[LAU] Open Source Audio Interface (was Successor/replacement for RME HDSP+Multiface?)

[Jonathan E Brickman]

 Just some quick thoughts, perhaps not as complete as they could be. -- Len Ovens
Doing pretty good I'd say, Len, I have been periodically studying this for quite a while.  And now that Firewire is going pass? I have to do it again :-)

There is one hardware approach which I have not seen at all yet: this is combination of (say) eight simple stereo USB interfaces, into one box.  Shouldn't it be fairly doable, to take eight satisfactory-quality USB interfaces, wire their timing chips together, write a custom driver, and go?  Or don't bother with the timing chips and the driver and use zita tools or multiple Jackd processes, and build this with a Raspberry Pi (or one of the more powerful act-alikes) as a jackd-over-tcp/ip audio appliance?

There is the fact, though, that USB2 and before, are monodirectional -- half duplex.  They transmit data only one direction at a time.  Yes, they flip back and forth very very fast, but no matter what, that's not good for us.  But USB3, happily, now gives us a full duplex capability.  Perhaps this will mean that once small-studio-priced USB3 multitrack interfaces come out, they may be simpler, and therefore potentially less expensive?

--
Jonathan E. Brickman
Ponderworthy Music | jeb at ponderworthy.com<mailto:jeb at ponderworthy.com> | (785)233-9977 | http://ponderworthy.com
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