I'm new to the forum and to working with microcontrollers. I just went through an interesting year of cancer diagnosis and treatment and, luckily, I have a great prognosis. I've been inspired to learn some new things and work on a number of dream projects.
I've always been interested in mixing music or sound effects into an array of speakers. I would like to be able to control a large number of independently driven speakers. I want to learn to build the speaker boxes, the amp, the dac, all the software, and to keep the price of the build down. Currently large speaker arrays like this use audio over ethernet, but I'm open to alternatives. For fun, I'm also interested in controlling the direction that each speaker is pointing, yaw and tilt.
I was recently also inspired by research into wave field sythesis and the integration of a program called SPAT into Max MSP (which I've played around with)
https://empac.rpi.edu/program/research/wave-field-synthesis
This was the source of the information on audio over ethernet.
I would like to make the maker version of this device, eventually.
Project alternatives:
Off the shelf: Buy ethernet switch with power over ethernet, audinate Dante AVIO line level outputs, and powered speakers. Use Audinate Dante's virtual soundcard. (See the Wave Field Synthesis specs from above.)
The Raspberry Pi version: Use a Pi and an HiFiBerry Amp2 (amp/dac combo) to a speaker and try to figure out how to connect all that to a virtual soundcard with AES67 compliance.
The long view: try to build a speaker box that will be fed power over ethernet, an audio signal and speaker directional information. I have concerns about ethernet noise and love the HiFiBerry Amp2's feature that allows you to run the amp separately with batteries so that the amp is very clean sounding and not amplifying potential network noise. So have the poe feed some sort of storage to keep the amplification nice and clean.
I have absolutely no idea how to implement any of this and haven't had to solder anything in over 3 decades. What I lack in knowledge, I make up for in passion. I currently am mixing music into a 7.1 home theatre system using Ambisonic VSTs and Reaper. It's a BLAST. So I'm also interested in writing my own VSTs.
I've been very impressed with how supportive these forums seem to be.
If cancer has taught me anything, it's Do the Thing. Health and Happiness to all of you.
Edit: Oh, man, the more I look around this site, the more I think that I've come to the right place. There are some amazing projects that people have done. I'm realizing that ethernet cables everywhere is a bad idea. Speaker cables can be cheaper. So I want to build a device that I can send a lot of audio bandwidth from my computer that will convert that signal into, ultimately, speaker level output. The OS needs to recognize the audio device so I can use Reaper or Max. And if anyone wants to help me set up my geodesic dome speaker tree in Aurora Colorado, come on over.
I've always been interested in mixing music or sound effects into an array of speakers. I would like to be able to control a large number of independently driven speakers. I want to learn to build the speaker boxes, the amp, the dac, all the software, and to keep the price of the build down. Currently large speaker arrays like this use audio over ethernet, but I'm open to alternatives. For fun, I'm also interested in controlling the direction that each speaker is pointing, yaw and tilt.
I was recently also inspired by research into wave field sythesis and the integration of a program called SPAT into Max MSP (which I've played around with)
https://empac.rpi.edu/program/research/wave-field-synthesis
This was the source of the information on audio over ethernet.
I would like to make the maker version of this device, eventually.
Project alternatives:
Off the shelf: Buy ethernet switch with power over ethernet, audinate Dante AVIO line level outputs, and powered speakers. Use Audinate Dante's virtual soundcard. (See the Wave Field Synthesis specs from above.)
The Raspberry Pi version: Use a Pi and an HiFiBerry Amp2 (amp/dac combo) to a speaker and try to figure out how to connect all that to a virtual soundcard with AES67 compliance.
The long view: try to build a speaker box that will be fed power over ethernet, an audio signal and speaker directional information. I have concerns about ethernet noise and love the HiFiBerry Amp2's feature that allows you to run the amp separately with batteries so that the amp is very clean sounding and not amplifying potential network noise. So have the poe feed some sort of storage to keep the amplification nice and clean.
I have absolutely no idea how to implement any of this and haven't had to solder anything in over 3 decades. What I lack in knowledge, I make up for in passion. I currently am mixing music into a 7.1 home theatre system using Ambisonic VSTs and Reaper. It's a BLAST. So I'm also interested in writing my own VSTs.
I've been very impressed with how supportive these forums seem to be.
If cancer has taught me anything, it's Do the Thing. Health and Happiness to all of you.
Edit: Oh, man, the more I look around this site, the more I think that I've come to the right place. There are some amazing projects that people have done. I'm realizing that ethernet cables everywhere is a bad idea. Speaker cables can be cheaper. So I want to build a device that I can send a lot of audio bandwidth from my computer that will convert that signal into, ultimately, speaker level output. The OS needs to recognize the audio device so I can use Reaper or Max. And if anyone wants to help me set up my geodesic dome speaker tree in Aurora Colorado, come on over.
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