To explain a bit, I would like to have zynthian as a mixer for my gears (Digitakt, syntakt etc…) with usb port (elektron box can send the main output to USB port)
I connect my boxes to the rear usb of zynthian, and I can have my inputs on the zynthian screen, and add effects on each output, manage the volume
I use a multiport USB audio interface like the Behringer UMC1820 or the Tascam US-16x08 which gives me lots of analogue inputs. I configure my zynthian as a mixer for these inputs so that I can mix the zynthian’s internal engines (soft synths) with external kit like my guitar, mics, etc. This is simple and works well.
But I think you are suggesting something different where you present each external audio source as a USB audio. This is currently not possible. You could use your elektron as the only zynthian audio interface but that doesn’t solve anything as it too only has 2 audio inputs and outputs.
In the future, it may be possible to connect multiple USB audio interfaces (if this work is finished and accepted into mainstream development) but at the moment, the simplest way to add multiple audio inputs is to use a dedicated hardware audio interface. I strongly recommend the Tascam US-16x08. I am getting one for Christmas (just 35 more sleeps…) and have integrated it in this dev branch, including its onboard DSP (16 x compressors and 4-band eq with zero CPU overhead!!!).
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Ok I see what is possible actually, but it’s not what I want to acheive, even if it’s crazy to have a zynthian doing that 
I would like to avoid audio cable in my setup as USB is a one cable simple. and be able to manage my input in zynthian could resolv my problem (Yes big problems … ahahah 
)
I will wait 
Thank you for your work, I’m a user since V2, and it’s crazy the amount of updates
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Hi @riban !
I have a dirty proposal. Let’s use alsa_in / alsa_out jack clients to support extra USB audio devices. Same as we did with the RBPi headphones.
This could be totally (or almost) automatic for USB interfaces:
- An extra USB audio interface is plugged
- Zynthian detects the event and create alsa_in / alsa_out clients for it
- The new ports would be shown by the zynthian ui in the chain’s audio-in & audio out views.
- When unplugging, the alsa_xx clients are stopped and the ports removed from the UI.
Of course, user’s may know that doing this has drawbacks and performance and latency can be affected. It’s obvious. But it could be a very nice feature to have and could ease some interesting use-cases.
I’ve checked that doing something like this is quite popular among windows users. They use the ASIO4ALL driver, that seems to be the equivalent of alsa_xx clients.
All the best.
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@jofemodo please see this dev branch! 
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Ohhh man! I really love you! Now you implement my thoughts before i have them in my brain!!
I will check and merge your branch ASAP.
I would like @Funkylsk could test his dreamed workflow before Christmas!
Regards!
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Wowow it could be a great surprise for christmas ! But I don’t want to put pressure ahah
Thank you a lot Riban !
I test it when you want
You simply change to testing (vangelis) and update. Then change to custom and choose “Feature/Hotplug_audio” branch for the zynthian-ui repository. Update and reboot.
Regards
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Perfect, I was not sure, I updated to stable yesterday.
I’ll try today !
Beware - the dev branch is still under development so things may not yet work properly, may stop working and may change without notice. Hopefully each update makes things better and not worse…
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2 posts were split to a new topic: USB hotplug