Option to Disable Waveform Color Changes When Adjusting EQ

[froehlicher]

Feature Description

Hello,

I would really like to have the option in the form of a simple tick in the waveform options to turn off the realtime color changes to the RGB waveform when adjusting the mixer EQ. This really makes it hard if you bring in a track with muted lows to spot a drop or a important musical change visually.

Other DJ Platforms like recordbox or Serato don't enable this realtime display of the highs and lows out of the box and I find it a bit inconsistent that the EQ affects the waveform but the filter doesn't. The most simple waveform type also doesn't seem to change with the EQ which makes it even more confusing that the RGB Waveform does.

I think a simple tick to turn this on or off would be great but maybe it's possible to implement slider(s) that can adjust how much the waveform is affected by EQ movements.

I hope I've explained myself properly and this isn't that big of a feature.

[ronso0]

Would it also be feasible to always show the outline, and dim the fill?

[ronso0]

I find it a bit inconsistent that the EQ affects the waveform but the filter doesn't.

That is because the (3-band) EQ just controls the visualization of the three bands from the (RGB) audio analysis, so it's a 1->1 calculation, and it doesn't care whether it's eg. a infrabass or midbass.
(someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but that's what I learn from the fact that pushing the Low EQ shelf to 16 Hz in Mixer Preferences does not affect the Low representation in the waveforms)

The Filter on the other hand is just one of the many possible Quick Effect chain (!) presets, a preset with just one effect.
With my little understanding of the effects engine and the waveform renderers, I think it's not feasible to visualize after-effect output of a deck, because that requires to either analyze it in realtime (and separate the Filter part from the Echo?) or hook up to the effects engine and try to pick the effects that affect only the frequency, not the phase (which -from what I learned from adjusting PAs- is not even the true for all "filters").

[ronso0]

The most simple waveform type also doesn't seem to change with the EQ which makes it even more confusing that the RGB Waveform does.

Yeah well, the available renderers are all implemented individually, some are old, some are brandnew using OpenGL, and most love goes to the OpenGL RGB renderer because that's what's most fun and what most users expect I guess.

[froehlicher]

Would it also be feasible to always show the outline, and dim the fill?

Something like that, but then the outline should probably shown for the three RGB bands separately in the corresponding colors because the amplitude of the track doesn’t always indicate where the bass comes in, especially with big buildups.
I just thought it would be nice to have the Option to disable this feature if you wish to. It would make the big waveform much more useful for me, as now I quite often have to rely on the small waveform preview to hit drops or accurately or switch over the lows on beat.
I’m not that familiar with coding etc. but in my naive mind I thought it would be relatively easy to just cut the communication between the EQs and the waveform renderer. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

But thanks for your reply, I’m always happy to learn

[Swiftb0y]

That is because the (3-band) EQ just controls the visualization of the three bands from the (RGB) audio analysis, so it's a 1->1 calculation, and it doesn't care whether it's eg. a infrabass or midbass.
(someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but that's what I learn from the fact that pushing the Low EQ shelf to 16 Hz in Mixer Preferences does not affect the Low representation in the waveforms)

yes. mostly. it splits the file into the three bands during analysis. The EQ slope and cutoff frequency is fixed (for the visualization). So if you change the default in the audio settings, they technically don't match up anyways.

The Filter on the other hand is just one of the many possible Quick Effect chain (!) presets, a preset with just one effect.

Right this complicates things a lot. Nevertheless we could potentially special case the single filter example (it would just be annoying to wire up within mixxx). Actually calculating the effect of the filter on the different bands isn't particular hard if you know the filter parameters. Though since the filter doesn't affect an entire band equally the visualization would also be a lie...

Doing an honest visualization of the frequency spectrum in realtime doesn't make much sense (at least when that CPU time could be better spent on doing actual audio processing). Nevertheless, the fake overview is usually helpful.

[froehlicher]

So this didn't give me rest. I've looked a bit around in the code and I found that in the waveform shaders res/shaders/rgbsignal.frag the different split signals are mulitplied with the EQ Gain, I guess.
vec4 new_currentData = new_currentDataUnscaled; new_currentData.x *= lowGain; new_currentData.y *= midGain; new_currentData.z *= highGain;

Maybe it would be possible to have static version of the RGB shader that is just missing this, and that is selectable in the waveform options under "Type".
I not really a programmer so please tell me if this is wrong and apologies that I can't try this out with my limited knowledge.

[Swiftb0y]

yes, ideally that would be part of the waveform options. Pull requests welcome. Anyone interested in implementing this should base their work of the main branch as the waveform preferences have received several overhauls recently.