You may hate me for this
Now that I’ve played with the “linear” text box - I want to keep it. Yes I know that I argued against having linear controls, but that was before considering a single, empty by default text box. In addition to the dB sliders, it provides a really useful option. 80% to 20% fade, no problem - 100% to double (200%), no problem - and it does not seem to detract at all from the benefits of dB sliders.
Functionally, yes, but worded differently and probably with the option at the bottom rather than the top. I think that it would be confusing if “nothing worked” by default. The default should be that everything is functional. If the user then chooses to disable the slider controls, they should not be surprised that the sliders don’t work.
Adjustable Fade Version 26 adjustable-fade-26.ny (4.52 KB)
I have been through all of the previous discussions about a “more versatile fade effect” and attempted to devise the simplest possible compromise that does not lose too much functionality and does not hinder work-flow. There may be one or two points that I have missed, but I think that most of them are listed below, with brief comments of how v26 addresses each issue.
although it defaults to fade in, it’s doesn’t fade from near silence by default v26 fades in from silence as the default.
there would still be no non-linear fade without GUI, even if the versatile fade default was Fade In. Sorry, you can’t have your cake and eat it. A more versatile effect needs to have user controls.
I think a choice to define the fade by a percentage instead of dB is well worth having. v26 offers gain on a linear scale (default), percentage and dB scale. “Linear scale” is the default because it is the most simple: 0 = silence, 1 = unity gain, 2 = twice the peak level …
About one-third of Feature Request votes for a better fade ask for a % choice. v26 offers % as an option.
Preferred fade types (shapes):
Linear,
Log.,
Equal Power,
Round,
Sine
v26 offers:
Linear,
Exponential (like the Envelope Tool),
Logarithmic (inverse of exponential), this is quite “rounded” at the default setting.
High Curve (similar to “Equal Power” but the curve is “higher”),
Cosine (when applied between unity gain and silence, this is an “Equal Power” fade),
‘S’ curve.
quick fade from silence to 100% and vice-versa In v26 the default gain scale is “linear scale” so the values 0 and 1 for the two ends of the fade provide fade from silence to 100% and vice-versa. These are also the default values. All fade shapes provide “In” and “Out” versions so a fade-in can quickly and easily be reversed to a fade-out, or vice versa.
Can you explain how the Equal Power and DJ Curve differ? v26 has “Cosine” fade (which produces an “Equal Power” response for uncorrelated sounds when used as a cross-fade (this is what an “Equal Power Fade” does - it provides +3dB boost mid-fade). A “DJ” fade typically curves up higher than an equal power fade so that when cross-fading the mid-fade gain is higher than a cosine fade. v26 has a “Higher Curve” fade that provides a “higher” (louder, greater peak amplitude) curve than other fades.
the “0.8 to 0.2” in the Feature Requests implies to me people are thinking of %, not dB. v26 has “linear scale” as the default (the same as the default waveform view).
Would it not be better to offer “Log” and "Equal Power " as presets v26 achieves “presets” by using the (extremely easy to remember) defaults of 0 and 1. If user’s can’t cope with that there is no hope.
Replacing the “Cross Fade” shape we ship now v26 offers “Cosine” fade which is a better shape for cross-fades than what we ship now.
It’s hardly “simple” now, compared to “Fade by dB”. v26 offers a variety of fade shapes whereas “Fade by dB” is linear only.
v26 offers linear and percentage scales whereas “Fade by dB” offers only dB.
v26 can replace Cross-Fade In and Cross-Fade out because it provides superior alternatives.
v26 has (simpler) explicitly selected “In” and “Out” rather than using +/- values to set the fade direction.
the expressed feature request is for partial fades (including requests for a % choice). You’ve got it in v26.
One could argue that the curve slider is the “un-necessary” control in a “simple” effect. There is no evidence on Feature Requests of a desire for exotic and highly customisable fade shapes, The “fade shape modifier” (“curve control” / “Mid-fade Boost/Cut”) is gone.
v26 offers a couple of extra shapes to make up for the lack of a “modifier” - specifically the “High Curve” option which is the one that I would most miss.
When I finally worked out that you have to use a custom shape to do a partial fade… “Custom Shapes” option has gone. The fade shape is selected directly from one drop down menu.
Confusion re: Exponential vs Logarithmic… If you add together (mix and render) two copies of the same waveform, one with a (default) Exponential Fade In and the other with a (default) Logarithmic Fade Out, the result will be unity gain. The exponential fade in the inverse of the logarithmic fade (and vice versa).
Re. lowest level for an exponential fade (never reaches silence). v26 limits the lowest fade level for exponential curves to -145 dB (same as the Envelope tool). There is no jiggery-pokery.
Naming of the “legacy” cross-fade shape The old “Cross-Fade In/Out” shape has been superseded with a better shape. In v26 it is called “Cosine In” and “Cosine Out”.
If a “rounded end” is required, the “Logarithmic” fade type may be used.
v26 includes 12 fade shapes which I think is about the most that can be accommodated without making the list unwieldy.
Some previous versions…looks clean and simple but once you get beyond changing the “Fade direction” control and clicking OK, it becomes quite hard (IMO) to use and understand. Hopefully v26 is simple enough.
custom levels outside the slider range? v26 has no sliders. Nonsense values (such as “-30%” gain) will produce an error. Any “legal” value may be entered.
Either way I quite like “High Point” and “Low Point” rather than “Maximum” and “Minimum”. v26 uses the control labels “Start (or end) Gain” and “End (or start) Gain”. THIS IS NOT CAST IN STONE. Personally I would be happy to simply call both of them “Gain” as it is obvious (to me) that fading from one gain to another gain requires two “gain” controls.
For optimised work-flow it is better if either gain can be set to the minimum/maximum/high-point/low-point/initial/final values. The only important thing is that there are two values - the order does not matter because “Fade type” specifies whether the fade is increasing or decreasing (In or Out).
Is a one-click reverse of fade direction when using custom gains highly useful? Yes, and it is supported in v26 by selecting the “In” or “Out” variation of the “Fade Type”.
Is there a better word than “Taper” v26 uses the preferred words “Fade Type”.
I think it’s unfortunate that folks who find % simpler to understand are forced to use a text box because they are presumed to be in the minority (though they may well be in the minority) It’s all fair now - everyone uses text input. The only other way to support linear + percentage + dB is to have 6 controls, 4 of which are inactive.
Redundant (inactive but not greyed out) controls… In v26, all of the controls are fully functional all of the time.
We want “presets” v26 provides 12 preset fade types. The only adjustment available is the initial and final gain.
Given few built-in effects have presets as such and we can assume many users will be unfamiliar with fade shape, I think it was more than a very minor issue and could have led to a lot of frustration. However for now, it’s less relevant.
Maybe, as long as not too many people use those. But I think there would be a more useful non-GUI Fade Out (Pro Fade Out) and Fade In (to be decided) to have as non-linear alternatives.
Of course if we ever have shortcuts for parameters of effects (or some kind of “manager” interface for related plug-ins like Robert’s idea) then this is no longer an issue.
I’m surprised you removed that. I largely accepted your case for that slider once it had the understandable “Mid-fade” title and given you didn’t want a lot of dropdown choices. If you think the case is still strong then I’m not averse to considering it (if the interface remains as “simple” as v26), but I feel you have largely covered the requirement with the increased number of fade types. Is there any important fade type missing as a result of removing that slider?
Should the wording of that still try and refer to “EQ Power” in some way? Users may associate the legacy “Cross Fade” with “Equal Power” and the Cosine curve (obviously) doesn’t look quite the same.
I’ll think about this. At the moment I don’t think it’s bad, but I’m now more conditioned to it.
I was (at first) a bit surprised you got rid of the dB sliders and separate text box with ability to enter a % pair. As you said, this box did let you keep a separate “setting” to one side which you could toggle back and forth to. That may be not a huge issue but is there going to be resistance about having to enter text rather than drag or click?
I would say though I was unsure how that text box worked with the “direction” part of the fade type - if you chose a fade in, would “100 0” and “0 100” both fade from silence to unity? Or was “High” explicitly the first of the pair? If you have a pair of values but also a direction control, there is scope for confusion that the first value must act on the waveform to the left of the second value (as per Text Envelope).
The bigger surprise was the “Linear” choice. To those who like the idea of target fades, it may really look as if it is that. “Wave is at 0.8 now for the start of the fade and I want 0.5, so enter 0.5, great! Eh? it’s gone to 0.4 instead”. For complete beginners, they may not even understand “1” as being 100% (1.0 maybe, as it looks like the default vertical scale, but then that adds to the “target” confusion).
So although I know you thought this was “simpler” than dB, (and I guess it’s more convenient for power users than % ?) my first reaction is that we probably don’t want this as the default, and I’m not sure if we want it at all.
OK, I can see your point, though I still think that the problem is worse for effects such as Compressor and Noise Reduction.
I agree that it is much less of a problem with v26.
For those that are using Cross-Fade In and Cross-Fade out for making cross-fades, the better shape should be a welcome enhancement, though it does lose some of the convenience of a one-click fade. The point I was making is that v26 can create an “equal power” fade shape that is suitable for cross-fading, whereas the original “Fade to dB” could only make linear fades.
Until we have some sort of “Effect Library Management” there ar practical difficulties of shipping too many plug-ins, however I think that it would be worth retaining the old “Cross-Fade In/Out” plug-ins on the wiki and possibly also adding a “version 2” of those plug-ins with the better fade shape.
Hopefully we will have room to include a proper “cross fade” effect (that applies a cross-fade) at some point.
Personally I like the “Mid-fade” control, but the interface is greatly simplified by removing it.
For “advanced users” I don’t think there would be any problem in just adding one “Mid-fade” control, but as you have pointed out that may produce confusion for novice users. If we also need to work around this “potential confusion” by adding duplicate non-adjustable presets or disabling controls by default then I don’t think that it is worth the extra complication.
In terms of “important fade types” the main loss would have been a curve like “Eq Power” but with a higher mid-point. The “High Curve” presets have been added to fill that hole.
The second most significant loss is a “normalized exponential” fade - that is, one that has an exponential fade shape, but goes to or from silence. A close approximation to this type of fade can be achieved by multiple applications of the standard Audacity Fade In/Out effects. It would have been nice to have included this as a one-pass effect, but I don’t see any way of doing so without having an extra control (how many times do you want to repeat the linear fade?). As soon as we add the extra control we run back into the business of: Does this control affect all fade shapes or only one? How do we disable this control so as to return to “preset” shapes?
The third (though probably less important) loss is the “slightly rounded” fade shape of the “legacy” Cross-Fade In/Out. This could be added as an extra “Fade Type” but we don’t want the list to be too long and I think that at least 8 of the current list are more important than this shape.
Probably the least useful fade shape that is included is the “Logarithmic” fade, but you specifically requested that, and as an inverse of the Exponential fade it probably has “educational” value.
I’m open to suggestions for a more descriptive name than “Cosine Fade”, but I don’t think that “Eq Power” is suitable because it is only “equal power” when it is being used for crossfading and is fading to or from silence.
Could this “Fade Type” perhaps be called “Cross Fade In” and Cross Fade Out""?
I don’t think there would be an expectation that it will actually perform a “crossfade” as the plug-in is not a “crossfade” effect (and hopefully we will have a “Crossfade” effect in the not too distant future). It would clearly indicate its similarity with the current “Cross Fade” effects and would indicate the typical usage of this fade type.
With a dB scale, to provide a reasonable range the steps by clicking are 12 dB, which will often be too big, so text entry would probably be used regularly anyway.
With a linear scale, the maximum gain is likely to be only about 6 dB before text entry is required.
Text entry is a much simpler and more elegant solution than having multiple controls, some of which are disabled but not greyed out.
If anyone can think of a way to provide dB scale and linear scale and slider control and silence to +48 dB without the confusion of inactive/not greyed out controls, then I’m open to suggestions, but I don’t think that it is possible within the limitations of the Nyquist plug-in interface.
There are several good reasons for keeping “Linear Scale” as the default:
I agree with your earlier comment that we should try, where possible, to implement features that have been requested by users.
The feature request on the wiki says: New controls for start and end amplitude - quick linear fade from say 0.8 to 0.2, much simpler and quicker than the Envelope Tool (and VI-accessible) (26 votes)
If a user does not understand the difference between “gain” and “amplitude” then they need to learn. However we dress it up, this plug-in is of no use to anyone that does not grasp that basic concept.
If we ever have keyboard access to Envelope Control Points, then the gain is likely to be on a linear scale of 0=silence, 1=unity gain, because that is how Envelope Control Points are defined.
Users that can’t understand that a Linear Scale Gain of 0.5 means “half the level” may find it just as difficult to understand that Percentage Scale Gain of 50 means “half the level”.
It is often quicker and easier to type a linear value than a percentage value.
The default settings provide an example that the user will see at least once in every session that they use this effect.
Would it help if “Linear Scale” was renamed “Gain Factor” or something else? (“Linear Gain Factor” does not fit in the box)
I don’t want to lose sight of the topic of this forum thread: Re: Professional sounding fade out..
We are looking at “Adjustable Fade” because you thought it necessary to provide a “package” of effects to replace Cross Fade In/Out rather than just promoting “Pro Fade Out” on its own merits.
Does “Adjustable Fade version 26” do enough to meet those requirements?
If it does, let’s promote it.
If not, what is needed?
Like Steve, I don’t want us to lose sight of the original thrust of this thread “Professional Sounding Fade Out”
For those of us that just do vinyl/tape/MD transcriptions and those that “borrow” material from streaming audio and radio broadcasts - then the musical fade produced by Pro Fade Out (and possibly a fade in counterpart) are all that are really needed.
Though personally I find Steve’s tip of repeated use of the linear fade a good workaround - I think I will still like to see a Pro-Fade-In (even if it is just the existing Fade-in re-badged). I would certainly prefer to document the pair of fades like that - and I anticipate that our users would expect a balnced pair of fades.
I stand in absolute awe of Steve’s work (and Gale’s feedback and contributions) on the parameterizable fades. But as a non-pro user, non recording desk user, I don’t think I could attempt to use this complex tool properly without reading extensive documentation that we would have to provide in the manual (nor do I have the knowledge or experience to write such documentation - I can help with the editing though). It just does not look straightforward or easily comprehensible to me (even though the interface looks simpler now in v26). But I don’t expect it to be, it is a complex and powerful tool.
I definitely think so. But I think we have to have a non GUI linear fade out, so if we want a non-GUI musical fade out as well then we need two pairs of non GUI fades.
+1
Were any of the predecessors more comprehensible (GUI apart)?
One reason this is taking so much time is that we want the strongest possible case for shipping this effect. So it has to be reasonably useful for a power user, but not so over-complex that a relative beginner couldn’t do a partial fade. I think part of that case should be on the basis of what other software has - most that I have looked at have more than a quick uncustomisable fade, without forcing the user into a mouse-only Envelope Tool.
I think there are even stronger reasons than that, see above. But yes, I can see a -quality list submission promoting Pro Fade Out on its own as seemingly too small to be worth developer interest.
This is more difficult because of the plans for a similar effect written in C++. I agree we can put that to one side and concentrate on replacing the current two “Cross Fade” plug-ins with something better and filling the gap between the non-GUI fades and Envelope Tool.
I don’t like hidden controls much, but how much work would it be to code it in but leave it commented out?
If it was an additional “fade type” (so we had 14 types), is it compatible with the “dB Scale” choice?
If so and we included it as a fade type, then I think we just have to make a decision on how many equivalent log fades it emulates. Exponential already arguably comes in too late/goes out too early, so e.g. we could set normalized exponential to the equivalent of four or six repeats which would be useful in its right. People can still “Repeat” that, but it should only need one or two repeats.
Since we have log as an alternative for the “shape”, and cosine as an alternative for the “power”, I think this does not matter much.
And if we get into commenting out a control, is it possible to comment out a particular fade type cleanly?
The only problem is that it is not exactly the same as the two “Cross Fades”, and there is always the chance those two might persist. How about “XFade In (Cosine)” and “XFade Out (Cosine)”?
Before we added the “linear” choice, I had suggested (without liking it very much):
;control units "Units (dB or % of original level)" choice "dB,Percent" 0
;control max-gain "High Point dB increase or %" real "" 0 0 100
;control min-gain "Low Point dB reduction or %" real "" 100 0 100
and people who want something else than 0 to 100 still have to enter text.
Is there any way for a control to expose different controls (after a reload of the GUI) - “with the control set this way, the commented out controls are treated as uncommented, and (if wanted), the uncommented controls are commented”?
Yes, but look at the proportion of those who are really asking for “target fade” and may think this is it.
Again, not totally the point if the expectation is created that this is “amplitude”.
Could be less of a problem to the extent that VI users use it, because they tend to read documentation (as a sweeping generalisation).
No. Really. “Percentage” is common vernacular. “Linear” is not.
But not to compute it if your understanding is hazy.
Fairly irrelevant, because if they leave the default alone it doesn’t matter.
Your argument that text envelope might use a “linear” control is a bit more convincing for me.
Yes I was thinking along the lines of a rename, too. The word “Linear” is unacceptable I think.
Of the current three “Gain Values” choices, as a power user, which would be your first, second and third choice to have as default?
A built-in effect (C++) has many advantages over a plug-in implementation but a plug-in may be a useful temporary solution while we wait. (We are likely to be waiting years for a built-in version).
It’s tricky for the Logarithmic and Exponential fade types. They would need to become “normalized”, so the default settings will look quite different from v26.
Not hard for the others.
Yes. We had the “normalized exponential” in v24.
Other than fading from/to silence, the normalized fade with default “Mid-fade” is identical to the current version.
The current version never goes below -145 dB gain.
The “Normalized” version can go to absolute silence, and the amount of “curve” (hence how long the fade remains at a low level) is adjustable.
It would be possible, but it’s not very “clean”.
The multiple choice controls present a list of choices.
The returned value is the position of the choice in the list (counting from 0), so for example, if you have 10 items in the menu they are numbered 0 to 9. If you select the 4th item, then the control takes the value “3”.
The problem with changing the list is that it will change the numbering of the rest of the list. For example, if there are 10 items and you comment out the 4th item, then items 5 to 10 become items 4 to 9.
The dB values need to be negative for below unity gain.
Short answer: No
Longer answer: The plug-in header is parsed by Audacity before running the plug-in, so the interface is created before the plug-in code can do anything.
You’re suggesting that users will see the values 0 and 1 and think “ah ha, I’ll ignore the fact that it says ‘Gain’, it must mean Amplitude”
I even used a single digit “1” rather than “1.0” so that it looks different from the track scale.
Do they also think that “Gas Mark 5” means that the oven will shut down after 5 minutes because that’s what their microwave does?
I agree that we should try and make it “not so over-complex that a relative beginner couldn’t do a partial fade” but “Gain” is not “Amplitude” and the control clearly says “Gain” and not “Amplitude”. I don’t see that the numbers 1 and 0 strongly suggest otherwise.
There is also potential for confusion with a % scale. Does “20 %” mean:
a) 20 % lower than the original
b) 20 % of the original (80 % lower)
c) 20 % target level
I don’t think that we can completely eliminate all ambiguity - we can try to make clear for the majority of users, but those that still “don’t get it” will have to either RTFM, ask on the forum or not use it. We should not be depriving millions of users just because a few that will probably never need the effect may find it too difficult.
I’m not sure that I’m a typical “power user”, but much of the time I would find the linear scale most convenient.
I also think that this would be the most convenient for most novice users.
Can you think of a clearer expression than “Gain Values: linear scale”?
If I’m wanting to fade by a specific amount - for example to match the peak level of another track, I would probably use the “Amplify” effect to read the peak levels, so I would then use dB.
Given the choice, I doubt that I would ever use the % scale.
The question with exponential fades is “what to do close to zero?”
For a mathematically correct curve, a fade out to a very low level is not really useful because much of it is inaudible:
When fading to/from absolute silence, the result would be silence for the entire duration.
One way round the problem is to limit the minimum gain to a small value (-50 dB or less).
The problem then is that it is impossible to to fade to absolute silence.
A “fudge” to work round this second problem is to keep the same “curve shape” below the minimum level and scale that curve down to the user defined level.
An alternative is to limit the minimum gain to a sufficiently low level that it is negligible (say -145 dB).
Another alternative is to fade down to a minimum level, and for user values below that, add a linear fade to the end.
These two fade-outs “look” like useful exponential fade-outs, but neither of them are actually exponential fade-outs:
The upper track is an exponential fade out from unity gain to -50 dB (quiet, but certainly not silence and enough to create an audible click at the end).
The second does go to silence, but it is not exponential - it is a linear fade-out that has been applied 4 times. It would be more “curved” if we applied it more than 4 times, less curved if we applied it less than 4 times, and of course linear if we applied it only once.
The upper track can be made to go to silence by offsetting it downward by a tiny amount, but then the initial gain will be slightly less than 1 (unity gain). This loss of gain can be made up by normalizing to unity gain - amplifying the entire fade a little (about +0.0275 dB). This may seem like a tiny amount, but it is enough to create an audible click if it is not normalized.
So to fully define an exponential fade from one level to another, we need to define the initial level, the final level and the upper and lower limits before normalizing.
This will be overly complex for the vast majority of users, so we need to make some assumptions on their behalf.
Should we assume that “the customer is right” and provide a mathematically correct fade?
Should we assume that they want a fade that “looks” like an exponential curve and goes from and to the values that they set?
The latter is probably more useful in most cases, in which case we would need to decide “how curved” we want to make the exponential fade.
Probably not (I have not tested many of them in any detail - mainly looked at the mockups in this thread).
I think I understand “Fade Type” - but I have no idea how to choose between the options
I don’t understand “Gain Values”
I think I understand “Start (or End) Gain” and vice-versa - but I find this labelling confusing (maybe that means I don’t understand)
And don’t forget that part of my understanding comes from following this thread - if I came to this “blind” I would struggle I think (hence my statement that good and careful documentation will be required.
Thanks for your comments waxcylinder.
With 26 versions and countless small variations between versions we must be close to the full set of variations and combinations possible in a Nyquist plug-in of this type.
I think we are getting close and perhaps your “lack of understanding” can help to finally nail down some features so that we can ship this thing.
That is probably a good place to start as it is very close to the original feature request that started all this.
If you want to apply a fade out, then it is very quick and simple by using the Audacity “Fade Out” effect. However, sometimes you may want to fade down the audio, but not all the way to silence - you may just want to fade it down to half volume, or fade it up to double the volume. Currently the only way to do this is with the fiddly and not accessible “Envelope Tool”.
Terminology:
The standard “Fade Out” effect fades from “Unity Gain” to “Silence”.
Unity Gain: Gain = 1, original level, times 1, 100 %, 0 dB amplification.
Silence: Gain = 0, times 0, 0 %, -infinity dB amplification.
So what about 1/2 volume?
Half volume, Gain = 0.5, x 0.5, 50 %, -6 dB
So to fade from one arbitrary amplification level to another, we need to say what these amplification levels are.
So we have 2 controls - one for each end of the fade.
What do we call these controls?
What would you call these controls?
How would you want to set “half volume” or “original level” or “double the original level” or some other arbitrary amount?
If I want to increase the gain by +6 dB, what actually goes on in my head is that I think:
I want it to be twice as big → double the amplitude = +6 dB.
If I want to reduce the level by -12 dB, what goes on in my head is:
I want it at 1/4 volume → -6 dB for each halving of the volume → -12 dB
I’m thinking of “relative amplitude” as “how many times the original” (linear scale), then converting that in my head to dB.
If I’m thinking about “how loud”:
“A bit louder” → that’s about +3 dB
"A tiny bit louder → about +1 dB
“A bit quieter” → about -3 dB
“Quite a bit quieter” → about -6 dB
“Much quieter” → -15 or -20 dB
No conversion - I think of “relative loudness” in dB
gain is a measure of the ability of a circuit (often an amplifier) to increase the power or amplitude of a signal from the input to the output. It is usually defined as the mean ratio of the signal output of a system to the signal input of the same system. It may also be defined on a logarithmic scale, in terms of the decimal logarithm of the same ratio (“dB gain”). A gain greater than one (zero dB), that is, amplification, is the defining property of an active component or circuit, while a passive circuit will have a gain of less than one.
In other words, the standard way to define gain is as a ratio - what I have called “linear scale”, where a value of 1 means unity gain (same out as goes in), a value of 0.5 means half the amplitude, a value of 2 means double the amplitude, a value of 3 means 3 times the amplitude, and so on.
The other common way to define gain is on a dB scale.
Defining gain as a percentage is completely non-standard and I’ve never come across gain defined as a percentage anywhere in any software, any hardware or any literature. I’m all for innovation but I’m not comfortable about using different terminology to everyone else, especially not as the default.
I would say the curve shape matters more than the silence level. I think we may as well have this as another choice (not worth bringing back the mid-fade slider) .
I don’t think there is much potential for rank beginners who don’t know what a gain is, given percentage is common understanding (percentage of something).
Such confusion as there is will be with the “Gain” word when combined with %. I agree that users who think about it a bit more could guess that 20% gain is really 120% or 1.2. In fact, % hardly seems like a “gain” at all, per your comment above, but it’s very useful.
The problem with “Linear Scale” as a wording choice (apart from people understanding that 1 is unity) is that it directly invites thinking that e.g. 0.1 is a target that moves the amplitude to 0.1 on the linear scale to left of the waveform.
So, here is one possibility, distinguishing “% of original” from both “gains” (I’m not sure about adding “(1=original)” after “linear”, as it may confuse with “% of original”:
Would “(1=unity)” be better (I doubt it), or “(1= no change)”, or no explanation?
I want to add that I care more about % being there than worrying whether we distinguish % from gain or not - but I think distinguishing it gets over any objections that % is “confusing”. “Gain as:” is OK, but perhaps not so clear what it means for the choices other than %.
This still leaves the “Start or End or End or Start” problem. I’m beginning to think a single figure in a box whose width we can’t reduce looks odd, and that the End/Start confusion (and having to move into a second box) outweighs any benefit from two boxes being simpler to understand.
So another idea, 26b, which only has a single text box.
Note, I suggest High and Low here, because I think “Start” and “End” in a horizontal set of figures is confusing.
The other thing I am feeling is, what is the advantage in v26, v26a or v26b over the 25f idea: ?
In 25f:
the difference between the gain and % choices is clearer
those who want sliders won’t be offended
you can “store” an alternative set of values if you don’t mind changing the units
Translated into our current ideas, 25f might like this (v26c):
The objections to 26c may be that:
we have lost the “linear units” (so it may force dB default which will be worse for beginners)
we have the Nyquist interface issue that text in the box disables the sliders (but I think Nyquist users largely accept that)?
If I personally had to decide tonight, I would go with 26c, because it lets us bring the sliders back (nor would I hesitate about making % default, but I know Steve wouldn’t agree). Maybe I will change my mind tomorrow.
Does this help? Can we agree the choice is between 26, 26a, 26b or 26c (or close equivalents of them)?
