Multiple concurrent audio modes

A computing device comprising:

• an audio signal processing device configured to implement a plurality of audio effects by respective audio effect hardware modules;
• and
• a processor executing applications and providing audio streams for the applications, the processor enabling concurrent processing of the audio streams concurrently flowing through the audio effect hardware modules, the concurrent processing enabled by, for a given application and corresponding first and second audio streams of the given application:
• based on requests from the given application respectively identifying the first and second audio streams, accessing association information associating the audio effects with audio types;
• determining a first audio type for the first audio stream and a second audio type for the second audio stream, and based on the determined first and second audio types and the association information, selecting a first audio effect for the first audio stream and selecting a second audio effect for the second audio stream;
• and
• based on the first and second selected audio effects, configuring and/or selecting, for the first audio stream, a first audio pathway that includes a first audio effect hardware module corresponding to the selected first audio effect and configuring and/or selecting, for the second audio stream, a second audio pathway that includes a second audio effect hardware module corresponding to the selected second audio effect.

One or more computer readable storage devices storing information to enable a computing device to perform a process, the computing device comprising a plurality of hardware audio signal processing modes, the process comprising:

• executing an operating system that manages audio paths for audio sources producing respective audio streams having respective audio types;
• receiving first and second requests from an application through an application programming interface (API) of the operating system, the first request indication an association between a first audio stream and a first audio type, and the second request indicating an association between a second audio stream and a second audio type;
• determining which of the audio paths will be connected with which of the hardware audio signal processing modes according to information associating the audio types with the hardware audio signal processing modes;
• and
• the determining causing a first hardware audio signal processing mode, configured to process audio signals having a first audio type, to be connected to a first audio path, and the determining causing a second hardware audio signal processing mode, configured to process audio signals having a second audio type, to be connected to a second audio path, wherein, based on the first request the first audio stream is assigned to the first audio path and based on the second request the second audio stream is assigned to the second audio path, wherein the first audio path processes the audio streams having the first audio type concurrent with the second audio path processes the audio streams having the second audio type.