Forum: PC Version Technical Support - Topic: Measurement of "gain value" and reason of distortion using auto gain

It's not stated in the official user guide what the "-xx.x dB" means (some kind of relative/aggregate gain display) above the gain knob in vdj full/mix station skins. What I've observed is that when the gain knob is "reset" it could mean that the gain display for example is at -14.2 dB. Then when I turn up the gain to match other songs played earlier with higher value (say -3 dB) it turns out that there's a lot of distortion, unless careful attention was paid to the waveform to notice that it's a high dynamic song instead of just a quiet recording.

The auto gain comes into play here in that since it acts on this aggregate value it will trash a high dynamic recording mixed into a compressed set unless you remember to reset the gain or disable auto gain.

The only fix is to have a floating point audio pipeline which Windows Vista enables and leave enough room above the channel sliders for that +18 dB gain to be turned up to the full without distortion. If DJ wants distortion/pumping limiter he will use effect for that, not the gain knob.

I concur. Gain detection needs work, and I pointed a few times about the issue
of detecting the the avarage rms of the whole song, instead of only the loudest
parts. Highly dynamic songs that have few loud sections will clip if using autogain.

Especially because we don't have a limiter built in that would work as a VCA to the
gains themselves.