An overview to Virtual Audio Pipeline

Syam — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 05:49:48 -0000

We know that JACK Audio Connection Kit (open source project) is based on Steinberg's ASIO technology.Another method to establish connection between two or more multimedia applications like Winamp, Audacity etc can be well done with the usage of one or more Virtual Audio Device (here we call it as Virtual Audio Pipeline). There are number of commercial applications like Virtual Audio Cable (VAC), Virtual Audio Streaming (VAS) etc using Microsoft's Virtual Audio Device Technology but they are not open source and free for us.
In this open source project titled Virtual Audio Pipeline, I am just an initiator, since I am a beginner I need helps, valuable suggessions, innovative ideas (any tutorial website address for beginners) examples related to this project etc. to start this project from Windows driver level programmer's or those who familiar with WDM programming, Gurus etc. Please share your knowledge with me or participate in this open source project. For starting (from my guess and clues of other commercial alternatives) I uploaded a dummy MSVAD(simple) sample source code which is obtained from latest Windows Driver Kit (WDK 8.0). Actually from my guess it is good to start from this sample source code, this can be partially or completely replaced in future with actual working source code. As an Admin I am requesting to downloaders please do not down load the source code till acquires growth to alpha stage.

Virtual Audio Pipeline/Device (VAP/VAD) Requirements:
1.It must be a stable and installable WDM Virtual Audio Device (.sys and .inf extension files)
2.It must support Windows MME, Directsound, KS (or WASAPI, WaveRT) etc.
3.It must have a maximum of 256 virtual pipelines (256 instances)
4.Supporting VAP format:
a) Bit depth: 8bit to 32bit
b) No. channels: 1 channel(mono or 1.0) to 8 channel (7.1 surround)
c) Sampling rate: 8kHz to 1000kHz
d) Volume control support
5.Virtual Audio Pipeline must appear in Windows multimedia control panel etc
6.Each pipeline must have two ends ie. one input side and one output side(or sink and source
nodes).
7.Any audio data/samples (As mentioned in point 2) appear at input side of VAP
must be simply transfer(copy) to output side of same VAP (one to one map).
8.VAP application should have a console or a GUI panel which is configurable.
9.VAP(s) must be easily uninstallable.
10.VAP driver must support in following platforms:
a) Windows XP
b) Vista
c) Windows 7
d) Windows 8 etc in both x86 and x64.
11.Programming languages used in this project:
a) For Virtual Device Driver C/C++ is strictly recommended
b) For Front end GUI any convenient language(s) can be used(such as C++, C#, VB, Qt, Python etc.
12.The Algorithm used must be efficient, portable and not a CPU eater
Future plans:
1) Adds Fx like Noise canceller, Dynamic Compressor, Gate, Limiter etc between the processing
path of source and sink nodes of each Virtual Audio Pipeline.
2) Adds SPDIF support to VAP.
3) Adds VU Meters for each VAP.
I expect responses, suggessions, helps etc from system programmers, programmers and all others those who is familier with this subject/topic.

Thanks to all

Syam Kumar S (Admin)
syams_projects@yahoo.com

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An overview to Virtual Audio Pipeline