hello,

i'm trying to find how to see my output clips. i think i have to connect audio output to VU meter. i use [dac~] for audio output. maybe someone has suggestion?

thanks for help

[adc~]
|
| [metro 100]
| /
|/
[snapshot~]
|
[db2rms]
|
[vumeter]

try this!

[env~] is better than [snapshot~] for volume, but still won't be brilliant (as it does RMS averaging, whereas you want peak metering)

also Pd's vu meter expects values from 0 to -100 instead of 100 to 0, so you have to subtract 100.

EDIT: enabling peak meters in Pd's main window will show if you're clipping

Claudius, i always thought that clipping was a bad thing and to be avoided, but sometimes i can drive the pd main meters up to 110 - 115 and it still sounds very musical (although sometimes really distorted and apparently eating up other frequencies) any ideas how this can be? Is this dependent on the way pd is coded?

Thanx,

D.

@domien said:

Is this dependent on the way pd is coded?

It more depends on the audio driver: some drivers could potentially have all kinds of dynamics processing to avoid clipping at the expense of "accuracy" (see for example the long threads on the supercollider list about OS X Core Audio DSP stuff).

And it also depends on the source audio: some combinations of sounds when amplified and clipped sound "ok", others will sound "a horrible mess".

I think there's an example in Pd docs, that shows if you mix two related frequencies and clip, you get another frequency some pitch below, but I forget which example it is....

I still can't seem to get my meter to read properly. It's set up just like the second post. Any suggestions on something I might be missing?

got it working, I used env~ and subracted 100.