Audacity Forum

Hi.

I been wondering if it's possible to "flip" the negative db to positive so everything is at the positive side.

Something like this: https://imgur.com/a/neXS3ew

Thanks in advance.

Is there a performance display or other reason you would want that?

The current waves represent the real-life back and forth motion of the air during an audio performance. Real sound sucks and blows rapidly on the microphone element and produces those up and down waves.

There are announcers that have non-symmetrical waves—that have larger waves in one direction than the other. I can recognize some news announcers like that.

I know there are some web sites that display sound like that. That's more theater than engineering. They don't actually mean anything.

That is how the Audacity bouncing sound meter works. It measures sound energy either direction.

Koz

RandomErik wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 02, 2021 11:18 pm

I been wondering if it's possible to "flip" the negative db to positive so everything is at the positive side.

"Effect menu > Distortion"
Select the Factory Preset (Under the "Manage" button): "Full-wave Rectifier"
See: https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/distortion.html

Fair warning the show isn't going to be clear audio after that. The effect is listed under "Distortion" for a reason.

Koz

RandomErik wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 02, 2021 11:18 pm

Hi.

I been wondering if it's possible to "flip" the negative db to positive so everything is at the positive side.

Something like this: https://imgur.com/a/neXS3ew

Thanks in advance.

If you want distortion, what they said, above. However, if you just want to display the rectified tracks, like this:
then right-click on the calibration panel at the right of the track-control-panel and select "Half Wave" ("Zoom Reset") to reset.

then right-click on the calibration panel at the right of the track-control-panel and select "Half Wave" ("Zoom Reset") to reset.

Good to know (writing that down).

However, from our electronics training we know the different between Half-Wave and Full-Wave. Full Wave folds the negative-going waves up to join their partners on the positive display. Half-Wave whacks off the negative waves and discards them.

Half-Wave in this case is theater. It's for show and doesn't effect the quality of sound. Full-Wave gets the display by creating massive distortion.

I'd give anything to know why you want this. Are we close? Have you given up?

Koz

Thanks for the responses and the solving!

I appreciate it.