Ticket #160 (new enhancement)

Opened 16 years ago

Last modified 11 years ago

human-friendly mixer scales

Reported by: sobukus Assigned to:
Priority: waiting for volunteer Milestone: Indeterminant (awaiting volunteer)
Component: ffado-mixer Version: FFADO 2.0-beta6 (1.999.36)
Keywords: Cc:
The device the bug applies to:

Description

We got mixer values in ranges like 0...-127dB or +127dB ... -127dB, even (depends on the hardware). These scales are what one uses for audio, but the mixer GUI feels strange when you move the slider 10% down and the sound is already gone.

We should offer a rescaled slider axis with the slider position indicating the signal power instead of the dB value.

i.e. we have x dB -> offset of slider is according to 10(x/10). (This assumes that we have dB for sound power level... when it's aplitude dB we need 10(x/20))

That way, halfway down means half the loudness. We should still _label_ the slider axis with dB (everyone else does) and even offer a straight numeric input field, IMHO, but ideally there'd be a switch to change the axis scaling between power level and dB value. The plain dB axis could still have its use... but default should be the power scaled one.

Change History

09/23/08 02:01:35 changed by ppalmers

  • milestone changed from FFADO 2.0 to FFADO 2.1.

04/01/12 07:21:29 changed by jwoithe

  • milestone changed from FFADO 2.1 to FFADO 2.2.

I agree that this would be ideal. This is tricky because different interfaces respond to control values in different ways. Implementing a dB scale fader is therefore probably something which needs to be done on a device-by-device basis, or at the very least would require a device-specific translation layer.

I should note that some devices do now (as of 2012) present dB-scale mixer elements (for example, anything which uses the matrix mixer widget).

As for labeling the fader scale, again this would be great. However, until someone produces a generic fader object (ie: one which can be dropped in to all the existing device-specific ffado-mixer panels) with built in scale labels I can't see it happening soon. Due to a limited number of programmers, details like this are likely to be postponed in favour of more pressing things. The fact that this ticket has remained more or less unchanged for 4 years is testimony to that.

For the moment I'll postpone this to 2.2. The concept does however need to be reviewed so we can work out whether this can be done in the medium-term.

10/31/12 05:14:07 changed by jwoithe

  • owner set to arnonym.
  • priority changed from major to waiting for volunteer.
  • component set to ffado-mixer.
  • milestone changed from FFADO 2.2 to Indeterminant (awaiting volunteer).

Over 6 months has passed and no further feedback has been received. On re-reading the original ticket it seems the request is not for dB scale, but rather some form of power scale. Since all pro audio runs in terms of dB it's not clear to me how the proposed changes might fit in. Even so, the idea to associate a printed scale with mixer fader controls certainly has merit.

Since the core developers already have their time cut out on arguably more important things, I'll set this ticket as "waiting for volunteer". If someone wishes to pick the ideas of this ticket up, work out what's useful and then implement it we can re-evaluate the priority and milestone.

10/31/12 05:16:18 changed by jwoithe

  • owner deleted.