Is digital audio this simple?

[Shambler]

Hi,

this is my first post on the forum so Hi everyone

I want to go digital with my audio but know little about it.

I have a Korg Triton Extreme and a Roland V-Synth XT and wondered...

If I connect an optical cable from the XT Out to the Korg In, then another from the Korg Out to the PC's sound card optical In would I hear both the Korg and the XT on my PC?

Or do I need to get a mixer and route the 2 instruments to it separately?

Does digital audio carry more than one channel i.e. would I be able to access the Korg and the XT's output sounds individually?

 

[Farview]

Unless there is some sort of digital mixer in one of the keyboards, it won't work. You will be able to hook one of them up to an optical input on your soundcard and make it work.

 

[Shambler]

So to clarify, you are saying that for every digital out I want to use I must have a corresponding digital in on the sound card?

 

[Farview]

Yes. That is the way with just about everything.

 

[Shambler]

OK, thanks Farview that makes things alot clearer.

 

[Shambler]

So the next question is, after a bit of surfing, where do I get a sound card with 4 digital inputs?

Am I right in thinking an ADAT PCI card would be OK for this?or is ADAT completely different from S/P dif Optical...I don't need midi just audio.

 

[Farview]

ADAT is completely different. You will have to surf around musicians friend and zzounds, etc...

It will be easier to find multi-channel cards with analog inputs. That might be the easiest way. If you are coming out of your keyboards digitally, you will need to have all of them running in sync and at the same sample rate. Trying to run a bunch of keyboards digitally at the same time could turn into a big nightmare.