Real-time LED display of the signal level of the audio input, expressed in decibels (dB). For stereo signals, left and right levels are displayed separately. NOTE on signal range: in WaveWarp, the adopted convention is that all audio signals are mapped on to the (floating-point) amplitude range from -1 to 1. Any signal outside this range will, by definition, be digitally clipped. Again, merely by by convention, the extrema of the range (i.e. the values -1 and 1) are mapped on to the decibel value of 0. Hence, any signal above 0 dB in WaveWarp, will, be definition, be subject to digital clipping. (Caution: other digital audio systems may use different conventions, so care should be taken when comparing them with WaveWarp!) The "clip" warning in the Parameter Window provides a useful and accurate indication of the presence of digital clipping. Whenever this lights up, clipping has occured. Ideally, the signal amplitude should be adjusted to be as large as possible without causing clipping. This maximises the signal-to-noise-ratio. NOTE on the issue of resolution of the digital representation: once a numerical range has been established for a given digital system, the A/D conversion maps the analog signal on to a fixed number of digital values over the established range. For example, in WaveWarp, the adopted (floating point) range of -1 to 1 contains 256 discrete values for an 8-bit digital signal, 65536 discrete values for a 16-bit quantised digital signal, 1048576 discrete values for a 20-bit quantised digital signal, 16777216 discrete values for a 24-bit quantised digital signal, and 4294967296 discrete values for a 32-bit quantised digital signal. Hence the accuracy of the digital representation increases with the number of bits in the quantised representation., even though the adopted amplitude range of -1:1 is used for all representations. Furthermore, WaveWarp uses 32-bit representation in all its internal calculations, so very high accuracy (low noise) is maintained even for 24-bit audio files.
The computed dB signal levels are averaged over a duration of 20 ms (which is approximately the refresh rate of the display).
