[linux-audio-dev] Mixer controls

Hi, I am an ALSA developer. I was hoping that someone on this list would have experience with professional mixing desks. I would like to duplicate the behavior of professional mixing desks in the alsa mixer controls. I am only interested in gain control at this point. There are effectively two separate but linked controls for each gain control. a) Mute control b) Gain control in dB. If I have a gain control that starts at 0 dB, with each step down by 1 dB until -40dB. With DSPs, it is very easy to add the next step down as being the mute level. E.g. Sample * gain_multiplier where for the mute level, gain_multiplier = 0.0, thus resulting is a zero sample output. My question is really what should I do when the gain_multiplier is 0.0 Do I: a) Limit the range of the gain control to 0dB to -40 dB and have a separate Mute control. b) When the gain control has a gain_multiplier of 0.0, automatically activate the Mute control. c) Some other method. Thank you James