Meters

[chris319]

Are you after meters that are green from here to here, yellow from here to here and then red? That might interfere with the two-tone green which generally indicates the peak and RMS values and the red overload flasher.

In a word, yes.

I have written a recording program which I have not made publicly available and it has those things along with true IEC 268-18 metering, peak hold and clip indicators. You would want a small control panel for the meters. The user could select the present peak/RMS combination or select either peak or RMS, with green to a selectable dB level, yellow to another dB level and red above that. The user could also select peak-hold dwell times or have no peak hold.

[kozikowski]

Oh. A BBC-PPM without the 1 thru 7 and the odd range change. Do they still do that? Where the bottom of the meter is a different range than the top even though 1 through 7 is evenly spaced?

Without reading through the whole thing, does that give you fading overload flashers? It's still true that all you have to do is clap loudly once to take out the current overload flasher since it doesn't self reset.


I bought IEC-268-17 (aka ANSI c16.5) The one for our VU meter. I also found EBU Tech 3205-E, the one for +/- 12. I'm not sure how valuable that is.

I think the PPM style is far easier to use than the rapid-response bouncy thing or the VU meter.
Koz

[kozikowski]

Is there any provision to have the meter rest at full scale when you turn it off?
Koz

[steve]

Features that are currently implemented by the meters (including "Recent Peak Level", "Maximum Peak Level" and "Clip warning") are described in the manual: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/meter_toolbar.html

[kozikowski]

Clip Warning in 2.0.5 on a Mac doesn't self reset. I tried it. That means it will only warn of the first one since I'm not going to fiddle with Audacity in the middle of an important performance.

Koz

[steve]

Clip Warning in 2.0.5 on a Mac doesn't self reset.

If you mean that the clip warning stays lit until you click on it, then that's what is supposed to happen. (If you are not looking at the meters for a few minutes, and while you were not looking the clip indicator came on, and then reset itself, you would have no indication that clipping had occurred).

[chris319]

If you are not looking at the meters for a few minutes, and while you were not looking the clip indicator came on, and then reset itself, you would have no indication that clipping had occurred

In real-time audio recording, by then it's too late. You could have several minutes of clipped audio during the time you weren't paying attention. Better to adjust to a clip as soon as possible after it happens. The program can only do so much to save the user from his own inattention.

[chris319]

The two main reasons I wrote my own recording program are:

1) At the time Audacity didn't support 24-bit recording because neither ASIO nor WASAPI was supported. I worked extensively with Dmitry K. on PortAudio support for WASAPI, doing extensive quality control on his code. Still, I'm not sure there aren't bugs in WASAPI regarding its "Exclusive Mode" at the Windows OS. level, not the PortAudio implementation.

2) Audacity's metering is inadequate for serious recording.

Right now I'm trying to make a test recording to check out Audacity's metering. Audacity won't go into record using WASAPI. It does when DirectSound or MME is selected. Without WASAPI or ASIO no 24-bit recording is possible.

Preferences: Opens the Meter Preferences window to set the refresh rate for the meters. A higher rate makes the meter show more frequent changes. Too high a rate can cause audio breakup on slower machines.

That's just bad programming. There should be a much lower upper boundary on the meter refresh rate if there is even a possibility of audio dropout no matter how powerful the machine. There is no practical reasor for the meter to be refreshed at 100 Hz; in fact there is a reason it shouldn't refresh faster than 20 times per second (undersampling of low frequencies).

[steve]

Better to adjust to a clip as soon as possible after it happens.

Personally I'd hate that. As you say, by the time clipping has occurred it's too late. Adjusting the level after clipping just means that you get a click (where the clipping occurred) followed by the rest of the track at a lower level, and then if there is an even higher peak, a further reduction in recording level. If the level jumped down to a lower level then there would be a further click as the gain changed. If the gain faded down to a lower level then it would be extremely fiddly to try to adjust the level back to a constant gain, and there could be multiple clipped peaks during the fade. For professional quality recording, if there is clipping, stop and start again (or get a professional sound engineer to do the job).

2) Audacity's metering is inadequate for serious recording.

I'm afraid I must disagree there too. I have used Audacity extensively in both my own projects and professional work. My main gripes with the meters are:

• The default length of the meters is too short,
• When extended to full screen width the height is much greater than necessary, taking up valuable screen space.
• The meter range can only be adjusted within Preferences and not from the drop-down menu.

However, none of these limitations are so great as to prevent extremely high quality recording work. Complaining that you can't make "serious recording" due to the meters sound to me like a workman blaming his tools (though I don't disagree that there are some situations where more sophisticated meters are necessary).

[chris319]

Complaining that you can't make "serious recording" due to the meters

I didn't say that. I find the meters inadequate and prefer to use another option. The option I use is not available to the public.

However, none of these limitations are so great as to prevent extremely high quality recording work.

Audacity not going into record in WASAPI and thus not able to do a 24-bit recording puts the kybosh on "extremely high-quality recording work".

Adjusting the level after clipping just means that you get a click (where the clipping occurred) followed by the rest of the track at a lower level, and then if there is an even higher peak, a further reduction in recording level. If the level jumped down to a lower level then there would be a further click as the gain changed. If the gain faded down to a lower level then it would be extremely fiddly to try to adjust the level back to a constant gain, and there could be multiple clipped peaks during the fade.

During a live performance you dive on the fader as quickly as possible and bring the level down. You don't have many other options.

if there is clipping, stop and start again

There isn't an orchestra conductor or bandleader alive who would stop a show before an audience of hundreds for any reason short of fire in the auditorium.

or get a professional sound engineer to do the job

No professional sound engineer including me would use Audacity for serious high-quality live recording for the reasons I've described. It doesn't have to be that way; it's up to the Audacity developers.