Re: [Traverso-devel] Some confirmations for the manual

[Remon]

Hi,

> My point is just that Traverso shouldn't do any format conversion if not
> explicitly requested. If jack or one of its clients converts 16 bit into 32
> bit, Traverso should of course accept the 32 bit format, regardless of the
> format of the source file, because it's the format that is delivered to
> Traverso.

Hmm, maybe there is some miscommunication here.
Audio applications only can work with audio when the data is normalized 
between 0 and 1.
A value > 1 indicates clipping.
So all the audio data that's floating around in traverso are floats, jackd 
audio data format is float, you don't want to get into the hell of using 
integer audio data formats within an audio applications.
Ladspa plugins, dB conversion, it's all based on normalized float values.

As far as I know, jackd doesn't even have the ability to tell you the bit 
depth used by the audio card!

Reading from audio files is transparent as well, whatever the format of the 
file, the application requests libsndfile to read xxx amount of samples, and 
return it in a float buffer.

Traverso used explicit integer bith depth for its audio buffers before, and it 
was a nightmare, besides, simple connecting to jackd, dB conversions, and so 
on were not possible, or hard at best :-)

The main and only point imho to save to 16 bit is saving lots of disk space, 
when using the ALSA driver I would be able to let Traverso inform the user 
the bit depth as used by the hardware, with jackd it's even not possible.

So a solution would be:
If alsa driver is used, get the bitdepth from the driver, and use that as the 
saving format, unless the user explicitely requested else.
When using the jack driver, assume float format by default unless the user 
explicitely requested else.
How about that ?

> It's actually quite common to record on one system, and mix on another one.
> I could for example record in Traverso, and find out later that for mixing
> I need Samplitude. (Shouldn't happen, but well... we're both realists...)

Well, I assume you pipe the recorded material from the original application to 
another one, by using e.g. jackd.
You don't wanna import all the audiofiles by hand into another application, 
right ? That's a waste of time!

> Try to.... suppress.... the.... overwelming desire.... AAAAARGHHH!!! I WANT
> ROUTING!!! NOW!!!!!
>
> :-D

*sigh*


> How about the following solution, which in fact combines your suggestion
> with mine:
>
> Keep the playback action <SPACE>
> Add a mode-switch action <K>
> Add a record action <CTRL SPACE>

Kewl, sounds great!

Greetz,

Remon