Daqarta
Data AcQuisition And Real-Time Analysis
Scope - Spectrum - Spectrogram - Signal Generator
Software for Windows
Science with your Sound Card!
The following is from the Daqarta Help system:

Features:

Oscilloscope

Spectrum Analyzer

8-Channel
Signal Generator

(Absolutely FREE!)

Spectrogram

Pitch Tracker

Pitch-to-MIDI

DaqMusiq Generator
(Free Music... Forever!)

Engine Simulator

LCR Meter

Remote Operation

DC Measurements

True RMS Voltmeter

Sound Level Meter

Frequency Counter
    Period
    Event
    Spectral Event

    Temperature
    Pressure
    MHz Frequencies

Data Logger

Waveform Averager

Histogram

Post-Stimulus Time
Histogram (PSTH)

THD Meter

IMD Meter

Precision Phase Meter

Pulse Meter

Macro System

Multi-Trace Arrays

Trigger Controls

Auto-Calibration

Spectral Peak Track

Spectrum Limit Testing

Direct-to-Disk Recording

Accessibility

Applications:

Frequency response

Distortion measurement

Speech and music

Microphone calibration

Loudspeaker test

Auditory phenomena

Musical instrument tuning

Animal sound

Evoked potentials

Rotating machinery

Automotive

Product test

Contact us about
your application!

Generator Volume Slider Dialog


Macros: VolMastL,R; VolWaveL,R; VolMastTrk; VolWaveTrk; GenMute; WaveMute; MasterMute

This dialog opens when you hit the small 'Vol' button between the Left and Right volume controls. (If you have calibrated your system and Use dB is set, the Vol button will be replaced with 'dB' to open the dB Slider dialog.) The F9 function key will also open the volume dialog even when the Generator dialog is not open.

Note: If Multi-Channel Outputs is active, and your card supports multiple output channels, the Multi-Channel Slider dialog will open instead. (Currently only for Windows XP.)

The top controls apply to the Master attenuators, and the bottom controls to the Wave attenuators. Above each slider is a conventional edit control, plus a gray readout box. The Wave edit control mirrors the main Volume edit control and also serves as a numeric readout of the slider setting.

As with the main Volume edit control, these settings are simply mixer step numbers. Zero is loudest, and the steps move in integer values down from there. All non-zero values are negative, but you don't need to supply the sign if entering manually instead of via the slider.

Note that although a typical sound card may have only 16 or 32 steps on its attenuators, Windows inflates this (usually to 192) by adding a lot of dummy steps to give more apparent resolution... even though nothing changes when you move among the dummy steps.

Between each pair of sliders is a single Track button. When it is activated, moving either the Left or Right slider or edit control will cause the other channel to take the same setting.

Master Track is separate from Wave Track, which allows a handy way to keep a constant balance between channels while changing the overall volume. You set either Master or Wave to Track, and set the Left-Right balance on the non-tracking pair of controls. Now as you adjust the tracking controls, perfect balance is maintained.

Note that the standard Windows Mixer balance controls (which you typically activate by right-clicking on the little speaker icon in the system tray) can only provide a crude approximation of true balance tracking for their respective vertical sliders. This is because the true mixer step sizes are typically not constant and their actual attenuation amounts are unknown to the Windows Mixer. The best it can do is maintain a constant step difference, which will cause a shift in the balance while traversing an attenuator region where the step sizes change. (To maintain true balance in the Windows Mixer, you must operate as described above, and set the overall balance on Wave, for example, while keeping Master centered.)

In the Daqarta Generator Volume Slider dialog, the litle gray readout box below the edit controls atop each slider will only be active if the attenuators have been calibrated. The edit controls still accept only step numbers, but you can see the effective dB attenuation in the readouts. This is very convenient since (due to Windows inserting so many dummy steps) you otherwise may not know if a given step change has actually done anything.

Normally, you will probably want to use the dB slider dialog when your attenuators are calibrated. But you can tell Daqarta to ignore the calibration by setting Use Vol Steps instead of Use dB. In that case the main Generator dialog button will be labeled 'Vol' and it will open this dialog, with the readout boxes showing dB on calibrated lines.

You might want to do this just to get separate Wave and Master controls. One reason might be if you are using the sound card's built in synthesizer as well as the Daqarta Generator. That way you can get independent control of each component; with Use dB the dB slider dialog would use both Wave and Master together, and when it changed Master the Synth Volume would change as well.

Below the Master Track button is a Mute button. This will mute all outputs from the sound card, including the MIDI synthesizer. Windows versions from Vista onward have only this Master Mute, since they don't have separate Wave controls.

Below the Wave Track button are Auto and Mute buttons. These will be disabled if your sound card (or Windows version) does not support the Wave Mute function.

Auto is a convenient duplicate of Generator Auto-Mute in Edit Menu - Run Preferences.

Wave Mute allows the Generator output to be muted without affecting the volume setting. Wave Mute is especially useful when you want to create signals only for internal use, without any sound output. It is typically used for Pitch-to-MIDI operation in DaqMusiq mode, where you want to use the Generator instead of the default (silent) random source. Note that the Master volume is not affected by this, so you can still control the MIDI synthesizer level.

If Auto is active, then whenever the Generator is off both Mute buttons will be automatically disabled. The Generator output will be muted, even though the Mute buttons may not reflect that... they retain their prior states. You can toggle Auto off to re-enable both Mutes. (Or only the Master Mute on Windows Vista and later.)


Macro Notes:

Note that the following macro commands assume that Use Vol Steps is active. If not, the macro will abort with an error message. To be safe, give a UseCal=Vsteps command before using these.

VolMastL=6 sets the Left Master Volume step to -6. Note that 0 is loudest, and all entered values are assumed negative. (If you enter a sign, it is ignored.)

Alternatively, VolMastL=>1 will make the Left Master Volume one step louder (less negative) and VolMastL=>-1 will make it one step softer (more negative).

In a similar manner, use VolMastR for the Right Master Volume, VolWaveL for Left Wave Volume, and VolWaveR for Right Wave Volume.

VolMastTrk=1 turns on Master Track mode, VolMastTrk=0 turns it off, and VolMastTrk=x toggles between on and off. VolWaveTrk works the same way for Wave Track.

GenMute=1 sets Auto (Generator Auto-Mute), GenMute=0 turns it off, and GenMute=x toggles the current state.

WaveMute=1 sets Wave Mute, WaveMute=0 turns it off, and WaveMute=x toggles the current state. Note that Auto must be off for WaveMute to work, so you might want to first use GenMute=1.

MasterMute behaves just like the above WaveMute, but applies to the Master controls. In general, you should use this instead of WaveMute, especially on recent Windows versions.

Note that Vista and later Windows versions do not have separate Wave Out volume controls, so the Wave part of the dialog is disabled, including the Mute button. Thus, if you write a macro that attempts to set Wave Mute, it will abort on those systems with a "Control disabled" error message. If you want to write a macro that will work on any Windows version, it can handle Wave Mute by first testing to see if it is enabled using an E.IF. Control Enable Test:

    E.IF.WaveMute      ;Not on Vista or later
        WaveMute=0
    ENDIF.

See also Generator Volume/dB Slider Button, Attenuator Calibration, Signal Generator Control Dialog

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