I was wondering if any of these things are possible within Audacity, and if not, whether there is a way to request them for future releases:
1- The ability to select multiple samples and especially in a horizontal way, so as to select every peak of a certain amplitude and move them together, similar to how you would work velocity in a piano roll.
2- The ability to amplify but so that as soon as peaks reach 0db they stay at 0db.
3- A way to see whether effects add harmonic distortion, similar to the way you can see vst plugins using Plugin Doctor.
4- A way to see the phase changes created by effects or sample movements.
1 - I’m not sure what you are looking for here, but you can zoom all the way to the individual sample. I’ve never had any reason to do so, but you can probably cut and paste individual samples.
2 - see Analyze > Plot Spectrum
3 - I would say not, but again, you can zoom in and compare…
1- The ability to select multiple samples and especially in a horizontal way, so as to select every peak of a certain amplitude and move them together, similar to how you would work velocity in a piano roll.
I don’t know of a built-in way of doing that but it should be possible if you write your own [u]Nyquist[/u] plug-in. That would introduce distortion since you are changing the wave shape.
2- The ability to amplify but so that as soon as peaks reach 0db they stay at 0db.
That would be [u]clipping[/u] and the Limiter has a clipping setting. Or if you export as regular (integer) WAV it will be clipped at 0dB. Clipping adds harmonic distortion. (Most of the Limiter settings use look-ahead so the wave shape isn’t altered.)
3- A way to see whether effects add harmonic distortion, similar to the way you can see vst plugins using Plugin Doctor.
I don’t know how to do that but most plug-ins don’t cause distortion unless they push the levels into clipping (for example if you over-boost the bass). Or, there are guitar amplifier simulator plug-ins that intentionally add distortion.
If you boost high frequencies, of course you are boosting any existing harmonic distortion. But you’re not creating distortion unless you boost the levels into clipping.
4- A way to see the phase changes created by effects or sample movements.
I don’t know of any way to do that either. There are plug-ins that display the phase-difference between left & right (but I think they show other differences too). I don’t know if any of these work with Audacity.
Phase really only has “meaning” in relation to something else such as phase differences between left & right. i.e. If you reverse the connections to one speaker to flip the phase/polarity you’ll get a weird effect but if you reverse the connections to both speakers it will sound normal again.
Filters (and EQ, etc.) usually introduce phase shifts but it’s the filtering (not the phase shift) that makes the audible difference.
Yes, I know I can zoom all the way and select one sample, but I was asking about selecting multiple samples at once so as to bring their amplitude up or down.
I didn’t understand the Plot Spectrum mention, I don’t see the connection to my question…
Regarding distortion I wasn’t referring to the one created by exceeding 0db, but the kind that almost all plugins add to the signal (many times even with all parameters set to zero), which in many cases is supposed to be inaudible, but really isn’t, and still alters the signal. With plugin doctor I can more or less see if a plugin is truly clean and doesn’t create a whole bunch of undesirable stuff, so I was wondering if there was any way to find out whether the effects in Audacity are truly clean and transparent in a verifiable way (not relying on my ears only hehe).