Channel (Audio) Last edited 2 years ago2022-09-21 10:04:50 UTC

As a general audio term, "Channel" refers to a representation of sound coming from or going to a single point. A single speaker can conduct one channel of audio. Generally, headphones can conduct Stereo (Dual-Channel) audio since they have got two speakers.

As in Half-Life, "Channel" refers to the system that allows different sounds to be played simultaneously.
A channel can play only one sound, so there are multiple channels in-game to conduct multiple sounds.
These are:

#define CHAN_AUTO 0
#define CHAN_WEAPON 1
#define CHAN_VOICE 2
#define CHAN_ITEM 3
#define CHAN_BODY 4
#define CHAN_STREAM 5              // allocate stream channel from the static or dynamic area
#define CHAN_STATIC 6              // allocate channel from the static area
#define CHAN_NETWORKVOICE_BASE 7   // voice data coming across the network
#define CHAN_NETWORKVOICE_END 500  // network voice data reserves slots (CHAN_NETWORKVOICE_BASE through CHAN_NETWORKVOICE_END).
#define CHAN_BOT 501               // channel used for bot chatter.