Ah, i think i have discovered that there’s been a bit of a prior misunderstanding, possibly on my part and it’s been perpetuated …
I tried Setting the Gain to 0 on the mixer to see how far i could push the DE, it could go way beyond the 1/4 scale captures you’d see if the inputs were categorically being lowered by -12dB … but not far enough, the VCA seemed to level off after about 7>8 and it was maybe 2/3rds or more full-scale on the OT and the shape was good/clean (red inputs)
So i stacked up some 0dB sine samples on three tracks on the AR and that produces a punchy sine level to push into the OT at Gain level 0 (i was able to get closer to full scale and could eclipse it by adding more stacked SINs introducing distortions to the waveform)
This is the result … it’s a single harmonic, no clipping and it’s clearly not attenuated by -12dB (i.e. the sample)
Applying Gain will introduce a shape change as the Sin is clipped at the peaks and troughs, so it’s absolutely contradicting what i’ve dropped into discussions from time to time based on the assumptions put out in the older thread experiments
That’s not to say i have everything understood, it’s just clear that the previous assertions are wrong - ps - fwiw, this signal was also way way into the red, but it’s not distorted (or Gained)
so i need to rethink input metering and using the OT as a capture device, it’s better placed than i assumed before for some of my usage cases, that’s not to say the way jot’s set up by default isn’t best for typical usage scenarios, but it ought to be possible to capture decent samples with a bit of prior configuration especially at source
I also think that Gain in the Mixer IS gain !
It’d be easier to test all this out with proper signal generating equipment, but i’m satisfied a few mistruths have been addressed, albeit posed originally as questions (and fuelled by the comments in the manual about applying automatic +!2dB gain on captured material)
I’m still not convinced there isn’t more info to uncover wrt all of this, but i thought this was significant in terms of my understanding of what was occurring