095253.25bc9b40.freebsd@edvax.de>

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On Fri, 2012-12-14 at 09:52 +0100, Polytropon wrote:
> On Thu, 13 Dec 2012 16:56:51 -0700, Gary Aitken wrote:
> > On 12/12/12 23:51, Polytropon wrote:
> > > On Wed, 12 Dec 2012 16:27:16 -0700, Gary Aitken wrote:
> > What is mix mixing, and what does 
> > monitor do?  A schematic would be helpful...
> 
> If I remember correctly, monitor is a monitor channel for the
> inputs, so this channel contains what will be recorded (even
> though only one of its sources can be recorded at a time).
> It lets you listen to the recording source.

I don't know the OP's hardware, but some audio devices have a mixer
hardware, so usually "monitoring" by the hardware has the advantage,
that you can rout incoming signals to the software + directly to the
output. This e.g. does avoid latency.

>            vol, bass, treble, synth, pcm, speaker, line, mic, cd, mix, pcm2,
>            rec, igain, ogain, line1, line2, line3, dig1, dig2, dig3, phin,
>            phout, video, radio, and monitor.

Some of those terms are well-defined, others, e.g. "mix" perhaps are
defined for some devices. My RME card does enable a "submix", that is
something very special and there's a manual, that does explain this
feature.
For semi-pro and pro audio cards there usually are manuals available.

> > pcm3 is an analog device, and pcm4 is digital; 
> > does that have anything to do with it?

pcm is for digital signals of the computer, that by some audio devices
can be routed,
e.g. hardware output 1 - pcm 1
or   hardware output 1 - hardware input 2

> I also assume the functionality depends on what
> the hardware implements in reality, which may differ from
> device to device.

They most extreme differ. The most used semi-pro cards for sure are
cards with an Envy24 chip, e.g. M-Audio, TerraTec, professional cards
such as the RME cards can have something like "TotalMix: 760 channel
Mixer with 42 bit internal resolution" and interfaces such as ADAT,
AES/EBU + separated word clock IOs. Consumer devices usually support
surround sound, can't be synced and don't have special interfaces, so
the audio devices have completely different hardware mixers. Crap as
pulseaudio is unable to handle semi-pro and pro cards and even for
consumer cards, it does an automatically volume control that is insane.
Usually the audio devices hardware mixer will be set up and then seldom
be touched again, the usage of several faders in a chain, to control the
volume of just one audio signal, only can be handled by experienced
engineers.

Regards,
Ralf




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