[Nick Brown]

Mike Rivers wrote:

I'm not sure what API you're talking about. Since you mentioned MME and
ASIO, I suspect that this is a fancy name for the sound card driver.

Sorry. Application Programming Interface. The standard for a type of
driver. ASIO is an API, as is MME, DirectSound, and so on.

It may be that it's necessary to talk directly to the sound card in
order to get all the data since the standard way to write a sound card
ignores a lot of that stuff (and everybody tries to do what everybody
else does).

That's basically it.

If the driver is where the channel data stops, then the answer is to
write a driver that will pass it on to anyone interested. There really
shouldn't be any harm in that should there? If all sound card drivers
passed all the data, then a generic program should be able to use it.

The drivers need not only to pass all the data, but to all do it the
same way. That's where the API comes in. Somebody needs to define the
standard by which the drivers present the information, then pursuade
all the device manufacturers to actually conform to it, and then hope
that application developers make use of it.

In principal, something like the next version of the ASIO standard
could include the necessary provisions, and they could put in AES42
stuff while they're at it, but I'm not holding my breath.

-Nick