[Openal] Question about Motu 828mkIII hardware

[Chris Robinson]

On Thursday 02 April 2009 2:43:13 pm Jason Daly wrote:
> The 828mk3 actually can produce up to 28 channels of I/O.  The WDM
> driver can be set up in either 6.1 or 7.1 mode, so I don't think that's
> the issue.  Most likely, he's looking to have a 6.1 speaker array
> located above the listener, and another 6.1 speaker array below.
> (Please correct me if I'm wrong, Serge).
>
> Assuming I'm right, I'm pretty certain that there's no way for the two
> devices to be combined into a single "virtual" device, at least under
> Windows (ALSA could do it, but MOTU has never been very friendly with
> Linux).

Ah, I see. I guess I was confusing it with 10.2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surround_sound#10.2_Channel_Surround
(which, incidentally, I forgot about its two "height" speakers).

That may be a bit more difficult since the panning algorithm doesn't handle 
speaker height. Not having a virtual device to handle both cards is a problem, 
as well. I'm not even sure it can be emulated properly, without making sure 
the two cards' clocks are kept in sync (which typically requires a physical 
connection between them).