Should "Show Clipping" lines remain red on muted waveforms?

[ferdnyc]

This screenshot is a section of the Audacity 3.3.3 (Linux) interface with the same waveform loaded twice. The only difference is that the upper copy is muted, where the lower is not. “Show Clipping” is enabled.

As you can see, the track muting makes the “Show Clipping” lines virtually invisible. They’re still there, but when muted their medium gray coloring effectively disappears into the waveform itself.

My question is, does it make sense to gray out the clipping lines as well, when muting a track? Or should they remain red, since the clipping is still there, in the waveform?

It’s often easier to discuss visual changes when we can actually see the results, and don’t have to rely on imagination. So here’s a mockup of what that would look like, courtesy of the GIMP:

(Note: It’s possible there are technical barriers to implementing this. I certainly concede that just desaturating the entire track image is simpler than redrawing it with red clipping lines over a desaturated waveform. So, I’ll tack a “modulo feasibility” onto this as well.)

[LWinterberg]

I think that, when someone mutes a track, they indicate that they don’t care about the track at that moment. As such, I’d say that showing red lines in muted tracks would be more of a visual distraction than helpful. If the track never gets unmuted again, the clipping doesn’t matter, if it does, well, red lines are back in full view as well.

[ferdnyc]

Yeah, and on one level I get that. OTOH, it could be argued that clipping lines are always a visual distraction… and if they’re enabled, it’s because they’re meant to be.

One thing that factors into it, for me, is the fact that you can still process a muted track in ways that affect the waveform. In fact, I can select a muted track, run the “Amplify” effect on it to reduce the peak levels, and eliminate those clipping lines — it’ll just be really hard to see that I’ve done so.