Audacity Forum

Posted: **Thu Oct 11, 2012 3:40 am**

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.

Gale Andrews wrote:You mean the v25d idea, however worded ?

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.

Posted: **Sun Oct 21, 2012 3:04 pm**

steve wrote:
yulac wrote:Also I have seen pro fade out and it is very accomplished.
Thank you - and it is extremely easy to use

And even easier to use if you set a keyboard hot-key shortcut for it

Posted: **Sun Oct 21, 2012 3:07 pm**

steve wrote:
Gale Andrews wrote:Novice users could easily knock the sliders without any understanding of how to "reset" them, so lose any "easy" way to make a fade to/from silence
I think that is a very minor issue - certainly a lot less of an issue than accidentally knocking a control in any of the built-in effects because, unlike built-in effects, Nyquist effects always reset to their defaults at the start of a session.

So how about having an additional button: "Reset"

steve wrote:Having an indicator (of some sort) for the default position of sliders is a feature request for 'all' effects (not just Nyquist effects).

+1

Peter

Posted: **Sun Oct 21, 2012 4:14 pm**

waxcylinder wrote:So how about having an additional button: "Reset"

That's a nice idea but sadly not available for Nyquist plug-ins.
It could perhaps be a feature request for all effects.

Posted: **Mon Oct 22, 2012 4:54 pm**

Adjustable Fade Version 26

adjustable-fade-26.ny: (4.52 KiB) Downloaded 161 times

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.

Posted: **Tue Oct 23, 2012 7:15 am**

Thanks, Steve.

steve wrote:
Gale Andrews wrote:Novice users could easily knock the sliders without any understanding of how to "reset" them, so lose any "easy" way to make a fade to/from silence
I think that is a very minor issue - certainly a lot less of an issue than accidentally knocking a control in any of the built-in effects because, unlike built-in effects, Nyquist effects always reset to their defaults at the start of a session.

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.

steve wrote:v26 can replace Cross-Fade In and Cross-Fade out because it provides superior alternatives.

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.

steve wrote: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.

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?

steve wrote: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.

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.

steve wrote: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.

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.

Gale

Posted: **Tue Oct 23, 2012 4:48 pm**

Thanks for the comments Gale.

Gale Andrews wrote:Given few built-in effects have presets as such and we can assume many users will be unfamiliar with fade shape

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.

Gale Andrews wrote:
steve wrote: v26 can replace Cross-Fade In and Cross-Fade out because it provides superior alternatives.
Maybe, as long as not too many people use those.

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.

Gale Andrews wrote: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?

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.

Gale Andrews wrote: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'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.

Gale Andrews wrote:is there going to be resistance about having to enter text rather than drag or click?

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.

Gale Andrews wrote: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).

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?

Posted: **Tue Oct 23, 2012 5:15 pm**

Gale Andrews wrote:
steve wrote:v26 can replace Cross-Fade In and Cross-Fade out because it provides superior alternatives.
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.

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.

Peter.

Posted: **Wed Oct 24, 2012 6:28 am**

waxcylinder wrote:I anticipate that our users would expect a balanced pair of fades.

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.

waxcylinder wrote:I stand in absolute awe of Steve's work

+1

waxcylinder wrote: It just does not look straightforward or easily comprehensible to me (even though the interface looks simpler now in v26).

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.

Gale

Posted: **Wed Oct 24, 2012 7:56 am**

steve wrote: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.

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.

steve wrote:Hopefully we will have room to include a proper "cross fade" effect (that applies a cross-fade) at some point.

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.

steve wrote: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.

I don't like hidden controls much, but how much work would it be to code it in but leave it commented out?

steve wrote: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?

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.

steve wrote: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.

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?

steve wrote:
Gale Andrews wrote: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'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.

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)"?

steve wrote: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.

Before we added the "linear" choice, I had suggested (without liking it very much):

Code: Select all

;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"?

steve wrote: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)

Yes, but look at the proportion of those who are really asking for "target fade" and may think this is it.

steve wrote:If a user does not understand the difference between "gain" and "amplitude" then they need to learn.

Again, not totally the point if the expectation is created that this is "amplitude".

steve wrote: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.

Could be less of a problem to the extent that VI users use it, because they tend to read documentation (as a sweeping generalisation).

steve wrote: 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".

No. Really. "Percentage" is common vernacular. "Linear" is not.

steve wrote:It is often quicker and easier to type a linear value than a percentage value.

But not to compute it if your understanding is hazy.

steve wrote:The default settings provide an example that the user will see at least once in every session that they use this effect.

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.

steve wrote:Would it help if "Linear Scale" was renamed "Gain Factor" or something else? ("Linear Gain Factor" does not fit in the box)

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?

Gale