Managing Multiple Devices

Controls: Edit Menu >> Start Preferences >> Device

If you have multiple sound cards in your system, the Output and Input Device Selects allow you to specify which one to use for every Daqarta session. But this is very cumbersome if you want to use different devices for certain sessions, because these Start Preferences selections don't take effect until the session after they are changed.

You could get around this by installing a second copy of Daqarta to another location, but then it would be cumbersome to access any files that both needed to share, since they would be in different subdirectories.

The solution is to use a single Daqarta installation, but to create separate desktop icons that invoke Daqarta with different command-line parameters that override the Start Preferences device selections. Then you just start by double-clicking the desired icon for any session.

Assuming you have a desktop icon from a standard Daqarta installation, the first thing to do is to create a copy by right-clicking and selecting Create Shortcut.

After the new icon appears on your desktop, right-click it and select Properties. Under the Shortcut tab, the Target line will show something like:

"C:\Program Files\Daqarta\Daqarta.exe"

All you need to do is to add the parameters at the end of that line (outside of the quotes).

Daqarta accepts O:n and I:n to specify Output and Input devices, where n is a digit from 0-9 which should match the device number shown in the relevant Output or Input Device Select. For example, to specify Device 1 for both Output and Input, the Target command line would be:

"C:\Program Files\Daqarta\Daqarta.exe" O:1 I:1

The order and case of the parameters do not matter.

There is an additional N:n parameter you can use, where n may be a single digit or a letter from A to Z (case insensitive). This specifies the base Daqartan filename to be used for attenuator and Full-Scale Range calibration data (Daqartan.ATN), External Gain (Daqartan.EGN), User Units (Daqartan.USR), and mixer settings (Daqartan.MIX).

If you don't specify an N:n parameter, it defaults to the Output Device number, either as given by O:n, or Start Preferences, or as detected by Daqarta if neither of those are valid.

Standard Daqarta installations default to the 0th device, so the default filenames are Daqarta0.ATN, Daqarta0.EGN, Daqarta0.USR, and Daqarta0.MIX.

You probably don't need to specify the N:n parameter if you are only selecting between internal sound cards already installed in your system. Problems arise when you install a new card, since Windows may set the new device number to 0 and increase the numbers for the existing devices.

Note that you can change the icon appearance to have a transparent background instead of a black starfield. This can help to tell different Daqarta installations apart at a glance.

See also Removable (USB) Sound Cards, Removable Drive with Multiple Systems