Re: Clipping behaviour of GainNodes (or any other AudioDestinationNode)

Moving to public-audio-dev, bccing public-audio.

The audio pipeline is all in floating point, and specifically will NOT clip
to -1,+1, by design - if we did, that would break a lot of scenarios (e.g.
driving frequency from an audio routing source).  Of course, when the
output gets to the destination, it is likely clipped - [-1,1] is the
nominal range - but even there, it's possible that volume controls would
mean clipping doesn't happen.

If you WANT clipping, of course, you can use a WaveShaperNode.

The problem in Chrome appears to be that we have issues looping a
single-sample buffer.  If you even make the buffer 2 samples long, it will
work properly.  Not sure why this is, so I'll punt to Raymond. :)

On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 4:58 AM, Soledad Penades <hello@5013.es> wrote:

> Sorry, the bug: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1078014
>
> On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 12:57 PM, Soledad Penades <hello@5013.es> wrote:
> > Hello!
> >
> > I'm trying to simulate applying a DC signal to an existing signal.
> > Since the signal is already in [-1, 1] and I'm applying a variable
> > [-2, 2] value, the output should be quite clipped.
> >
> > Check demo here http://sole.github.io/test_cases/web_audio/bias/ -
> > you'll need web components enabled.
> >
> > In Firefox, although the analyser reports the signal being shifted
> > around when the range is changed, there is no audible difference.
> >
> > In Chrome, the behaviour is weirder--the analyser goes bananas and the
> > sound doesn't seem to change substantially either.
> >
> > I can definitely listen to the difference by generating a signal in
> > Audacity and shifting it manually (you can listen to the attachments
> > in the bug I opened in Mozilla's Bugzilla)
> >
> > I wonder if the audio engine is allowing values to go out of range
> > temporarily and finally clipping by the time sounds reaches
> > audioContext.destination, but I also wonder if this is a behaviour
> > that is not explicit in the API (or maybe I oversaw it
> > accidentally--would anyone be as nice as to point me to where is this
> > behaviour described in the specification?). In other words: I would
> > expect the output of each node to be clipped to -1, 1
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > http://5013.es
>
>
>
> --
> http://5013.es
>
>
>