linuxaudio.org

> > > "Hardware mixing" in ALSA terminology refers to the mixing of multiple

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> > > sound sources from the PC by the hardware.  For example, mplayer

> > > output and system notification sounds.

> >

> > Yeah. I suspect (and Mark apparently did, too) that the original

> > poster meant to ask about hardware monitoring, which is completely

> > different :-)

> >

> > Explanation here:

> > http://ardour.org/manual/recording/monitoring

well, i asked about hardware _mixing_, since it is pretty obscure thing, unlike hardware _monitoring_ :)
> Is there a commonly understood meaning? I guess I'm uncommonly (or

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> commonly for me) in the dark about that.

that's troo :)
> > I stand corrected.  Mark was right - these devices do have hardware

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> > mixing, they just implement it in an odd way, probably to keep the

> > interface similar to other OS.

>

> its not true to say that with ALSA, they support what is commonly

> understood as h/w mixing. you cannot do independent open's of several

> subdevices and get the output of each subdevice mixed down to the

> outputs.

>

> yes, they do have a very powerful h/w matrix mixer, but it is not

> accessible via a series of independent subdevices. it also is not

> supported by the ALSA mixer API at this time.

> > > you cannot do independent open's of several

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> > > subdevices and get the output of each subdevice mixed down to the

> > > outputs.

> >

> > This seems a Linux Software Developer centric statement. What does it mean?

>

> it means that you can have up to N apps all using the same card without

> any s/w mixing going on. each one calls snd_pcm_open() which internally

> calls snd_pcm_open_subdevice() and assuming the subdevices are not all

> busy, it will work. a subdevice is a "stream" that always sends its

> signal to the outputs associated with the PCM device, but can be opened

> and closed independently.

ok. this clarifies things enough.

so, if i use only one app (csound), seems like there's no need to care about this hardware mixing thing.
thanx again.
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