Re: [Audacity-quality] Linear vs dB

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

I've made a mock-up which may make it a bit clearer what I'm
suggesting. This mock-up is as if "dB" is selected in Preferences.
http://forum.audacityteam.org/download/file.php?id=17385

On 5 April 2017 at 23:35, Gale Andrews <ga...@au...> wrote:
> On 5 April 2017 at 19:09, Steve the Fiddle <ste...@gm...> wrote:
>> On 5 April 2017 at 18:14, Gale Andrews <ga...@au...> wrote:
>>> So if Steve wants dB default labelling for the waveform but
>>> with linear scale, then should not the default for the meters
>>> change to -6 dB as half way point? It would be confusing
>>> otherwise.
>>
>> I personally would select "dB" in Preferences, because I find it
>> generally more useful.
>> (Is a noise floor of 0.00082 OK?)
>>
>> I'd imagine that our aspiring audiobook producers would also prefer dB.
>>
>> No I wouldn't change the meters to -6 dB as the half way point.
>>
>> Do you think it's 'not' confusing to have "-30" as the half way point
>> in the meter and "+/- 0.5" as the half way point in the waveform?
>> Is it 'not' confusing to have 0 dB when the waveform reaches "1"?
>> Is it 'not' confusing to generate noise at 0.8 then amplify by 1.938
>> dB to bring it full track height?
>
> Yes, a little. I guess it does not give us too much problem because the
> user soon correlates the waveform with the meters. Half way along the
> meters is half way updown
>
> If anything I think -6 dB in different places on meter and waveform is
> worse, because the units are the same for each, but not greatly so.
>
>
>>> And to get the current metering default, you would choose
>>> "Linear" type in Meter Preferences but "dB" labelling somewhere
>>> else?
>>
>> Meter type: Linear or Logarithmic
>>
>> Whether the numbers are +/- 1.0, dB, %, 0 to 127, -32768 to 32767, or
>> whatever, would be a "Preference" setting.
>> I think we would only want +/- 1.0 or dB, but other options are possible.
>>
>>>
>>> And do the Track Control Panel choices then change from
>>> "Waveform" and "Waveform dB" to "Linear" and "Log"?
>>
>> Track type: Waveform or Waveform (log)
>>
>> Labelling of the vertical axis according to the user's preference setting.
>>
>> Steve
>
> I see this as low priority and probably requiring some really good
> docs and some user support when we change. But I'll go +0.5
> on the whole. I quite like the idea of the new default waveform
> with dB labelling.

I'm quite surprised  that you give low importance to such widespread
haphazard inconsistencies in the GUI, but I don't see it as a major
issue either - I guess we've grown accustomed to it.

Steve

>
>
> Gale
>
>
>>> On 5 April 2017 at 10:12, Steve the Fiddle <ste...@gm...> wrote:
>>>> Track Gain: Linear
>>>> Amplification: dB
>>>> Track scale (default): linear
>>>> Meters (default): dB
>>>> Pan / Balance: linear
>>>> Normalize: dB
>>>> Generators (built-in): Linear
>>>> Contrast: dB
>>>> Plot Spectrum: dB
>>>>
>>>> Clearly some people prefer amplitude / gain to be shown as a linear
>>>> value and some prefer dB. Perhaps it would be less confusing to have a
>>>> preference setting to offer a choice rather than a seemingly random
>>>> mixture.
>>>>
>>>> Steve
>>>>
>>
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