Subject: [linux-audio-dev] [LAD] GNU OCTAL range advice
From: David O'Toole (dto_AT_qwsi.net)
Date: Wed Mar 29 2000 - 04:19:24 EEST
Hello. Recently I've been conferring with some other developers over the
use of floating-point numbers for audio data transmission between
unit-generators. So far, in implementing the GNU OCTAL project, I have
been using audio data ranged from -1.0 ... +1.0. This simplfies coding.
The output is converted to 16-bit signed integer (or whatever driver you
wish) at the end, just before output.
However, someone suggested that this wasn't the way to go about it. He
told me that going from -1.0 to +1.0 gave less precise calculations than
using "the full range" of the float, i.e. -32768 .. 32767. But I thought
floating point numbers avoided this somewhat; doesn't the point just
"float" according to where your precision is needed?
So my questions are:
1. Is using the larger range of the float better?
2. Are there drawbacks involved in either approach? What are you all
doing in your projects?
I'd love to hear some opinions on this one; at this stage in OCTAL's
development, this could be changed without a huge effort.
Thank you. The OCTAL home page is at http://www.gnu.org/software/octal,
and there are instructions on downloading the current source package
therein.
-- @@@ david o'toole @@@ dto_AT_gnu.org @@@ www.gnu.org/software/octal
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