**Simple** audio mode is the default, and was the only mode available
up until Nageru 1.4.0. Despite its name, it contains a powerful
audio processing chain; however, in many cases, you won't need to
-understand or twiddle any of the knobs availale.
+understand or twiddle any of the knobs available.
Simple mode allows input from only a single source, and that source
has to be one of the capture cards. (You choose which one by right-clicking
The audio strip contains controls for the processing chain for the audio from
start to end, left to right. Note that by default, everything is enabled;
-if you have a premade audio mix that you are confident that you
+if you have a pre-made audio mix that you are confident that you
want 1:1 into the stream, you can start Nageru with the “--flat-audio”
flag, that instead starts with everything disabled.
effects are separate per-bus and the remaining are applied
after the mix. (More on this below.) The mastering section begins
with a **limiter**, basically a compressor with very high ratio.
-It's there as an emergency brake for really loud compressors
+It's there as an emergency brake for really loud sounds
that got through the other compressors—a classic example is a
speaker suddenly coughing, or a very loud bass drum. This prevents
both clipping and blowing out the speakers' ears.
you can use the + button to add a new bus, and the - button to remove
the currently selected one (you select by clicking on it). The up and
down buttons rearrange the order by moving the currently selected bus
-up or down, if possible.
+up or down, if possible. Note that you can create a mono bus by
+assigning the same input channel to the left and right inputs.
Because mappings can be tedious to setup, you wouldn't want to set up
a complicated one every time you started Nageru. Therefore, mappings
in the reverse order; USB cards don't carry any kind of serial number
or other forms of unique identification.
+.. _audio-views:
The audio views
'''''''''''''''
.. image:: images/audio-view-selector.png
-Once multichannel mode is active, a little selector shows up to the right,
-just below the level meters. The arrows (or equivalently, the PgUp/PgDown
-keys on the keyboard) allow you to select between two views:
+Once multichannel mode is active, the audio view selector (up to the right,
+just below the level meters) gains a third option. The arrows (or equivalently, the PgUp/PgDown
+keys on the keyboard) allow you to select between those three views:
* In the **compact audio view** (which is the default), each bus is
represented only by its label, its peak meter (see below) and its
from the full audio view are still in effect, but you cannot see or
interact with them.
- * The **full audio view** contains a lot more controls, but leaves no
+ * The **video grid display** does not have any audio controls,
+ but tries to use as much screen estate as possible on the video channels
+ only. In particular, it can put the channels in multiple rows if that
+ facilitates larger previews, which can be useful if you have many channels.
+
+ * The **full audio view** (only available in multichannel mode) contains a lot more controls, but leaves no
room for the video channels. These are useful when you are doing initial
setup of your mix, or if you want to go back and tune something.
The full audio view will be described in detail in the following section;
go all silent.
Then there's the **peak meter** to the left of that. For each bus, unlike
-for the meters used for mastering (see :ref:`audio meters`),
+for the meters used for mastering (see :ref:`audio-meters`),
you don't want to know loudness; you want to know recording levels,
so this is a peak meter, *not* a loudness meter. (There's some holdoff
so you can see the actual peaks over a short period.) In particular,
antics—some speak at a pretty even volume and thus can get a bit of
headroom, while some are much more variable and need tighter settings.
-Finally (or, well, first), there's the EQ section. The **lo-cut** is again
+Nearly at the top (and nearly first in the chain), there's the EQ section. The **lo-cut** is again
well-known from the simple audio mode (the filter is separate for each
bus, the cutoff **frequency** is the same across all buses),
but there's now also a simple **three-band EQ** per bus. Simply ask the speaker
make them sound a little more even on the stream. Either that, or just
put it in neutral, and the entire EQ code will be bypassed.
+Finally (or, well, first), since 1.7.3, there's the **stereo width** knob.
+At the default, 100%, it makes no change to the signal, but if you turn it
+to 0% (at the middle), the signal becomes perfect mono. Between these two,
+there's a range where the channels leak partially over into each other.
+This can be useful if you have a very hard-panned signal (say, two microphones
+that point in diametrically opposite directions), which can sound odd when
+the listener is using headphones. Going further to the left, at -100%, the
+left and right channels are exactly swapped and between -100% and 0% is again
+a reversion with partial leaking. The range between -100% and 0%
+is for convenience only, as you could achieve the same effect by swapping the
+two channels in the input mapping. Note that the entire control is grayed out
+if the signal is provably mono (ie., the same input channel is mapped to both
+left and right).
+
+
.. _midi-control:
MIDI controllers
Unless you have a reference sheet for your MIDI controller, specifying which
controller and number numbers the different physical knobs and faders
-emit, inputting these numbers by hand can be a frustating procedure.
+emit, inputting these numbers by hand can be a frustrating procedure.
(Actually, even with a reference sheet, it probably is.) Thus, the preferred
way is by autosensing; simply select the given mapping with the mouse
and use the control you want to bind it to, and Nageru automatically