Talk:Audacity Waveform

Peter 6Aug11

• I created this page following a recent posting on the forum asking what the waveform display indicates, I agree with the poster that this is currently poorly documented in the manual (and the Wiki). We have had several separate requests like this in the past couple of years. I did consider placing this content on the Audio Tracks page but decided that

1. It would make Audio Tracks too long leading to TLDR
2. This content actually deserves a page of its own to document it

• Do we need to mention the alternative views: spectrogram, pitch?
  • Peter 9Aug11:added a short section with a link to Track Drop-Down Menu for this

Gale:

• Possibly this page assumes too much that readers will be recording. Not all will.
  • Peter 9Aug11: I added a sentence on Importing stereo audio files.
• Could do with more internal links on this page to other pages in the Manual such as Glossary links to interpolation and clipping.
  • Peter 9Aug11: Done.
• Probably good to have an image of a track showing just a line of sample dots
  • Peter 8Aug11: done.
• Annotated images much preferable e.g. pointing to light and dark blue.
  • Peter 12Aug11: I added an annotated image
• Good to explain the difference between the two waveform views and the others (no sample dots even if zoomed in).
  • Peter 9Aug11: added a short section at the end linking to Track Drop-Down Menu for the alternative audio display formats.

Gale 06Aug11: While I think this is a good idea (for "Understanding Audacity"?) I think you should keep Audio Tracks, Track Drop-Down Menu and Digital Audio in mind and not duplicate those too much.

• Peter 9Aug11:
  • Digital Audio is a bit of a "primer" and does not impinge on this pages content really.
  • Track Drop-Down Menu does contain some overlap, but I doubt that many folk looking for infotmation on what the waveforms mean ever found it here. It only pops up half-way down the second page of the search results for "Waveform" and the title doen't imply that you would expect to find a Waveform dissertation there. I propose to add a link to "Track Drop-Down Menu" though under something like "Other audio diplay formats" or whatever. I can't really document Spectrogam and Pitch on this page as neither of those are actually waveform displays.
  • Audio Tracks I propose to create a link to this page from the Audio Tracks page and perhaps take the opportunity to apply Occam's Razor to "Audio Tracks" to trim it a little if possible
  • Also in mind is Audacity Tracks and Clips but that is more about "how you work with Audacity", whereas this page is "about Audacity".

• Obviously you will want to discuss the light blue RMS (not on your list in the Article page).
  • Peter 9Aug11: done
• Note that Show Clipping is not on by default.
  • Peter 9Aug11: added a comment regarding this
• This may be a place to expand on dB (e.g. -6 dB is halving the volume, demonstrating that with an image).
  
  
  

Ed 8Aug11 "default track created in Audacity when you press the record button is a stereo track" might be a bit misleading if the user is in mono mode or has more than 2 inputs activated. I realize that "stereo" is Audacity's out-of-the-box default, but this could be read to imply that the default is related to pressing record. It seems obvious to an old hand but the target audience might be much less informed. Maybe something like "In Audacity's default stereo input mode a stereo track is created when you press record; it is in Waveform view with a linear scale running from -1.0 to +1.0, centered on zero."

You might even want to briefly mention non-stereo waveform views and possibly even have a mono picture.

Personally, I might get rid of the "default" part of title & text and use this section to introduce general Waveform View topics; then have two specific sections: one which delineates the difference between linear & log scales and the other for clipping. <aside>"top waveform represents the left channel and the bottom waveform represents the right" I sure wish this was represented in the GUI! Peter 9Aug11: so do I ...

Gale 06Aug11: Can we say more clearly why the average [RMS] disappears? Does the above help?

• Peter 8Aug11: I think so - but then I understand it already so it's hard to tell. It's not an entirely simple concept to grasp in that it requires a little mathematical understanding.
• Ed 8Aug11 It helps, maybe a better audio sample in example might help: