Hi all;

I'm trying to make a musical fountain for a uni project.

It's a simple idea, 8 contact mics going into my 8 channel soundcard and each one when a water droplet hits triggers a bonk which in turn triggers a midi number, basically:

[adc~ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8]
|
[bonk]
|
[69(
|
[mtof]
|
[osc~]
|
[dac~]

However something funny is happening.

Inputs 1-4 (especially 3+4) are going crazy, apparently there's a constant input that is triggering the bonks, even when I turn the levels down and take the jacks out. Even with everything taken out the 1st 4 inputs are sending bonks like no tomorrow.

Also; inputs 5-8 are receiving nothing at all even though the soundcard is showing an audio signal both in the on screen GUI and the level LEDs on the actual device.

Am I doing something wrong here?

When I open the soundcard up in Cubase, everything is fine. I recorded the input of the 1st 4 channels but there's no disturbance or anything, and the last 4 channels are showing and recording audio.

I'm thouroly confused

For the silence on 5-8 issue, did you check Pd's audio settings to make sure you have 8 ins? I have also found that sometimes Pd likes to have the same number of inputs and outputs set in the audio settings dialog, even if you don't actually have that many outs.

I'm not sure what's going on with your audio craziness for the first four channels. Did you try recording directly to a Pd array to see if it looks weird? Or just listening to them? If you hear clicks and pops, I think the issue might be that you are getting xruns, and you'll need to increase the latency in Pd (or the buffer size if using Jack).

8 input channels are selected in the settings; not 8 outputs though, maybe I should try that.

I have tried to listen to the channels too (in the way that I know how). I did a kind of:

[adc~]
|
[*~ 10]
|
|\
[dac~]

But no luck (I'm not sure if this is the correct way to do it).

Am not using Jack or any other software, just going straight into PD from my soundcard (Focusrite Saffire Pro40).
I've not tried recording into PD yet I'm not entirely sure how to do that. I'll do a bit of research, try that and then report back

OK; so it seems that inputs 3+4 are the only ones getting audio in. It doesn't matter if I have ch3 volume turned all the way up or all the way down on the soundcard, it will keep getting it at the same volume.

In PD I recorded the inputs of channel 2 and channel 3.
Channel 2 would not receive any audio at all no matter what level the input on the soundcard was set at.
Channel 3 would constantly receive audio at full level no matter what the input level was set at on the soundcard.

The rest of the channels (1-2...4-8) don't seem to be getting any audio at all whether they're turned all the way up or not.

In PD Audio Settings I have:
Sample rate: 44100
Delay time: 100ms
Block Size: 2048 (anything less and I get "resyncing audio" in the panel)
Input device 1: Microphone (Saffire Audio) - Channels: 8
Output device 1: Speakers (Saffire Audio) - Channels: 8

In my Windows sound recording properties, I've Saffire Audio as default device. In the advanced microphone properties I've it set to 8 input channels, 16 bit, 44100Hz.

I can record all 8 channels in Cubase absolutely fine, so the issue seems to be in PD. (I'm not actually using Cubase for my work, I'm just testing the audio in it.

So obviously there's an issue with PD recognizing my channels or something. I've tried doing both [adc~ 1] [adc~ 2] [adc~ 3]... etc
And [adc~ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8]

No matter what; the outcome is still the same.
Very peculiar indeed

I'm totally stumped and have 4 days to figure this out >_<

I've just reduced the number of inputs to 2, and tried again.

[adc~] provided nothing.
[adc~ 1] also nothing.

Somehow PD thinks that I only have 2 inputs even if I tell it otherwise. It also seems to think that these 2 inputs are channels 3+4.
This is real strange as only a couple of days ago when I was using just 2 channels, channels 1+2 were working fine. All I've done since then is change the number of channels in the audio settings from 2 to 8.

It also seems that only outputs 1+2 are working.

[osc~ 440]
|
[dac~ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8]

Only channels 1+2 are playing; even with all connected.

Any ideas at all on how I can sort this out please?

I barely ever use Windows, so I don't really know about the settings. But are you using ASIO4ALL by chance? I seem to remember hearing that it only uses 2 in / 2 out, though I'm not positive. But the fact that it's choosing 3+4 as the 2 in would be weird. And the fact that your gain knobs on your interface don't work makes NO sense. I'm pretty sure that should not be influenced by the software on your computer.

Also, a block size of 2048 sucks. There should be no reason why you can't do 64. That's pretty much standard across most audio apps.

Not using ASIO4ALL, and it's only in PD that the on board volume knobs are acting up. In Cubase it all works fine. This is so strange.

Things were working with a block size of 64, but it kept coming up with "resyncing audio" in the console. It was working fine so I've no idea what that was all about.
It does the same on my laptop too (the resyncing audio bit). That's with a different soundcard (2 in 2 out Tapco); but this hasn't caused any problems.

The only issue is the Focusrite >_<

OK so I've had a little play tonight and reset the audio settings of Windows and reinstalled PD.

I'm now getting inputs on channels 1+2 again, but nothing on anything else. I'm getting outputs on output channels 1+2 too, but again nothing more.

Here's some pictures to show the issue.

and

I'm starting to think that my soundcard isn't fully compatible with PD... That doesn't make any sense as 2 ins and 2 outs work; but I can't understand why all ins and outs work absolutely fine in Cubase, but not in PD.

I didn't have the programs open at the same time either so there would be no conflicts between the two programs.

Don't ask me how; but I've managed to get it working.

I've a feeling it was playing with Media>ASIO(via portaudio). No idea what happened, I'm just relieved and glad that it did.

And here's what I'm making: