Christian Zeitnitz

WaveIO: A Soundcard Interface for LabView

Author: C. Zeitnitz

Last modified: May 2017

Features:

Play and Record sound  via the soundcard from LabView (™ by National Instruments) utilizing the Windows Sound API, WASAPI or the ASIO API. Requires Windows XP/7/8/10.

• All sampling rates supported by the soundcard can be selected
• The number of channels supported by the soundcard can be selected. E.g. a 5.1 sound system allows to play 6 channels.
• Resolution of up to 32Bits (if supported by hardware). Most cards are limited to 16Bit and some work up to 24Bits.
• Multiple soundcard support
• WASPI exclusive mode support
• Support of devices with ASIO driver with high channel count (e.g. 64 or more)

ASIO is a trademark and software of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH

License:

No license is required for any private or public educational usage. If you plan a commercial application with WaveIO, please obtain a license here.

Custom Application

Contact the author ( email or contact page) and ask for a quote, if you are intererested in a customized LabView Application for your sound card measurement problem.

More Information:

Most soundcards support sampling rates of 44.1kHz and 48kHz with 16bit resolution. More and more cards go up to 96kHz or even 192kHz with 24bits per sample. The  provided windows DLL and the interface VIs allow to select all possible combinations of channel numbers, sampling rates and resolutions. The number of used buffers is user selectable for input and output of data. The buffer size can be defined in terms of time (msec) or samples per buffer and channel.

LabView example VIs to play multiple channels as well as the recording of sound data are provided in the package.

The above example opens a sound device to record data. After starting the device the data are read in a loop and displayed in a graph until  an error occurs. When the sound device is no longer needed by the application it has to be stopped and closed.

A user selectable timeout should avoid any hangup within the DLL code. The DLL makes only Windows system calls and does not use any LabView libraries.

Currently the code supports only PCM data. No other sound codecs are supported at this time!

Requirements

This program requires a Windows version 2k/XP/Vista/7/8/10 and an installation of LabView 7.1 and above.

Terms of usage

This Software and all previous versions are NO Freeware!
The use of the software and of the documentation is granted free of charge for private and non-commercial use in educational institutions. Any commercial application, distribution and sale is prohibited.

A licensed version of the Software is available here. This allows any commercial usage, except distributing the Software standalone.

All right reserved.

Downloads

Version 1.08:

• Windows Dll (32 and 64 bit), LabView lib, examples and manual: waveio_108.zip
• Only the Manual

For commercial usage a licensed is required, which can be obtained here. Please test WaveIO before obtaining the license.

Changes

• Fixed problem for ASIO devices with more than 32 channels
• Fixed problem with automatic channel map for more than 32 channels
• Multiple smaller stability improvements

ASIO is a trademark and software of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH

Instructions:

• Unpack the file into a directory of your choice
• Copy waveio.llb and waveio.dll into the LabView user.lib directory
• Start one of the sample VIs
• Enjoy !

+Older versions

Downloads

Version 1.07:

• Windows Dll (32 and 64 bit), LabView lib, examples and manual: waveio_107.zip
• Only the Manual

For commercial usage a licensed is required, which can be obtained here. Please test WaveIO before obtaining the license.

Changes

• Multiple small changed to increase the stability
• Fixes for ASIO with high channel count
• Added WASAPI support including exclusive mode
• Changed inputs/outputs for soem VIs. Please update the LLB and re-link the VIs

ASIO is a trademark and software of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH

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Version 1.05:

• Windows Dll (32 and 64 bit), LabView lib, examples and manual: waveio_105.zip
• Only the Manual

For commercial usage a licensed is required, which can be obtained here. Please test WaveIO before obtaining the license.

Changes

• Fixed bug during close operation of devices in case of a mixed operation of standard Windows sound device and ASIO

ASIO is a trademark and software of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH

---

Version 1.04:

• Windows Dll (32 and 64 bit), LabView lib, examples and manual: waveio_104.zip
• Only the Manual

For commercial usage a licensed is required, which can be obtained here. Please test WaveIO before obtaining the license.

Changes

• Fixed bug in ASIO interface with lead to dropped output data for some cards
• Added channel names to ASIO info cluster

ASIO is a trademark and software of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH

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Version 1.03:

• Windows Dll (32 and 64 bit), LabView lib, examples and manual: waveio_103.zip
• Only the Manual

For commercial usage a licensed is required, which can be obtained here.

Changes

• Added option in QueryFmt vi to obtain data format supported by the hardware/driver
• More memory problems corrected when running under Windows 2k/XP

ASIO is a trademark and software of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH

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Version 1.02:

This version includes basic ASIO support. So you can select ASIO input and output devices. Up to 32 channels are supported.

• Windows Dll (32 and 64 bit), LabView lib, examples and manual: waveio_102.zip
• Only the Manual

For commercial usage a licensed is required, which can be obtained here.

Changes

• Support for devices with ASIO driver. Supports up to 32 channels.
• New function to extract hardware information about the sound devices (e.g. vendor and product IDs)
• Data format check changed in Windows Vista and above, in order to check the sampling rates/bits per sample actually supported by the audio hardware
• Fixed some small memory leaks

ASIO is a trademark and software of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH

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Version 1.01:

• Windows Dll, LabView lib, examples and manual: waveio_v101.zip
• Only the Manual
• Only the 64-bit DLL required for a 64-bit version of Labview. Just replace the 32-bit version (waveio.dll) with this file

Changes

• Lots of small changes to improve the stability
• Capture play back sound from any sound source via loopback device of the Windows mixer
• Added support for Windows mixer controls (device selection, volume, mute etc.)
• A few VIs have changes of the connectors. Need to be re-linked in older projects

Version 1.00 had some issues with the mixer and sporadic errors. Please update!

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Version 0.70:

• Windows Dll, LabView lib, examples and manual: waveio_v070.zip
• Only the Manual

Changes

• Added routines for wave file recording
• Improved performance: reentrant VIs for play back and recording and optimized synchronization of i/o threads

Final Remarks

I can not solve your sound card related problem. So, please only send mail, if you have a real problem related to WaveIO!

Interested in a custom made interface for your application? Send me a mail with your specifications and request a quote for a modified version.

Contact via C. Zeitnitz or my contact page