Idea #5314: Better (non-linear) volume control

363

Written by edm1 the 21 Mar 08 at 15:18. Category: Multimedia.
Related to: Nothing/Others. Status: New

Description

I'm not sure if this is fixed by using PulseAudio but i find the volume control in gnome is way too linear. Because of this the user has very little control with extreme loud and quiet volumes. For example, when reducing the volume it will decrease to a certain level then suddenly just go silent. Much more control would be given with a logarithmic scale.

This page explains it much better: http://sound.westhost.com/project01.htm

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Attachments

Bug #204898 : Better (non-linear) volume control

Duplicates

[Report a duplicate and merge its votes to this idea]

Comments

Eldmannen wrote on the 21 Mar 08 at 16:36

I have no idea what this is all about.
But the page had a fancy diagram, and it all looked pretty scientific and cool, so I voted up.

robinluckey wrote on the 21 Mar 08 at 18:56

Windows gets this wrong as well, and it has always driven me crazy. One gets the impression that the developers in charge of audio development have never done any actual audio engineering, or studied engineering in school.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decibel

The Mac gets it right.

Logarithmic faders, please! It's not complicated, it's just correct.

sf_007 wrote on the 22 Mar 08 at 00:45

yeah, agree! the current scheme is not very "nice"...

Auzy wrote on the 22 Mar 08 at 14:31

Its a great idea.. +1 and happy easter

edm1 wrote on the 22 Mar 08 at 14:55

thanks for the bug report

mkbosmans wrote on the 23 Mar 08 at 17:26

The linked page is really not useful at all. The only thing from the explanation that applies to a volume control in Ubuntu is the remark that a volume control should be logarithmic.

Anyway, I always thought that Gnome and KDE already had a log fader for the volume controls. That's at least the impression I get, comparing the control to Windows.

macros wrote on the 31 Mar 08 at 17:12

I think you should be able to configure it,
so that you can decide how strong sound fades with the
volume levels.

But very good Idea :)

edm1 wrote on the 11 May 08 at 14:56

Good news: the "bug" has been assigned to someone and is being worked upon.

Klayy wrote on the 19 Jun 08 at 01:39

[quote]
I have no idea what this is all about.
But the page had a fancy diagram, and it all looked pretty scientific and cool, so I voted up.
[/quote]

This is about human ear hearing logaritmically, and the volume control in ubuntu is linear. So you are at half volume, but for your ear you are like 10 times more silent, and basically you can't hear anything

I definitely support this, I wanted to suggest this myself, but luckily someone was quicker

Auzy wrote on the 19 Jun 08 at 02:45

Basically, for many people like me, you would want this so that you have more control over your music at lower volumes. For me at lower volume, it goes from dead silent to relatively loud. This fixes that.

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