Dynamic microphone connection to m-audio revolution sound card
Foo Man Choo SE
am having problems getting my Rat-Shack Optimus unidirectional dynamic
mic to work with it. In the user manual for the card, it states
something like:
"...the mic jack on the m-audio card is a 3 conductor TRS-type for
condenser (2 conductor) or electret (3 conductor) type mics..."
The mic has a 1/4" two conductor plug and is not powered. Using a
1/4" mono to 1/8" TRS adaptor, the mic used to work fine with my
previous sound (cheap Yamaha WaveForce, I believe). On the m-audio
card, no signal is produced using the same adaptor. Do I need to get
a different adaptor or will I need a mic pre-amp? Since it did work
with the Yamaha card, can I assume that that card provided the
necessary amplification?
Note that a $10 PC mic with a 1/8" TRS plug does work (the sound
sucks, though).
On another issue, the m-audio card doesn't seem to allow echo of the
mic input as the Yamaha did. The kids use this for karaoke and making
strange sound effects :). I see no echo-like option other than to
enable monitoring which introduces latency making it unusable by the
kids. What options do I have (with or without the sound card) to get
echo back? Note that I have the line-out's connected to my Yamaha
receiver.
Thanks for any and all suggestions.
--Rob
Foo Man Choo SE
According to m-audio support, I will need to get a mic preamp to get
the dynamic mic to work.
On the second issue, m-audio support isn't giving a straight answer so
I'm reaching the conclusion that the m-audio revolution doesn't
support direct echo as with most other sound cards. Is this because
it's derived from the more professional level cards such as Delta?
Unless someone else has another suggestions, I may switch to the
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz card to keep the kids happily singing (yes, I
realize the sound/recording quality will not be as good)...
--Rob
Wolfgang S. Rupprecht
fooman...@yahoo.com (Foo Man Choo SE) writes:
> On the second issue, m-audio support isn't giving a straight answer so
> I'm reaching the conclusion that the m-audio revolution doesn't
> support direct echo as with most other sound cards. Is this because
> it's derived from the more professional level cards such as Delta?
> Unless someone else has another suggestions, I may switch to the
> Turtle Beach Santa Cruz card to keep the kids happily singing (yes, I
> realize the sound/recording quality will not be as good)...
The M-Audio Revolution hardware does not include a dsp or sound-synth
chip. The Envy24HT (aka ICE1724) that is on it is a straight 32-bit
DMA chip. Whatever sounds / effects you want you have to do in
software.
I just got my Revolution card, but still need to write the unix
drivers to use it.
-wolfgang
--
Wolfgang S. Rupprecht http://www.wsrcc.com/wolfgang/
(NOTE: The email address above is valid. Edit it at your own peril.)
Stacey
SE) wrote:
>I just purchased an m-audio revolution sound card (awesome sound!) but
>am having problems getting my Rat-Shack Optimus unidirectional dynamic
>mic to work with it. In the user manual for the card, it states
>something like:
>
>"...the mic jack on the m-audio card is a 3 conductor TRS-type for
>condenser (2 conductor) or electret (3 conductor) type mics..."
>
>The mic has a 1/4" two conductor plug and is not powered. Using a
>1/4" mono to 1/8" TRS adaptor, the mic used to work fine with my
>previous sound (cheap Yamaha WaveForce, I believe). On the m-audio
>card, no signal is produced using the same adaptor. Do I need to get
>a different adaptor or will I need a mic pre-amp? Since it did work
>with the Yamaha card, can I assume that that card provided the
>necessary amplification?
>
>Note that a $10 PC mic with a 1/8" TRS plug does work (the sound
>sucks, though).
>
That's odd. I've used dynamic mics with all sorts of sound cards,
video camera etc and never needed a preamp. I though they produced
enough output for most any type of recording? Many cards do supply
power at the jack to power "pc" type condensor mics so they don't have
to have a battery to work. Have you tried the line in jack and see if
that works?
Stacey
nospam...@mr.net
wolfgang+gnus2...@dailyplanet.wsrcc.com (Wolfgang S.
Rupprecht) wrote:
>
>The M-Audio Revolution hardware does not include a dsp or sound-synth
>chip. The Envy24HT (aka ICE1724) that is on it is a straight 32-bit
>DMA chip. Whatever sounds / effects you want you have to do in
>software.
>
>I just got my Revolution card, but still need to write the unix
>drivers to use it.
>
>-wolfgang
It's definitely different from most audio cards. When I go into the
DirectX 8.1 Sound Diagnostics they won't run - the diagnostic says
that the card doesn't support hardware acceleration.
A note on dynamic MIC levels - the average is 0.5 mV, which is much
less than the electret condenser type than the card was designed for.
There are some low priced digital reverbs with dynamic MIC inputs if
you look around at musical equipment shops.
Foo Man Choo SE
> The M-Audio Revolution hardware does not include a dsp or sound-synth
> chip. The Envy24HT (aka ICE1724) that is on it is a straight 32-bit
> DMA chip. Whatever sounds / effects you want you have to do in
> software.
>
> I just got my Revolution card, but still need to write the unix
> drivers to use it.
>
> -wolfgang
Are you saying that other, more common, soundcards, typically have a
dsp or sound-synth chip? I'm assuming this chip handles analog to
digital conversion and mixing (among other functions). Not knowing
much about this technology, can you explain why such a chip is
important to achieve a simple echo capability? By echo, I mean simply
taking the analog mic signal (assuming it's already line-level) and
mixing it with the line-out signals (no analog to digital conversion
required).
Good luck with the Linux driver. Sounds like a real challenge.
--Rob
Foo Man Choo SE
> ...
> It's definitely different from most audio cards. When I go into the
> DirectX 8.1 Sound Diagnostics they won't run - the diagnostic says
> that the card doesn't support hardware acceleration.
>
> A note on dynamic MIC levels - the average is 0.5 mV, which is much
> less than the electret condenser type than the card was designed for.
> There are some low priced digital reverbs with dynamic MIC inputs if
> you look around at musical equipment shops.
It's not clear how m-audio is positioning the consumer-level
Revolution card. If it's meant to compete with the better "general
purpose" sound cards such as CL Audigy II and Turtle Beach Santa Cruz,
they need to add some more capabilities (dsp, echo, better gaming
support, etc).
Thanks for the digital reverb suggestion, I'll check them out.
--Rob
Foo Man Choo SE
> The M-Audio Revolution hardware does not include a dsp or sound-synth
> chip. The Envy24HT (aka ICE1724) that is on it is a straight 32-bit
> DMA chip. Whatever sounds / effects you want you have to do in
> software.
Another question: is it possible to do the echoing via software? If
so, would it have to be implemented within the driver?
Foo Man Choo SE
> ...
> >Note that a $10 PC mic with a 1/8" TRS plug does work (the sound
> >sucks, though).
> >
>
>
> That's odd. I've used dynamic mics with all sorts of sound cards,
> video camera etc and never needed a preamp. I though they produced
> enough output for most any type of recording? Many cards do supply
> power at the jack to power "pc" type condensor mics so they don't have
> to have a battery to work. Have you tried the line in jack and see if
> that works?
>
>
> Stacey
Yep, my old Yamaha card worked fine with the dynamic mic as well. The
only explanation seems to be that these other cards have an on-board
preamp and the m-audio card doesn't. I haven't tried the line-in jack
but I don't think it would work since it's definitely expecting a
line-level signal.
--Rob
Wolfgang S. Rupprecht
> dsp or sound-synth chip?
Yes. Here is a typical chip:
http://www.fee.vutbr.cz/~arnost/opl/opl3.html
> I'm assuming this chip handles analog to digital conversion and
> mixing (among other functions). Not knowing much about this
> technology, can you explain why such a chip is important to achieve
> a simple echo capability? By echo, I mean simply taking the analog
> mic signal (assuming it's already line-level) and mixing it with the
> line-out signals (no analog to digital conversion required).
The FM synth chips and/or general purpose DSP's that one finds on the
games-oriented sound cards allow the programmer to free up a bit of
the main CPU's time. Without those dsp/synth chips the older 386's
and 486's would have spent most of their time calculating the sound
waveforms.
Nowadays the CPU's have gotten so good that they are faster than the
faster DSP's. There really isn't much of a reason to want a separate
DSP, other than perhaps to conform to what the programs expect. If
the program isn't prepared to calculate the echo itself, you get into
a situation where you need the extra hardware simply because the
programmer was expecting to use it, to save him the trouble of writing
20 extra lines of code.
Can you write software to generate an echo? Yes! It is one of the
simpler sound effects programs to write. You just save the output
samples for an extra second (or however long you want the echo delay
to be), multiply that 1-second delayed sample by some number less than
1.0 (this is how loud you want the echo to be) and add this delayed
and scaled value in with your output stream.
The problem is that it may not be possible to get an arbitrary program
to use your echo program to preprocess your audio samples before
sending them to the sound card. I don't know enough about the MS
world to know how easy it is to splice another program into the loop.
Hopefully someone else will speak up with some hints.
> Good luck with the Linux driver. Sounds like a real challenge.
Thanks! Its fun learning how this stuff works under the hood.
Mike Rivers
> It's not clear how m-audio is positioning the consumer-level
> Revolution card.
They're selling it as a way to use your computer to play surround
recordings and games. Any recording capabilities (as in any consumer
grade sound card) are purely coincidental.
--
I'm really Mike Rivers - (mri...@d-and-d.com)
dmi...@spamblock.demon.co.uk
> fooman...@yahoo.com (Foo Man Choo SE) writes:
>> On the second issue, m-audio support isn't giving a straight answer so
>> I'm reaching the conclusion that the m-audio revolution doesn't
>> support direct echo as with most other sound cards. Is this because
>> it's derived from the more professional level cards such as Delta?
>> Unless someone else has another suggestions, I may switch to the
>> Turtle Beach Santa Cruz card to keep the kids happily singing (yes, I
>> realize the sound/recording quality will not be as good)...
> The M-Audio Revolution hardware does not include a dsp or sound-synth
> chip. The Envy24HT (aka ICE1724) that is on it is a straight 32-bit
> DMA chip. Whatever sounds / effects you want you have to do in
> software.
> I just got my Revolution card, but still need to write the unix
> drivers to use it.
Have you actually managed to get the specs for the HT version of this
chip? I have a Waveterminal 192 and also want to write a driver but am
having trouble obtaining the register level details.
The straight Envy24 already has a driver (Linux/ALSA) but this does not
seem to work correctly with the Envy24HT.
Regards, Dan.
--
** The email address *IS* valid, do NOT remove the spamblock
And on the evening of the first day the lord said...........
.... LX 1, GO!; and there was light.
Wolfgang S. Rupprecht
dmi...@spamblock.demon.co.uk writes:
> Have you actually managed to get the specs for the HT version of this
> chip? I have a Waveterminal 192 and also want to write a driver but am
> having trouble obtaining the register level details.
> The straight Envy24 already has a driver (Linux/ALSA) but this does not
> seem to work correctly with the Envy24HT.
Google is your friend. ;-)
Here are the is a Nov 2001 prelim spec sheet. It looks like a nice
chip without all the bells and whistles that get in the way of a high
quality audio.
http://his.luky.org/ftp/mirrors/alsa/datasheets/icensemble/Envy24HT091DS.pdf
nospam...@mr.net
wolfgang+gnus2...@dailyplanet.wsrcc.com (Wolfgang S.
Rupprecht) wrote:
>Here are the is a Nov 2001 prelim spec sheet. It looks like a nice
>chip without all the bells and whistles that get in the way of a high
>quality audio.
--- trim
Do you think that removing the MIC input from the A/D would give a
better S/N ratio for recording from Line In? I'm curious how the MIC
and Line signals are mixed. If it could give a quieter input by
lifting a component lead that would be a tempting option.
Wolfgang S. Rupprecht
nospam...@mr.net writes:
> On Thu, 20 Feb 2003 02:20:53 GMT,
> wolfgang+gnus2...@dailyplanet.wsrcc.com (Wolfgang S.
> Rupprecht) wrote:
>
> >Here are the is a Nov 2001 prelim spec sheet. It looks like a nice
> >chip without all the bells and whistles that get in the way of a high
> >quality audio.
>
> better S/N ratio for recording from Line In? I'm curious how the MIC
> and Line signals are mixed. If it could give a quieter input by
> lifting a component lead that would be a tempting option.
Yea, if the mic preamp is connected to your line-in I'd think you
should disconnect it. I really doubt it though.
I'd think that if the card had a mic preamp it would have some
explicit way to turn the preamp off. Does the mic in phono connector
have a few extra contacts to sense if something is plugged in? The
Maudio revolution has some extra stuff on the end of the mic jack that
sure looks like a sense switch. It is also possible that the
designers use one of the general purpose outputs to enable/disable the
mic preamp. In that case the MS software should show some software
toggled microphone preamp enable/disable.
In any case, it is something done outside of the envy24HT.
Ed
I found an unadvertised option with this card... if you turn off the
recording monitor in the control panel you can record at 24-bit 192 khz.
dmi...@spamblock.demon.co.uk
> Here are the is a Nov 2001 prelim spec sheet. It looks like a nice
> chip without all the bells and whistles that get in the way of a high
> quality audio.
> http://his.luky.org/ftp/mirrors/alsa/datasheets/icensemble/
Envy24HT091DS.pdf
Thanks, I did google for it but failed to find it.
You did not say what u*ix you were writing a driver for but if it is linux,
would you be interested in a joint project?
What is it with home computer chip manufacurers and data sheets, all of the
reguar manufacturers of silicon (Natsemi, Atmel, Microchip and the rest) go
out of their way to make data sheets available on all their products. PC
component manufacturers act like the data sheets are the crown jewels,
it is deeply annoying.
Wolfgang S. Rupprecht
dmi...@spamblock.demon.co.uk writes:
> You did not say what u*ix you were writing a driver for but if it is linux,
> would you be interested in a joint project?
This is for NetBSD (netbsd-current to be precise).
I'd be more than happy to collaborate and share ideas. (Even though
we probably won't be able to share much code.)
> What is it with home computer chip manufacurers and data sheets, all of the
> reguar manufacturers of silicon (Natsemi, Atmel, Microchip and the rest) go
> out of their way to make data sheets available on all their
> products.
I was very happy to see that the AKM chips I needed data on were
available from the US and JP Asahi-Kasei websites.
> PC component manufacturers act like the data sheets are the crown
> jewels, it is deeply annoying.
I've heard a theory that this unfortunate trend is due to the screwed
up US patent situation. Basically the US patent office doesn't do a
very good job of weeding out the "obvious" patents. This encourages
chip manufacturers to hide the inner working of their chips, lest one
of these patent-system abuses come out of the woodwork claiming that
something they did in the chip infringes on one of their bogus
patents.
I should take a roadtrip down to the office of ICEnsemble that
designed this chip. They are only a couple of miles down the road
from me. It would be interesting to find out why they are keeping the
details of this chip under wraps.
dmi...@spamblock.demon.co.uk
> dmi...@spamblock.demon.co.uk writes:
>> You did not say what u*ix you were writing a driver for but if it is linux,
>> would you be interested in a joint project?
> This is for NetBSD (netbsd-current to be precise).
> I'd be more than happy to collaborate and share ideas. (Even though
> we probably won't be able to share much code.)
I have just discovered that someone has done the job already in the CVS
version of the alsa sources. This code currently does not support
192Khz sampling but does most of the rest. Obviously you would need a
rewrite to support NetBSD but it may be useful to you as a template.