Glossary

Plain-English definitions of the audio terms used throughout this guide.

Levels & metering

dB (decibel) — a relative loudness scale. On a fader, 0 dB means "no change"; negative is quieter, positive louder.
dBFS — decibels relative to digital full scale. 0 dBFS is the maximum a digital signal can reach; everything is below it (negative).
dBTP (true peak) — peak level measured with oversampling, catching inter-sample peaks that ordinary metering misses.
Unity (0 dB) — passing a signal through unchanged.
Clipping — what happens when a signal exceeds the maximum; it distorts. In Aura Mixer it only becomes real at the output, which is why bus limiters exist.
VU meter — the moving bar showing a signal's live level.
Peak hold / clip count — the highest level reached, and how many times it clipped.
LUFS — Loudness Units Full Scale: how loud something sounds (not its peak). The unit streaming platforms judge you by. See Loudness.
LRA — Loudness Range: how much the loudness varies across a programme.

Gain — level adjustment, usually before processing (sets a healthy working level coming in).
Fader — the main level control of a strip, after processing (where you mix).
PAD — a fixed −20 dB attenuator for very hot inputs.
Phase / polarity (Φ) — flipping a signal upside-down; useful when combining mics that partly cancel.
Latency — the delay between sound entering and leaving the mixer.
Buffer — the small batch size the engine processes at once; bigger = more latency but more stability.
Sample rate — samples per second (Aura Mixer runs at 48 kHz).
Bit depth — numeric precision per sample (the engine uses 32-bit float).
Overrun / underrun (Ovr / Und) — moments where audio arrived too fast or too late; steady increases mean glitches.
WASAPI — the modern Windows audio system Aura Mixer runs on. Shared lets other apps use the device too; Exclusive takes it over for lower latency.

Loopback — capturing a device's output as if it were an input.
App / process capture — recording a single application's audio directly, no virtual cable needed.
Virtual cable — driver software that acts as an audio device so programs can pass sound between them.
Bus — an output mix with its own processing and destination.
Send — how much of a channel feeds a particular bus. Pre taps before the fader, Post after.
VCA group — a fader that controls several channels at once without rerouting their audio.
Routing matrix — the grid of which channels feed which buses.

EQ (equalizer) — boosts or cuts specific frequency ranges. Parametric = adjustable frequency, gain and width.
Q — an EQ band's width (low = broad, high = narrow).
Bell / Shelf / Pass / Notch — EQ band shapes.
Gate — an automatic mute that silences signal below a threshold (kills background noise).
Compressor — evens out volume by turning down the loud parts. Threshold/Ratio/Knee/Attack/Release/Makeup are its controls.
Limiter — a brick wall that stops a signal exceeding a ceiling.
Expander — widens dynamic range by pushing quiet signal further down.
De-esser — tames harsh "s" sounds (sibilance).
Sidechain — driving one processor from another signal or a filtered band.
Threshold — the level at which a gate/compressor/limiter starts acting.

Pan — places a mono source left↔right. Balance shifts an existing stereo image.
Width / Mid-Side (M/S) — how wide a stereo signal sounds; M/S splits it into centre and sides.
Haas effect — a few ms of delay on one side widens the image without sounding like an echo.
HRTF — head-related transfer function: the filtering your head and ears apply, recreated to fake 3D on headphones.
Binaural — two-channel audio designed to be heard on headphones with 3D positioning.
5.1 / 7.1 — surround formats with 6 / 8 channels.

Scene — a snapshot of the whole mixer. Preset — saved settings for one processor. Pack — a multi-processor recipe for a single strip, from the Workshop.

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