Can we add more Audio Input Channels for In The Box Working?

Working on a friends setup, but we don't need physical audio inputs/hardware, all audio comes from in the box and network patched into 128/256 virtual bay using JACK2. Is it possible to increase Resolves 32 native internal inputs to 128 or more? How would I increase it? We don't have physical audio input needs, we're entirely working in the box/network.

I'm guessing not?
I really don't understand why internally, Davinci Resolve sees all of our 128 channels at the interface and even lets you map all 128 incoming channels internally, but externally won't let the interface connect to them? It's a really weird setup. Why does Resolve let you patch 128 channels, but only connect to 32 of them at the audio interface? Is this a bug?

I don't really know anything about the kind of system you're setting up, but do you get throughput from the other inputs (e.g. 128)? I'm curious if it's an audio engine issue or just a UI limitation. Maybe I don't even understand the issue correctly.

https://github.com/jackaudio/jack2 is basically a low-latency synchronous audio client/server for multi-processor machines. It's a way to connect your ASIO, WASAPI, WDM, DS, Core Audio software all together via a client/server setup rather than via physical hardware. ie it connects anything to anything and reduces CPU load from 1 channel to n channels, whatever the client machine can process. We've set it to 128 because Davinci REsolve seems to allow that and because Dolby Atmos in Fairlight is a 128 channel bed/object requirement (not that you'd probably use all 128, but we do need more than 32 really for Dolby Atmos).

In terms of Davinci, as it doesn't have WASAPI capability, we use JackRouter which is the ASIO interface to JACK and we've set JACK to tell DaVinci Resolve there's 128 channels you can connect to. The green patchbay above (called a graph) is simply the routing between whatever audio applications you want to send audio to/from. On the left we have the 128 channels coming out of our DAW to test with which is running on the same machine as Davinci Resolve, on the right 32 of those 128 channels are connected but Davinci Resolve doesn't see the other 96 channels externally, only internally.

To answer your question, no there's no audio when any of the channels above 32 are patched, which reflects what we're seeing in JACK too.

Oh, gotcha. That's... actually really cool. Unfortunately I don't have an answer for you, but I'm still curious: do you need everything to be live as opposed to just bouncing all the DAW tracks to WAV and putting them to new tracks in Resolve? I guess I'm mostly just curious what kind of work requires this kind of setup. It sounds really interesting. Sorry I can't be more helpful though.

Traditionally, we would just work from audio stems of the stereo master from the DAW and bring them into Resolve to do Atmos version, but we're exploring ways to actually work produce within an atmos environment from the getgo. If Dolby actually made their renderer for Windows, we wouldn't even use Davinci Resolve, but they don't so it's basically Resolve or Nuendo, we're just playing around with what could work, but it's not for live Atmos, simply realtime production. We prefer Davinci Resolve to Nuendo, but Nuendo doesn't have this limitation of channels, so might be the only way, unless we buy a mac and Dolby Renderer, but for various other reasons, having the project within Resolve or Nuendo has various other benefits too.

Am I correctly understanding this if I paraphrase it as "you want a workflow that can monitor everything in an Atmos environment as early in the pipeline as possible"?

Yes, basically a way to monitor and make choices for the Dolby Atmos mix while we make it in the DAW. Then when the track is finished, you'll print the stems, bring them into Davinci Resolve and know what you heard while mixing, is what you're gonna get out of the Atmos renderer. Unless you work in Pro Tools or Logic etc and/or are on a Mac, doing this is very difficult from other DAWs. Dolby Atmos is a bit of an Apple/Avid monopoly at the moment. Unfortunately, our DAW of choice is Bitwig and on Windows and so is neither multi-channel DAW that could support Atmos nor is the Dolby Atmos 3D panner VST or the Atmos Production Suite available on Windows either. We are happily running 32 synced channels through Dolby Atmos Render in Davinci Resolve though quite happily and creating an Atmos master file though, it does work.

If you're interested, this idea began by just messing around with the old Asio Link when Resolve added ASIO support, but JACK is far superior to ASIO Link. You'll hear some glitches in the audio, but I think that's mainly because OBS is a complete CPU hog when recording full-screen like this on the same machine as the DAWs

https://www.youtube.com/embed/zNSNUe5MH3o

Woah, this is awesome. What's your round trip latency? Is it still short enough to realistically perform with after you add Resolve to the chain?

Also, I didn't see any video paired with the audio in that video example. I know it was an audio test, but I'm curious if your project involves video or if you're primarily concerned with just working on audio for Atmos.

I don't want to side track the actual purpose of this thread, so maybe I'll ask you more in a pm or something.

I can't remember what it was with ASIO Link, but that's pretty old tech now. Here's all the stats from JACK2 which is connected to my Apogee Groove headphone DAC using WASAPI 48khz and 1024 buffer and all 32 mono tracks connected to Bitwigs 16 stereo outs each playing a VST instrument.

Confusing the control panel says 512 buffer being used, but that's what the ASIO buffer is set at, this is all connected using WASAPI, 48khz, 1024 sample buffer and with everything playing we're getting 12-14ms o nthe input and output, so perfectly acceptable. How it would behave going up to 64 stereo / 128 mono into Davinci Resolve, we don't know though, we can't test that.

#Edit, we're entirely music-only at this point, but the idea is to add video if a track ever got to that point commercially and link it creatively to the Atmos automation etc.

Here is the JACK2 Audio Server version if anyone is interested. Basically just messing around by connecting Bitwig to Davinci Resolve (Dolby Atmos) with JACK2. This is very stable compared to ASIO Link. It's actually just using the WASAPI Realtek onboard headphone output and then Davinci Resolve connects via JackRouter ASIO. This is processed out through HEar V3 Binaural so headphones only really.