I need to record many (300) radio stations on a PC. I could deploy
many individual radio receivers, and connect each to a PC input,
however - I cannot deploy many individual PCs, each with its own
soundcard and Line In or Microphone connection - that will be a waste.
I need at the minimum a soundcard capable of multiple (4, 16 or more)
audio inputs, and best case - such a device where each channel can
tune to another on-the-air radio station.

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Request for Question Clarification by sublime1-ga on 18 Sep 2005 14:37 PDT

ikdehat...

Check out Digital Audio Labs' CardDeluxe soundcard:

"Up to 16 CardDeluxes may be synced together [installed in
 one PC, and slaved to a designated master] to create a
 multi-channel 24/96 workstation"

"Create a native, high resolution multi-track workstation
 entirely out of CardDeluxes. All cards act as one integrated
 system. Get 8 channels of analog plus 8 simultaneous channels
 of digital for a fraction of the price of an external interface."
http://www.digitalaudio.com/DIGITALAUDIO/myarticles.asp?P=5210&S=75&PubID=4401

Here's a page of their products, including slaved configurations
of more than one CardDeluxe soundcard:
http://www.digitalaudio.com/digitalaudio/myarticles.asp?P=5215&S=75&PubID=4401&UT=admin&UID=520

Since all channels would record and play back simultaneously,
it seems to me that the only way to accomplish what you're
seeking to do would be to use a software interface (DAW, or 
Digital Audio Workstation) to record the channels (each with
its own radio station) at the same time. Since they were all
recorded together, you would have to use the software interface
to play back and/or record only one channel - one station - at
a time.

Let me know what you think...

sublime1-ga

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 18 Sep 2005 15:10 PDT

ikehat-ga,

sublime1-'s comment (above) may have hit the nail on the head for you,
but I wanted to at least post another possible option.

Don't know what sort of budget or practicalities you're working with,
but have you thought of making a rather large purchase of digital
radio recorders, such as the PoGo Radio YourWay:


http://www.pogoproducts.com/radio_yourway.html


Don't know that you'd actually need 300 of them, since one unit could
perhaps be programmed to record multiple stations (the PoGo site is a
bit light on specs!)

There's quite a favorable write-up the unit here:


http://www.i4u.com/section-viewarticle-91.html


No doubt you could work out a bulk-purchase discount.


Just wanted to throw that into the mix of things to mull over -- let
me know what you think.

pafalafa-ga

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Clarification of Question by ikehat-ga on 22 Sep 2005 08:49 PDT

While the new options answered is a start, we are looking for a more
low-cost large-scale solution, in which we'll have the equivalent of
tens or more of PC sound cards per machine, and with a price tag
equivalent or less to standard sound cards.

---

Request for Question Clarification by sublime1-ga on 01 Oct 2005 16:37 PDT

ikehat...

There's just one problem with the concept of 10+ low-cost
soundcards per computer, as noted on this page on recommended
hardware on the NCH Swift Sound site:

"The problem with this option is usually that not enough
 free slots or IRQs are available on the motherboard. Also
 due to plug & play problems some cards will not let you
 install more than 1 of the same card type (chipset) in
 the same machine so you need to install different types
 of cards to get it to work. "

Aside from more expensive sound cards which have multiple
channels each, they recommend the potential of USB:

"If your computer has USB, some USB sound device drivers
 will accept multiple sound devices on the one PC so you
 can connect 1, 2 or more devices using USB ports to make
 multiple channels."
http://www.nch.com.au/vrs/acc/index.html


NCH Swift Sound offers VRS software which may interest you:

"This audio recording software can record 1 to 32 audio
 channels simultaneously with automated start and stop if
 required. VRS features digital signal processing to improve
 voice intelligibility and automatic level control. The
 recordings are automatically compressed for archiving.
 Later they can be searched by date, time, line or other
 data using the software directly or even using just your
 web browser (if you enable web access)."
http://www.nch.com.au/vrs/index.html

Let me know where this takes you...

sublime1-ga

well unfortunately this isn't exactly a cheap solution:

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7/g=rec/s=computer/search/detail/base_pid/184131/

but this device is the cheapest of it's kind with a full 8 mono analog
inputs (10 counting the addition 2 SPDIF inputs not really useful to
you)

you could connect a few of these to a single computer to build up your
station capturing capabilities pretty quickly (putting more than a few
regular PCI soundcards in a single machine is not even possible simply
due to bus limitations) also, as you add more inputs to record from
simultaneously your load on the processor increases which means you
are going to need a decent PC (or PCs) to build the system on just to
handle the load of more than a couple of tracks

i don't really think there is any way to inexpensively (less than a
few thousand dollars) produce a system capable of simultaneously
capturing 300 channels of audio... if there was then the home
recording industry would have been all over it, the product i showed
you is the least expensive item i have ever found on the market for
recording 8 tracks of simultaneous audio to a PC


-Rob L