Opened 12 years ago
Last modified 4 years ago
#9477 new enhancement
Audio mixer: increase buss count, renaming, load+save
| Reported by: | ASoftwareHatingFurry | Owned by: | nobody |
|---|---|---|---|
| Priority: | low | Milestone: | R1.1 |
| Component: | Audio & Video | Version: | R1/alpha4.1 |
| Keywords: | mixer media kit bus buss buses busses routing routings surround sound multichannel multi channel 5.1 7.1 professional audio soundcard sound card mapping mappings remapping remappings mono stereo individual outputs | Cc: | |
| Blocked By: | Blocking: | ||
| Platform: | All |
Description
It took me a while to figure out how the "input channel remapping" and "output channel remapping" works in the audio mixer. I got confused by the fact the mixdown busses are given names like "left, centre, right" etc.
IMHO these changes would make it more logical to someone coming from an audio background (i.e. anyone who is likely to enable "enable input/output channel remapping" in setup) and would better support soundcards with lots of I/O. 32-input/32-output soundcards are available and Haiku already has support for a 16-input/16-output soundcard (Echo Layla 3G) which cannot be fully utilised with the current number of busses (12: left,right,centre,sub,rear-left,rear-right,front-left-centre,front-right-centre,back-centre,side-left,side-right,mono)
In summary the changes I propose are:
- Increase number of mixing busses to 16 or 32.
- Rename the mix busses so they're numbered 1-32, with the name down-played in brackets after the number to show the user this is the recommended use of the buss in a surround-sound environment, but not hard-wired.
- Rename the input maping tab "channel routings" or similar. This is more in keeping with the naming used on a real audio mixer.
- Rename the output mapping tab "buss routings", "output routings", or similar.
- Replace the "Allow output channel remapping" and "Allow input channel remapping" checkboxes with a single checkbox that enables both, called something like "show routing tabs." Or just get rid of it entirely, if the user doesn't understand those tabs, they can just ignore them.
- For some reason after clicking each checkbox in the "input remapping" tab, it defaults back to the mixer. Grrrrr!! If it's too difficult to change, consider moving the channel routing checkboxes into the mixer pane along with the faders, like a real analogue mixer has. This may need an option to show/hide them due to the width consumed (especially on a program that outputs many channels)
- If possible, offer the user some way to load and save mixer settings (as a file) so different routings (and mixer levels) can be saved and recalled. If this is too hard, offer a choice of two hard-wired routings in the setup tab which can be recalled: surround sound (which works like the current Haiku mixer, sending the "mono" buss to left and right, etc.) and individual channels (which routes the busses 1:1 at unity gain to the soundcard's outputs, one output per buss, one buss per output, if there are less than 32 soundcard outputs the higher numbered busses are not routed anywhere)
- Above all else, reference how real audio mixers behave when doing anything with Haiku's mixer. Think outside the box of surround sound! I am happy to assist with designing features or changes, but my BeAPI coding experience is limited.
