Sound Card Mixer - Typical Input Channels and Controls

Typical Input Channels and Controls

Each of the following signal sources has its own gain and mute control in a typical mixer scheme:

Control channels Controlled source
Wave / PCM stereo Audio signal generated by the CPU via the sound card's digital-to-analog converter. (This includes audio produced by games, MP3 or WAV players, but also some software playing a CD-DA through the CPU, such as, Windows Media Player or Media Player Classic, as well as TV tuner cards that use the CPU for decoding audio.)
MIDI/SW Synth stereo Audio signal generated by a synthesizer chip (often described as “MIDI device”) or digital signal processor on the soundcard.
CD playback stereo Audio signal received from the analog CD input of the mixer, which is usually connected to the analog audio output of a CD drive.
Microphone mono Audio signal received through one of the (typically two: MIC1 and MIC2, switchable) analog microphone inputs. MIC1 is typically connected to the external microphone jack (colored pink under PC99). An optional 20 decibel (10× voltage) amplifier can be activated for this input in most mixers.
Line in stereo Audio signal received through the LINE input of the mixer, usually connected to an external jack (colored light blue in PC99), which can be used to connect a HiFi amplifier, tuner, iPod, television, etc.
Aux in stereo Audio signal received through the AUX input of the mixer. This mixer input is not used by all PCs.
PC speaker mono Some soundcards provide an input for the (very crude) audio signal that the Programmable Interval Timer of an IBM PC generates for the PC speaker.
SPDIF stereo Digital interface, uncommon in the PC world

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