Re: [Audacity-quality] [Audacity-devel] Spectral Editing

[Steve t. F. <ste...@gm...>]

On 17 January 2015 at 22:38, Gale <ga...@au...> wrote:
> Stevethefiddle wrote
>> Moving to QA list as this is more of a QA issue.
>>
>> On 17 January 2015 at 06:56, Robert Hänggi &lt;
>
>> aarjay.robert@
>
>> &gt; wrote:
>>> Hi all.
>>>
>>> I apologize for posting in this section, it's rather something for QA.
>>> There's a typo in both, Spectral Edit Parametric/Shelf (lines 49/50
>>> respectively):
>>>
>>>       (setf p-err (format nil "This effect requires a frequency
>>> selction in the~%~
>>>                               'Spectrogram' or 'Spectrogram (log f)'
>>> track view.~%~%"))
>>>
>>> Selction should be selection.
>>
>> Well spotted. Fixed in r13881.
>>
>>
>>>
>>> By the way, is there any reason why those are restricted to the mentioned
>>> views?
>>
>> I added that when I updated the plugins to v4, because at that time
>> there was no way to make a spectral selection unless the audio track
>> was in Spectrogram or Spectrogram (log f) view.
>>
>> Now that there is a spectral selection toolbar, it may make sense to
>> remove that limitation, but...
>> by default there is no spectral selection toolbar, so no way to make a
>> spectral selection, or to see what the current spectral selection is,
>> unless in a spectral selection view.
>> With default preferences and a fresh project (waveform view), there is
>> no spectral selection, so the spectral edit effects would produce the
>> error message:
>>
>> "Please select frequencies."
>>
>> but no obvious way to do so, which I think would be very confusing.
>>
>> The message could be extended to say something like:
>>
>> "Please select frequencies in the Spectrogram,
>> or Spectrogram (log f) track view, or enable
>> the Spectral Selection toolbar (View menu)
>> and set a spectral selection."
>>
>> but that is not at all novice friendly.
>>
>> Overall I slightly favour retaining the current message:
>>
>> "Use this effect in the 'Spectrogram'
>> or 'Spectrogram (log f)' view."
>>
>> as it is brief, informative, and points the novice user in the right
>> direction, even though it is not (now) the only way to use these
>> effects.
>
> But spectral edit effects don't work in waveform* views even
> when you enable Spectral Selection Toolbar.
>
> Windows 8.1, deleted audacity.cfg and launched Audacity.
>
> 1 Generate Tone 440 Hz in Waveform view, select some time range
> 2 Open Spectral Selection Toolbar, set 200 Hz centre frequency, 4 octaves
> 3 Switch to Spectrogram View to check the spectral selection, looks OK
> 4 Back to Waveform view
> 5 Choose any of the Spectral edit* effects. The effects are not applied,
>    instead I see the error message you mention.

The error message is produced by the Nyquist code.
When the Nyquist code runs (for example, when the OK button is
pressed), Nyquist looks to see what view the track being processed is
displayed as. If it is not "Spectrogram" or "Spectrogram (log f)" then
it displays the error message.


>
> So we couldn't have the longer error message if we wanted to.
>
> Wouldn't it make sense to allow spectral editing in waveform* view
> when Spectral Selection Toolbar is open?

Yes it would make sense, but Nyquist does not know if the Spectral
Selection Toolbar is open or not.

>
> Exactly the same errors occur (understandably) when in waveform* view
> and I don't have Spectral Selection Toolbar open. But parametric EQ and
> shelves allow you to apparently set the gain, before giving the error.

Because the error is created by the Nyquist code, the error message
cannot be displayed until the Nyquist code runs. For Nyquist plugins
that have a GUI, the Nyquist code does not run until the user clicks
the OK, Debug or Preview buttons.

> That's P4 I think to produce the error message before the Gain dialogue.

To fix that, the error would need to generated by the Audacity code.
That would probably be a good idea as then we could enable the effect
if the Selection Toolbar is open (even if not in a Spectrogram view).
However, such a solution would need to wait until after 2.1 and I
suspect that we would need to define "spectral edit" as a separate
type of plugin.

Steve

>
>
> Gale
>
>
>
> Stevethefiddle wrote
>>
>>> I don't care as VI user about the view but might nonetheless wish to
>>> make a manual selection within the Spectral Selection toolbar without
>>> switching afterwards to the appropriate view.
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>>
>>> Robert
>
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