Low-Latency Recording and Audio Driver Fun

Making recordings on computers means you have to care about drivers. A lot.

The standard Windows Multi-Media Extensions (MME) sound system supports two-channel 16-bit 44.1Hz recording. This is an old system that has been around since Windows 3.1. Then Microsoft developed the Windows Driver Model Kernel Streaming (WDM/KS) and Enhanced Windows Driver Model (EWDM) drivers for Windows 2000 and newer. Audacity supports all of these. For recording more than two channels simultaneously, you want sound cards with full EWDM support. Most audio devices claim WDM support, but that doesn’t always mean EWDM or WDM/KS, so they may not support recording from more than two inputs at the same time.

The Audio Streaming Input/Output ...

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