ESS Sound Card Issues

jaredpari..

in Contributed Library Questions • 2 years ago

Hi All,

I'm using the ESS sound library to visualize audio and I've encountered a problem. For some reason I can't get Processing to take audio from my sound card. I'm using a Mac Book Pro OSX 10.6.8 and a MOTU 8Pre. I've changed the input device in system preferences, and in the Audio MIDI set up with no success. The sound card works normally with other applications and the script works with the built in mic as an input so it's just a matter of getting Porcessing to see the sound card.

Has anyone had success getting ESS to work with this or an other sound card and have any suggestions?

Thanks

-Jared

Replies(5)

bjzaba

Re: ESS Sound Card Issues

2 years ago

You can get it to work using SoundFlower. If you've upgraded to Lion, download the new version here.

Unfortunately this means you have to cut off the output to the headphone port… The best idea I've come up with is to get a male-to-male audio cable and a headphone splitter. Then connect the splitter to the headphone port, then the audio cable to the splitter and the line-in port. Seems rather hacky though.

If anyone knows how to send output to Soundflower and the heaphone port at the same time, I'd love to know!

bjzaba

Re: ESS Sound Card Issues

2 years ago

I worked out that if you go into 'Applications>Utilities>Audio MIDI Stetup', you can press the plus button to make aggregate and multi-output devices. Combined with soundflower that could get us a little closer… let me know how you go, I still haven't worked it out.

Oh and a little tip: option-click on the volume button in the menubar and you get a dropdown menu where you can change the audio inputs and outputs.

bjzaba

Re: ESS Sound Card Issues

2 years ago

Okay, I think I've got it!

Download Soundflower. (Lion Version Here).
Open Soundflowerbed.app, and click on the pretty flower icon that appears in your menubar.
In the dropdown menu select under Soundflower (2ch) "Built-in Output".
Open Applications>Utilities>Audio MIDI Stetup and click the '+' button at the bottom left corner and select "Create Aggregate Device".
Tick the boxes next to Soundflower (2ch) and Built-in Output.
Right click on your aggregate device and select "Use this for device for sound output".
Right click again and select "Use this for device for sound input".

There you have it!

Let me know if that works for you. :)

jaredpari..

Re: Re: ESS Sound Card Issues

2 years ago

Hi bjzaba

Thanks for the response but this method didn't end up working for me.

I followed your instructions and now audio that is running from iTunes (or other audio applications) goes to Processing, but the audio coming in through the mics connected to the sound card is not detected. It's very odd since if I monitor the input level that is displayed in sound settings of the system preferences it is clearly picking up audio coming though the mic, but for some reason the mic portion of aggregate audio doesn't seem to be making it to processing.

Thanks for your help though, at this point I'm just going to buy a cable and run it from the sound card to my line in since I know it will work. Hopefully this will work for others

jaredpari..

Re: ESS Sound Card Issues

2 years ago

Ok I found an answer and it's pretty dumb really.

All you need to do is run the software that comes with your MOTU (CueMix FX) while you run Processing and it will work fine. Just select the device in your sound preferences and start up CueMix FX and you should be good to go. However if you're having related issues you should look at Minim and see if you can resolve them with the setInputMixer method. I wish I had started this project with Minim now, because it looks like it has a lot of nice features.

http://code.compartmental.net/minim/examples/Minim/setInputMixer/

I hope this is helpful

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