Scant and Scattered
Posted on October 19, 2012
I’m talking about equipment documentation, in this case, computer sound card documentation.
I’m talking about equipment documentation, in this case, computer sound card documentation.
It’s not really a soundcard, it’s built onto the mother board, and I use it because it produces broadcast quality sound. If I was recording the New York Philharmonic I might get something else.
But recording the ALPB Meetings has put new demands on the sound board, and although I managed to get the job done, there was hum in the resulting signal, and it happened again when I talked to Lefty Gomez on Team Speak, which is the same system used with the ALPB.
As far as I can tell, the board is capable of outputting two distinct and separate stereo audio channels, a total of 4-channels, except it doesn’t seem that the stereo can be split for use as individual channels.
KDX programming streaming on the web and broadcasting on AM & FM ties up Audio Output No. 2, and keeps running during recording sessions over on Audio Output No. 1.
I think the normal way to employ Team Speak is to use both Audio Output Channels, one for sending voice to Team Speak and the other to play back Team Speak participants speaking into their mics.
But in manner that I do not understand, I am getting my microphone to Team Speak and hear back without interfering with KDX Streaming Audio, by simply sending on the C.Crane FM transmitter and receiving on the C.Crane radio. But the hum.
I opened the little one-sheet fold-over from the mother board company and found the most unexplained description of the input and output plugs, opened the software on the screen and saw many things that may or may not have a use, if someone knew.
Probably the documentation is so feeble because, like this blog, it gets harder and harder to describe, the more one tries.
Anyway, bottom line, I have made an improvement, but not because I tried to study the problem in a formal scientific way, but because I stumbled onto a solution by trying a bunch of stuff until something worked.
I don’t know why it works.
