Good day all.

I've searched for forums and I've read an older article describing how to make a multichannel WAV. The responders recomended using commercial software.

Have things changed since then? Ideally I'd like a free/open-source application to do this. Audacity is my prefered app, but it can't do it. Is there a simple command-line tool to do this? Something like:
fakeapp FL.wav FR.wav C.wav SR.wav SL.wav LFE.wav -o 6chan.wav

Note: I've got 6 channels of 24bit 96kHz wavs

Yes, a few months ago came an unbelievably amazing tool called Wavewizard. It can multiplex o demultiplex WAVs containing ANY number or channels, bitdepth, or bandwidth (I once, just for the fun of it, muxed a 64-ch WAV. That´s not a typo, I wrote "sixty four"). It can even change these parameters on demand, and also has an option to avoid the maximum size output error that u have with WAVs when the output is bigger than 4GBs (wich usually happens with 6ch tracks that are more than 2 hours long).
It´s free, it´s great, once you try it, you don´t go back.
You won´t have any problem muxing your 24bits 96kHz WAV.

Cheers.

for best results be sure to follow the FLAC channel assignments: left, right, center, LFE, back/surround left, back/surround right, which for WAV correspond to a channel mask of 0x003f or 0x060f

http://flac.cvs.sourceforge.net/*checkout*...ml#frame_header

Josh

Most excellent responses. I'll investigate this in the next day or so. Thanks and I'll report my results here.

OK, here's the results of my testing.

I'm using the 2.0 XBMC for the xbox (love that thing). WaveWizard is the damn hardest thing to find on the internet. Is there even a dedicated site for that tool? I'll host it if there isn't just to make the world a better place.

I took my six 704MB 24bit 96kHz wavs, trimmed them down to 4min samples, and imported them into WaveWizard (order: FL, FR, CTR, LFE, RL, RR). I got a 500MB 6channel 24/96k WAV. Very nice. FLAC'd it, got 0.63 ratio. And then went to play it on my xbox.

The sound that came out was about 15% too slow. Like I was playing a tape deck while holding down the spinner. Also, XBMC (or flaclib) swapped CTR/LFE with RL/RR. So the correct order for WaveWizard was: FL, FR, RL, RR, CTR, LFE. Also, the output appears to have been AC3 compressed before going out on my fiber digital cable.

Summaary:
1) WaveWizard works as advertised (yay!)
2) Order the wave tracks in WW to play in XBMC: FL, FR, RL, RR, CTR, LFE (problem fixed)
3) XBMC plays 6channel 24/96k .wav's and .flac's about 15% slow (how to fix this?)
4) XBMC plays 6channel 24/96k .wav's and .flac's as AC3 (how to fix this?)

I'm going to post to the XBMC forums pointing them to this discussion and see what i can get out of them

Is it only on XBMC or is the problem also in other meida players (VLC, Directshow-based, MPC)?

I don't have 6 channel output on my PC. So I'll be hard to tell. I'll give 'er a try sometime soon. XBMC guys seem to think the limitation is on the digital fiber feed and the CPU speed of the xbox. bummer. DTS is the limit for me it seems

I think S/PDIF can't handle 6 channel PCM, hence the transcoding of 6 channel PCM to AC3.

You can actually use Audacity to produce a 6 channel WAV or FLAC file. You need to be on the latest 1.3.2 beta, then from Edit/Preferences/File Formats set 'When Exporting Tracks' to 'Use Advanced Mixing Options'. Import 6 mono tracks in the correct sequence FL/FR/C/LFE/RL/RR and choose Export as/FLAC or WAV.

Edited:

My goal is to repack Meridian Lossless Packed streams from DVD-A into a convenient WavPack or FLAC file. I have WaveWizard version 0.54b and here's what I did:

- add six mono waveforms 96kHz/24-bit
- ticked Enable ChannelMapping, DVD-A to multichannel wav
- ticked Stream Manipulation - Merge Files (overlooked this at first)
- press Convert.

How do I make sure that the merged wavefile has the correct channel order (w/o having surround loudspeakers set up)? Does WaveWizard assume that channel numbering goes in the list from top to bottom?

Ok, I figured out the written channel order using Audacity (wow, multichannel support!). For FLAC to accept my 6ch WAVEX (merged by WaveWizard) I had to write a channel mask manually. I wrote 0x3F and it worked. What is the difference between masks 0x003F and 0x060F?

0x003f is front left, front right, front center, LFE, back left, back right
0x060f is front left, front right, front center, LFE, side left, side right

For wavewizard, th order form top to bottom sets the channel order from 1 to #.
To multiplex WAV mono files (or any other ch number files) load the files in WAV multichannel order (L-R-C-LFE-Ls-Rs). In Preferences, set "Ignore Filse Size header" to "Always", Stream Manipulation to "Merge Files", and Output Format to "Wave PCM" (for compatibility issues with some encoders).
You don´t need to enable channel mapping (as it´s already done by the arrange of the files when loaded).

Cheers.

Except for the 'Ignore file size header' (which I kept at 'only for files >4GB') this is exactly the way I use WaveWizard to merge 6 mono WAV files to one 5.1 WAV file. Works nicely with Foobar2000 and Flac 1.1.2. With Foobar2000 and Flac 1.1.3 its broken : You have to use '-s -8 - -o %d --channel-map=none' as commandline to 'fix' this.

Or write a channel mask manually.

You can mux together 6 mono wavs in any possible channel order with Wavewizard. You can check the order used in the MLP tracks using the DVD-Audio Explorer tool.