multiple sound cards

not even 100% sure if this is the right place to post this, if it’s not, let me know.

I’ve got a laptop with no line-in/mic jack, but would like to use ardour in a live capacity.

I’ve also got an ‘Xitel Inport’ usb-to-rca external sound card thing, that can be used to get analogue sound coming in.

however, I’d like to be able to use both the external sound card, and the internal one in conjunction (the Xitel for input, the internal one for output), so that I can hear stuff live.

does anyone have any idea of how this can be achieved?

I’m running Debian linux.

many thanks.

this isnt really the right place for this, as this is the ardour forums. Ardour is just the DAW .

Jack is what deals with sound. it is possible to configure jack to use multiple soundcards. If you search google you should find info on how to set it up to use 2 or more cards.

Using multiple sound cards, for DAW work is not recommended - unless they are specifically designed to work together (such as some m-audio PCI cards) you will have many problems keeping them in sync, be plagued by variable latency issues - assuming it can be made to work at all. You can use different sound cards on the same system for e.g. different purposes, for example you might have an onboard chip which can be used for Youtube and other desktop sounds, and a more ‘pro’ interface for DAW work with JACK / Ardour, but attempting to combine the two, either into a monitoring / recording configuration or multiple channel record / playback will likely only result in misery and torment…