Re: [Audacity-quality] [Audacity-devel] Some high return features/fixes for 2.0.2?

[Bill W. <bi...@go...>]

On 12/07/2012, at 10:20 AM, Steve the Fiddle wrote:

> On 12 July 2012 10:46, Gale Andrews <ga...@au...> wrote:
>> 
>> | From Bill Wharrie <bi...@go...>
>> | Thu, 12 Jul 2012 00:09:27 -0400
>> | Subject: [Audacity-quality] [Audacity-devel] Some high return features/fixes for 2.0.2?
>>> On 11/07/2012, at 10:31 PM, Vaughan Johnson wrote:
>>> 
>>>> On 7/10/2012 6:07 PM, Bill Wharrie wrote:
>>>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>>>> From: Gale Andrews <ga...@au...>
>>>>> 
>>>>>> [...]
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> * One-step way to avoid clipping on multiple tracks: (25 votes)
>>>>>> Is something like this commented out in the code? It could be
>>>>>> simply a shortcut that moves all gain sliders by the same
>>>>>> amount.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Or a master gain slider (separate from the Play slider, which is a monitor volume control).
>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Is there agreement this is a preferable alternative?
>>> 
>>> I was just floating the master gain slider idea. I have no idea where it would go
>>> in the interface, or whether or not it would cause confusion having two
>>> sliders that apparently affect playback volume.
>> 
>> I don't object to a master fader or whatever we would call it, as long
>> as it can have a shortcut for increase/decrease. It's probably
>> preferable to shortcut only.
>> 
>> Would it be in a toolbar on its own? It could cause confusion if it
>> was visible by default.
>> 
>> Could such a slider be attached to the topmost visible track in
>> some way? I don't see much confusion then.
>> 
> 
> Most (all?) DAW applications do it in pretty much the same way, for
> example Ardour, ProTools, Reaper, Cubase, Sonar, Audition,....
> I'd suggest that we do it like that unless there is a good reason to
> do it differently. Is there a good reason to do it differently?

Yes, other DAWs have a separate master fader track, but that track also serves as a place to put inserts for effects to be applied to the entire mix (such as dither or final compression) and a place to monitor the final mix level. 

I can't imagine what "attached to the topmost visible track" would look like.

Audacity has never had a Master Fader track and trying to shoe-horn that in would be an inelegant hack IMO. The trouble with putting the Master Fader in a toolbar is that the toolbar could be hidden and the fader could be at some setting other than maximum and then the user would have no idea why their mixes were so quiet. If we're going to have it, it has to be visible all the time.

Is this the time for re-opening the discussion of combining the Mixer and Meter Toolbars? If the Master Fader were below the Playback meters and affected those meters that would be a solid connection. We could then have a "Monitor Fader Toolbar" that contains just the current Playback slider.

-- Bill