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I just noticed, perhaps naively, that the representation of amplitude on the y-axis of a waveform is somewhat paradoxical. Although the space between each value on the y-axis is identical, the units of amplitude are a logarithmic representation of the intensity of the sound.
I'm no acoustician, so maybe this is just "how it's done", but doesn't this influence perhaps in ways we just take for granted how we analyze a waveform?
It’s not practical or reasonable to scale sound intensity linearly. It’s impractical because the resulting visuals would be unreadable, and it’s unreasonable because (simplifying a little) humans perceive loudness on a logarithmic scale. To crib a common example, imagine you’re listening to a single violin. To double that loudness, you’d need 10 violins, not 2.
In recording and audio editing, waveforms are always (in my experience) represented linearly. It is simply time vs. amplitude, both linear. In meters, however, i.e. the green/yellow/red lights that jump up and down on stereos, it is usually represented logarithmically, in order to fit it into the range of a few lights. In what context have you seen waveforms represented logarithmically?
