Seperate soundcards for input and output - what am I doing wrong?

Hi

I know I use Audiolense so infrequently that I'm probably forgetting someting obvious!

I have my speakers hooked up to one sound card (RME ADI-2 Pro FS) running at 192KHz. It has no mic input, so I've plugged my mic into my Presonus Studio 68, which I've set to run at the same speed. I've enabled Seperate play and recording streams on the Advanced Settings tab on the Measurement window. The test connection to the speakers works fine, but the mic doesn't register on the Microphone input monitor. So it's not a surprise that trying to run a measurement ends up with this error message.



I've tried using the mic with REW using the same Studio USB ASIO Driver, and it works just fine

[EDIT] This next bit is a red herring but I haven't edited it out for transparency! It could also be something to do with the other niggle I have. The channel numbering on the RME is such that I need to address both 0 and 7. There's another stereo pair on 2-3 that I don't want to measure, and I don't use 1. So I've created dummy subs on 1-3 which I don't intend to try and measure - so I've put them on a seperate Measurement Group. Without this, I can't seem to get Audiolense to allow me to address non-contiguous channel numbers without reporting an error. Is my problem with the mic related to this attempted workaround? Is there another solution to this other issue? When the ASIO driver conflict was resolved (see later posts below), I was able to dispense with the dummy subs, and address non-contiguous channel numbers without any issue.

I also noted that the Measurement window is reporting in the footer that it is measuring channel 1 of 6 of the Measurement group Front - but there are only 5 channels in that group. Is that an issue too?

Thanks for your help.

Oh, I think I may have discovered why. On REW you cannot enter two different ASIO drivers for input and output. It seems there's a reason for that. It looks like Windows cannot allow one app to use two different ASIO drivers from what I've just read online. If that's correct, I need another workaround. It would also be helpful if Audiolense prohibited this option, even better with some explanation in the Help.

So I've just tried using the WASAPI driver for the mic. The mic now registers, but I'm not sure Audiolense is stable with this configuration since the sweeps sometimes work, and sometimes break up into clicks and pops, which is rather alarming.

I need another option. Maybe I use my MOTU interface (which has mic inputs and supports routing) and route the mic to the SPDIF output into the RME. That would also sync the clocks of the two interfaces, and allow Audiolense just to interface to the one soundcard, with the one driver. I'll give that a go next, but I've run out of time for now given all the time wasted so far.

juicehifi said:

That is correct. Only one asio device at a time.

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Thanks. Did I miss that in the Help - or is it maybe worth adding something in?

For the benefit of anyone else faced with the same dilemma of needing to use two soundcards, I can confirm that in my case I was able to make the two soundcards work together. But I guess my situation is probably quite unusual. My RME ADI-2 Pro is my playback device connected to various active speakers and subs, normally receiving input by USB from a Raspberrry Pi5 running CamillaDSP. CamillaDSP runs the convolution using filters produced by Audiolense.

To carry out measurements I connect the RME via USB to a Windows laptop running Audiolense, and using RME's MADIface ASIO driver Audiolense can access each channel individually. Since the RME has no mic inputs, I used my MOTU Ultralite mk 5 to capture the measurement mic, and routed the signal to the MOTU's optical out which was then connected to the RME optical in. Using a second optical cable I connected the RME optical out to the MOTU optical in simply to be able to lock the MOTU clock as slave to the RME clock as master, so the two soundcards' clocks remain correctly in sync.

Ofer said:

That is an elaborate scheme, well done. How did you come up with this?

Click to expand...

Thanks! I'd not come across the device aggregation feature of ASIO4ALL highlighted by @JLM1948 before. I'm using RME's MADIface ASIO driver which I understand is optimised for their soundcards, and understandably doesn't offer this aggregation feature.

I'd read the manual of the RME card which put me on to the scope for slaving the MOTU clock. I'd also read @juicehifi 's guide for Audiolense which advises against using separate unsynchronised input and output devices in case they drift apart during measurement. Setting up the MOTU as slave is very simple using the CueMix5 software. Since the RME is the master I needed an optical cable RME out - MOTU in to transmit the clock sync. I could have done in in the opposite direction, making the MOTU the master clock, and then I wouldn't have needed that second optical cable between them. There wasn't much in it I guess, but I preferred to use the RME clock since it claims greater stability, and also minimise the setting changes from the configuration of the RME which is in everyday use.