24 Channel Playback via Linux/Rpi?

[LTig]

Get 24 track mixer along with 24 track interface.

This gets expensive, € 2k at least. For € 1k you can get the Tascam Studio Bridge.

 

[rp86]

Sounds like a plan, thank you so much!
I will get into pipewire for that, the way I was thinking was is to auto-open a web browser that I created that outputs 24 channels. Do you think pipewire can get its input live? (tested on audacity on my mac)

Yes, live* input via PW is no problem, that's how it's intended. Most current linux distros are configured that if you open a web browser that plays sound, that browser will automatically connect to the pipewire server. I'm not sure about multi-channel audio from a browser though, I don't have any experience with that.

*: some amount of latency is always present, but sounds like that won't matter for your use case?

 

[mpw]

This gets expensive, € 2k at least. For € 1k you can get the Tascam Studio Bridge.

It does get expensive. A run of the mill 24 track mixer wouldn't cost much but the interface would cost. That Op should start off with 8 then16 to 24, why even 24 channels?

 

[john61ct]

why even 24 channels?

Read the OP, that is a hard requirement for the use case.

The key question not yet answered, to what degree will clock drift affecting phase alignment impact whatever the purpose is of the experiment?

If that aspect is critical then a pair of these

As good value for PC I/O as Echo Audiofire 12 ?

Total interface noob here, please ELI5 I don't need to record or mix music in the creative sense, just looking to get multi-channel analog in and out of HTPC type hardware. Primary use case is DIY convolving, loudness contour, bass management, room correction PEQ. The Echo Audiofire 12 unit...

www.audiosciencereview.com

is THE cheapest way to go, and happens to be excellent SQ.

Downside is using old hardware + OS still compatible with Firewire

For RPi5 not an issue but with a stock unit handling the PCIe card needed gets awkward.

Sanctuary Systems "Sentinel Core" with a CM5 instead is a neat plug & play solution, coming soon I hope

Sentinel Core

A Mini-ITX Raspberry Pi CM5 I/O board with PCIe

www.crowdsupply.com

 

[jonathan_david]

Frankly never had a project in that scale of 24 outs - and honestly don't know how much drift splitting the output to 3 will cause. My initial thought is that because the audio is being played for short amounts of time, it won't get to the point of losing synchronicity.

 

[somebodyelse]

Can the UMC1820 not select external clock from spdif for 2 of them, and daisy chain spdif from the one using internal clock to the other two? That's an option on the M-Audio devices I have.

As for PipeWire, if it's recent I think it'll use ASRC to keep the different clock domains in a combined device playing at the same rate by default. More details in an earlier thread. This appears to be similar to how Apple stop devices drifting apart. If you've managed to use the external clock you can then set the clock.name property to the same value for all of them to avoid unnecessary ASRC.

 

[john61ct]

This clocking stuff gets gnarly pretty quickly.

If in fact it turns out the drift is immaterial, for whichever reason

it is SO much cheaper and easier to just go with that cheap interface

even intentionally resetting may just be a minor inconvenience.

If it turns out a single accurate / monolithic clock domain IS needed, my AudioFire-12 x2 is not much more dollar$ just an old-legacy IT timesink slog