virtualbox.org

This is a weird one, I don't really expect an answer, but you never know.

I am running VirtualBox Version 5.0.10 r104061 on a high spec Windows 10 host with an ASUS z87-A motherboard. I also have a Mia Midi soundcard from Echo Digital Audio. It's an old card but still works fine. This sound card has both analogue and digital inputs and outputs. I always use the analogue I/O for recording and playing back music (home studio). I have a DAW called Reaper.
When I run VirtualBox and run Reaper the analogue inputs all become digital S/PDIF and the analogue ports are not shown. Analogue output is fine. The same happens with Cakewalk Sonar. The ports show up fine in Control Panel, but I cannot play anything into my PC. It only happens with VB and was happening with Windows 8.1 as well. I have up to date drivers.

Any guesses?

Is this the same sound card from more than two years ago?

BTW, you never told us in 2013 what happened. Did you fix it? Did it go away? You left us hanging...

I have a guess. I can imagine the sound controllers were written for fairly simple audio setups and not for more sophisticated ones with a mix of analogue and digital sources or surround sound, Dolby etc.

Hei Socratis,

Yes the same card and the same problem. I forgot I had posted here 2 years ago I thought I had just posted on the Reaper Forum .Yes, It is still a problem and it doesn't go away.
Loukingjr - not a bad guess, but this sound card has S/PDIF I/O and is designed for both analogue and digital (even though it came out in 2001). This is a recording studio class sound card.
I was wondering if it was the ASIO driver VB is interfering with in some way, but I can't think of any way to find out.

Well, for starters, it's going to be difficult to find someone to reproduce the problem. Maybe someone has some idea on how to debug this.

It has nothing to do with your sound card. It has to do with how VirtualBox handles audio. It's the same with video, VirtualBox uses it's own video driver. And it has limitations.

VMs are not physical machines and they don't have the same capabilities.

An example: For the sake of argument, let's say the developers of VirtualBox decided they were only going to support mono signals. So no matter what sound card you had, if it's only fed mono signals it's only going to play in mono. See?

Wait a minute... The problem is on the GUEST??? That's not what I thought, based on:

Markjt wrote:The ports show up fine in Control Panel, but I cannot play anything into my PC.

@Markjt: are you saying that when running VBox it messes up with your audio in your physical PC, or that a virtual machine is having audio problems?

I thought he meant he can't play anything from the guest "into his PC", i.e. host. I could be wrong.

Mark, if you meant your sound card no longer functions normally on your host while a VM is running, try disabling audio for that guest and see if that helps.

Hi guys,

My bad- should have described this more carefully - It is the sound on my physical PC that is being disrupted. The sound om my VMs is fine. This is me physically connect a guitar to my PC, running a DAW and not being able to hear anything because the virtual analogue ports on my soundcard are being disabled. OK to be even more precise, it may be the virtual analogue ports in the PCI console software for the soundcard that are being disabled. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have been so sloppy in the description. I work with IT and I know how important it is

Did you try Lou's suggestion?

loukingjr wrote:try disabling audio for that guest

Also, check out the thread Known incompatibilities with 3rd party drivers on Host to see if anything comes close enough to what you're seeing. I wouldn't get my hopes up too high though, most of them are about networking...

Hi,

Yes and it worked, at least for win 8.1 I haven't tried Win 10 or Ubunt yet! I also tried changing the Host driver to Null Audio Driver and re-enabled. That also worked, but no sound on the guest. Problem is I use the VM for my work and I need sound enabled for Skype meetings etc. I shall try some more experiments with the Audio Controller to see if I get sound on host and guest simultaneously. I would buy a different sound card, but having no guarantee that it would work any better I daren't. Thanks for your suggestions and input so far. Merry Christmas!

Mark, you should create a ticket on Bugtracker. Make sure to read the requirements and include the relevant logs.

After some more investigation it seems that, as long as I use Asio drivers for my souncard, Virtual Box disables (and hides) the analogue inputs. If I select Direct Sound in my DAW instead, I can record on my host and playback on my guest (which is a bit better). However Direct Sound is not as good as Asio (latency issues), so this is only a partial solution. I guess VB needs to allow specifying which hardware the guest will access on the host then I could direct it to the built in soundcard om my Mobo, and keep the Mia Midi for music!

Hi loukinjr, yeah I will, but I think I did before and nothing happened