AudioCapture doesn't detect Ultramic UM200K microphone

[Christoph Gebhardt]

Dear Bonsai.rx users,

Thanks for this amazing resource of wisdom that this group is, first time asking a question here myself but the user group has helped me a lot in the past. :)

I have an issue with a microphone that I want to incorporate into my mouse behavior recording pipeline (together with a fiber photometry setup). I bought the ultrasonic microphone that the International Brain Lab is using (Ultramic UM200K, Dodotronic) for their behavior rig. I naively had thought that this would be a convenient choice for me too.

The microphone is plugged in via USB, initialized and found by Windows 10 immediately. I can record from the microphone using Audacity as well. It is however not found by Bonsai’s AudioCapture node. This issue may be similar to https://groups.google.com/g/bonsai-users/c/COafYTXsFeM/m/FYER4ufzBAAJ

Bonsai and all installed packages are in their newest versions as of yesterday.

What makes it difficult for me to tackle is that there is no error message or anything, nothing to start with. The microphone is just not recognized by Bonsai. So, if anyone has some experience with getting this particular microphone to run in Bonsai or some pointers on how to trouble shoot this thing would be very welcome. Maybe I am just missing some packages?

Best,

chris

[Joao Bacelo]

Hi Chris,

I'm using Bonsai with the  Dodotronic Ultramic UM200K and it's working. Maybe you should re-install Bonsai, or check if you haven't missed some important package..

The only problem I had was in recording with 2 Ultramics simultaneously (but still both were detected by Bonsai). Somehow the signal from both mics was not recorded properly (maybe related to the high sampling rate), so I decided to record one through Audacity and the other through Bonsai, synchronizing both by a beep generated by bonsai. 

Cheers,

João

[Christoph Gebhardt]

Thank you, João, for your response. I know I couldnt give you guys much to work with. It's puzzling to me.

But good to know that it in principle the mic should work. That means that there is a way to get this to run. :)

Regarding Bonsai and packages, everything seems to be in order. I can even acquire from the AudioCapture node using the computer's internal Realtec mic.

I wonder if it's related to having another device on the same USB hub as the mic on the computer. In my case it's a fiber photometry system plugged into a laptop that has just 2x USB 3.1 ins. Maybe choosing that particular setup wasnt very wise.  

I will report back when I have a solution.

Best,

chris

[Christoph Gebhardt]

Hi, just to report back for future reference. I think I found where the problem lies and I might have a workaround if not a solution.

It seems that the internal microphone of my computer is sometimes interfering with recognizing the Ultramic. When that happens I have to switch the internal mic off and on again in the windows devices tab and then both microphones are suddenly recognized in the AudioCapture Node of Bonsai.

Does the fact that I can always record in Audacity from the Ultramic without that workaround though might hint at something Bonsai internal rather than on the Windows 10 side of things?

Hope it may help someone, surely puzzled me for a while.

best,

chris

[Gonçalo Lopes]

Hi Christoph,

I have seen in the past a similar phenomenon where input and output audio devices are disabled / enabled in Windows default drivers by simply plugging and unplugging headphone/mic jacks. Often it's not happy when you do it in the middle of a program.

There are different ways of enumerating hardware in Windows (e.g. DirectShow, Windows Media Foundation, DirectSound) and probably Audacity is using one which is different from OpenAL (probably more modern) which for your card ends up being more compatible.

Happy to hear you found a workaround and thanks for sharing!

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[Nacho Sanguinetti]

Hi everyone, 

I'm writing here so that ultrasonic people see this.  First to report that I have tried Pettersson  u256 ultrasonic microphones and they worked with audio capture. These are also cheap USB mics. Also, just out of curiosity if anyone had worked on, or has any ideas to have a live spectrogram of audio. Goncalo, has anyone done this? Is there an easy way of doing it?

Best

Nacho