[LAU] open hw soundcard

[Folderol]

On Sun, 15 Nov 2009 12:57:34 -0500
Paul Davis <paul at linuxaudiosystems.com> wrote:

> i strongly suggest that you spend time defining precisely what you
> want the control protocol to be able to do before you start this kind
> of experiment.

Very good point.
Are we still talking about only ethernet soundcards, or is the intent
to roll out to a general audio+control over ethernet?

Also, from bitter experience the overall design needs to be robust
enough to handle hardware changes when parts get obsoleted.

As a start I suggest the following:

query bit depths available
      sample rates
      number of input channels
      number of output channels

perform general initialisation and set all defaults

set bit depth -> 8, 16, 24, ?      (default 16)
set sample rate -> 44.1, 48, 96, ? (default 48)
set unit as clock reference or not (default not)
enable/disable CH'n' input	   (default disable)
enable/disable CH'n' output        (defualt disable)
set CH'n' gain/output		   (default silence)

Disabling a channel is not the same as setting it's level to silence,
as at silence it would still generate output to be fed into the network.
It would make sense to stop any meaningless data transfers.

With a switched binary volume control 7 bits would give you 127dB range
(LSB=1dB) so the 8th bit could be used to simply ground that channel.
I'm not even sure you need to go as tight as 1dB. Fine control would be
done within the DAW anyway.

-- 
Will J Godfrey
http://www.musically.me.uk
Say you have a poem and I have a tune.
Exchange them and we can both have a poem, a tune, and a song.