[ardour-users] peak identifier

[Mark Knecht]

On 10/4/05, Ichthyostega <prg at ichthyostega.de> wrote:
> Mark Knecht wrote:
> > Please don't limit this to peaks within a track. What's probably much more bothersome to me is
> > peaks on a submix bus. I can't see much about them and I know nothing about how much overhead
> > Ardour has. If a track comes out at 0db and I sum 5 of them does Ardour have enough headroom to
> > allow that, etc.?
> >
> > - Mark
> >
> doesn't the floating point engine handle this? To my understanding, the
> problem arises at the moment, when we are exporting to a fixed bit width.

Not sure I agree with that, but you could be right.

>
> But in spite of this, such a function could be of some use, because on
> complicated mixes with many effects, it can be really difficult to "debug"
> which part generates the "too much output"
>

This is one reason that I use a lot of submix buses. That way I get
meters on portions of the audio.

But think of it this way: If 0db on a channel meter represents 100% of
what the system can do then:

1) Is there any value at all to going higher?

2) I can raise volumes on individual tracks so that they meter above
0db. Am I distorting that audio, or am I just going above some
predefined level?

3) If I'm not distorting that specific audio then how high can it go
before I do?

   The answer to #3 is what is typically referred to as overhead. How
much overhead do we have in Ardour?

Thanks,
Mark