linuxaudio.org

On Sat, Feb 09, 2013 at 11:16:48AM +0000, John Rigg wrote:
> By "dumbed down" I mean restricted in a way which may result in

quoted text
> inexperienced users making fewer mistakes, but will also inconvenience

> more advanced users. An example of this would be a high mid EQ that won't

> sweep above 8kHz. What if I need to EQ 12kHz? There's some excuse for this

> kind of thing on analogue hardware, as component cost has to be kept down,

> but in a plugin it's totally unnecessary. 

I've seen some EQ plugins that actually become unstable near FS/2. And even

some where the author didn't bother to limit the F range in that case - move

the slider too far with some others at the right value and watch the smoke

from your tweeters. 
Lots of plugins are written by people who apparently never have used real

audio engineering gear ever, and don't bother to test their code or even

understand what exactly it will do.
Some ten years ago someone wrote an 'RMS' routine as part of a compressor

plugin. It does a sliding window calculation over 256 samples. You can

find verbatim copies of it in at least 5 other dynamics plugins and also

in 'VU' meters (which are not even supposed to use RMS). While it's not

entirely wrong, the result is that the compressor (or whatever) will be

completely insensitive to level variations at some frequencies. For example,

at 48 or 44.1 kHz, any modulation by around 90 Hz (or integer multiples)

will be completely ignored. Five millisecs attack time ? Forget it - you get

some attack time that depends on input content in a completely haphazard way.

And of course the same lenght is used at whatever sample rate. The result is

then presented as an 'RMS' compressor... 
> Another pet peeve is lack of a text entry field on controls, as it makes

quoted text
> it difficult to set a parameter to an exact amount. Even worse are detented

> controls. What if I need an intermediate setting? The reason for detents on

> analogue hardware is for repeatability of settings, but it's totally

> redundant in software, unless the developer has neglected to provide

> text entry!

I generally dislike text input on audio engineering tools. The controls

should have sufficient resolution. More often than not the author just

accepts the display resolution (e.g. standard toolkit sliders), and if

these don't have fixed sizes you don't even have repeatable settings.

For EQ frequencies I usually have steps 1/3 or 1/6 octave depending on

filter type, with finer steps availiable using a modifier key.
Ciao,
--

FA
A world of exhaustive, reliable metadata would be an utopia.

It's also a pipe-dream, founded on self-delusion, nerd hubris

and hysterically inflated market opportunities. (Cory Doctorow)
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