[BC] Simian and Soundcards

[Matt]

In a pinch (I IT contracted/consulted for a small rural FM station from 
Jul 2002-Aug 2006 that used Simian) I was with Windows XP able to get a 
station on air with segues using on board audio (after a lighting hit 
fried both the automation and Prod's $1500 ASI cards...wasn't pretty but 
it beat the clunky 100 disc CD changer the owners had been using in such 
situations -- rural tower -- highest spot area tended to attract 
lighting more than one would like -- with transmitter / processing/ 
audio all in the same rack)

Simian will segue with on board/semi pro cards if they support multiple 
streams of audio output.  Years ago this wasn't necessarily the case as 
older cards (I am thinking ISA days) would only play out one thing at 
once -- and the device had to be released for another to take hold of it).

The issue you do run into with the semi pro cards is they lack the 
control abilities of the ASI series .. plus a lot of the consumer type 
cards do not properly record in the background while playing audio at 
the same time... etc..which is important for a lot of FMs who capture 
satellite feeds etc in the 'background'

Even the "more pricey" automation systems try to shy you away from cards 
like Sound blaster... I've run Player101 on them and it works but isn't 
as flexible as if I had the "recommended" ASI type card that RCS pushes.

Way back in the days I was able to get Wavestation to work with consumer 
cards... In fact 3 ISA audio cards in a machine tied into a switcher for 
segues (that way I could assign each Deck a Wave Out from each card) -- 
not pretty but after some heckling it worked.

Note: Simian (I think wavestation did too also has the "direct sound" 
option under help > spyglass > expert -- that will allow things like 
segues etc via Direct sound.)  -- the one thing you do loose without a 
proper audio card is the VU meters.

You'll note -- the reason some of the cheaper options than Simian (SAM, 
Studio playlist etc come to mind..) can work with cheap audio cards is 
they use Direct Sound/Direct X API's to interface with the audio card -- 
and not the more direct driver type method found in higher end 
automation systems).

Matt
Positive Rock Radio - XmusicOnline.com

On 2/1/2012 4:41 PM, Jerry Mathis wrote:
> At a former job, we ran Wavestation (precursor to Simian), and we used 
> a lot of Soundblaster sound cards. It was a bad experience. The 
> Soundblaster cards weren't set up to handle things like cross-fades 
> very well, and the program "locking up" was a common phenomena. BSI 
> had no solution other than get the recommended sound cards, which were 
> thousands of dollars each. We were a non-profit company, and we didn't 
> have money for that. We used Antex sound cards with somewhat more 
> success, but we could never get the Wavestation program to run 
> reliably. BSI was supposed to be the "poor man's automation system", 
> but by the time you bought all the recommended hardware to make it 
> work, it was about as expensive as other systems.