[pulseaudio-discuss] Per-app flat volume adjustment is highly unintuitive, if mathematically consistent.

[Zygo Blaxell]

On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 04:16:11AM +0200, Lennart Poettering wrote:
> On Wed, 27.05.09 12:02, Finn Thain (fthain at telegraphics.com.au) wrote:
> > On Wed, 27 May 2009, Lennart Poettering wrote:
> > > You are misunderstanding the flat volume logic.
> > Probably.
> > But since attenuator knobs don't tweak each other (rather I am in 
> > control), I think you can read what I wrote as arguing against flat volume 
> > logic, on the grounds of intuitive behaviour.
> 
> Sorry, I don't buy this. PA is not KDE. We try to handle things
> automatically if we can and only expose a minimal set of controls.
> 
> I am trying my best to merge as many sliders in our pipeline into
> one as possible. Sure it takes away control. But that's the purpose of
> the whole think.

I realize I often deviate significantly from the norm, but I do like
parts of that idea.  Specifically the "minimal" parts.

I don't want to be mucking around with per-app volume sliders at all.
Just normalize all the streams so they play at exactly the same
loudness(*) relative to a common reference, and give me a single
attenuation/gain control knob at the end of the pipeline that sets that
reference...preferably a physical knob, actually, but software emulation
of a physical knob is sometimes acceptable.

BTW, When I write "attenuation/gain", I really do mean gain, in software,
and I know it can lead to clipping distortion.  Some distortion is
acceptable if it helps make bad recordings of speech intelligible,
and necessary if the audio hardware's output is weak relative to ambient
noise levels.  Google talks seem to need this sort of processing more
than other recordings in my experience.

(*) yes I know "loudness" is subjective, and normalization is awful.
I'm listening to a computer playing crappy mp3's and videos and telling
me about my incoming email over a Bluetooth headset while riding a bus
or a bike.  I don't need accurate audio rendering, I just need it all
to have the same volume before it gets sent to the headset.  Once I'm
on the road, the only convenient control I have at any point in the
system is the headset's volume control.  I'm not trying to get my system
THX-certified, and I actually consider the inability to accurately render
double-digit-dB loudness changes at all to be a feature.

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