The GAIN travel a declared head-amp covers at a given pad setting — the capability's own
HeadAmpGainRange, or the REAC travel for a capability that predates the field. ONE
reader, so a clamp, a knob and a southbound write can never disagree about how far the preamp
goes or how finely it resolves.
pad is a parameter because the travel is a property of the preamp AS CONFIGURED, and a pad
is a configuration of the preamp — the operator ruling's shape, range(pad) → {min, max, step}, never a flat triple assumed to hold in both states. Neither fabric the desk drives
today moves: in the GAIN representation a pad is a fixed attenuation ahead of an unmoved gain
scale (Roland re-interprets the same VALUE byte; the RME's Mic-AN<n> Gain keeps its declared
ALSA min=0 max=65 whatever Mic-AN<n> PAD is doing), and the 20 dB the pad shifts appears
ahead of the gain rather than a shift of its scale. Taking the pad anyway is what keeps that a
measurement this function can be corrected at, rather than an assumption frozen into the type.
The GAIN travel a declared head-amp covers at a given pad setting — the capability's own HeadAmpGainRange, or the REAC travel for a capability that predates the field. ONE reader, so a clamp, a knob and a southbound write can never disagree about how far the preamp goes or how finely it resolves.
padis a parameter because the travel is a property of the preamp AS CONFIGURED, and a pad is a configuration of the preamp — the operator ruling's shape,range(pad) → {min, max, step}, never a flat triple assumed to hold in both states. Neither fabric the desk drives today moves: in the GAIN representation a pad is a fixed attenuation ahead of an unmoved gain scale (Roland re-interprets the same VALUE byte; the RME'sMic-AN<n> Gainkeeps its declared ALSAmin=0 max=65whateverMic-AN<n> PADis doing), and the 20 dB the pad shifts appears ahead of the gain rather than a shift of its scale. Taking the pad anyway is what keeps that a measurement this function can be corrected at, rather than an assumption frozen into the type.