Frequency Visualization Software / Add-Ons

[Deleted member 133]

My recent thread in the headphones section about deep bass localization got me thinking...

That it would be neat to have a Windows Media Player-compatible add-on that would allow two channel (ie. stereo) visualization of frequency/amplitude. I checked all of the offered MS visualizations, and while some appear to operate on the principle that I want, none show actual frequency range of what's being displayed. In other words I can find lots that produce pretty moving pictures / graphs but none that are of any real use since they don't have units / values.

What I'd like to be able to see, for example, is a dynamic plot of a song's frequencies. So in the case of the Tove Lo song that I referenced in the other thread, and the deep bass synth note(s) that I guess are in the 20-25Hz range, it would be neat to see the left and right channels displayed together and see the amplitude of that bass synth note displayed in real time, to see how it differs in each channel.

Does anyone know of any such available visualizations?

Failing that are there any freeware apps available that might do the trick. I've done some Google searching but am not finding anything so far.

Jeff

 

[Flint]

I own WaveLab from Steinberg, and it does what you are looking for. Not sure which version you need, I have the high end version which includes everything.

It seems that a stereo RTA would be enough.

 

[Deleted member 133]

Thanks Franklin.

So I did some more searching and eventually downloaded the free version of TrueRTA. (I also have a version of Room EQ Wizard, which I assume is somewhat the same, which I obtained a while back when I bought the miniDSP UMIK-1.)

Now my software ignorance is co9ming to the fore. With TruRTA I think I could fairly quickly figure out how to install and set-up an external bit of hardware (like the UMIK-1) and have it become the input device from which TruRTA would then display frequency plots etc. But for the life of me I can't figure out how to get it to simply display an MP3 music file residing on my computer. Can TrueRTA somehow work in conjunction with a music playback program like iTunes or Windows Media Player?

Jeff

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

Thanks Franklin.

Can TrueRTA somehow work in conjunction with a music playback program like iTunes or Windows Media Player?

Jeff

TrueRTA is a spectrum analyzer and will display the "instantaneous frequency response" of the signal in real time from a source fed to it. It cannot read a file and do this. You could play the file somehow on an external player (or loop it back from another application on your computer, but you need software that can do that) and feed that into your computer and TrueRTA could read its frequency content over time. There are programs which will simultaneously display frequency content along with intensity as multi-colored plots, as already mentioned. I have a number of programs which do this, but they are all pretty expensive to just do what you want.

By the way, the free version of TrueRTA can only discriminate 10 bands of frequencies across the entire audio bandwidth. This is far too few bands to do what you want. All this will do is tell you that "there is bass" but won't tell you exactly what frequency the bass actually is. The version which has more discrimination is the $99 upgrade.

However the free "Room EQ Wizard" already has enough resolution to do what you want (www.roomeqwizard.com). It has the spectrum vs level analyzer built-in. I don't know off hand if you can import a file and run an analysis on it, but failing that, you can send an external signal to it as above.

 

[Rope]

Audio Tool





Rope

 

[Deleted member 133]

Thanks Franklin.

Can TrueRTA somehow work in conjunction with a music playback program like iTunes or Windows Media Player?

Jeff

TrueRTA is a spectrum analyzer and will display the "instantaneous frequency response" of the signal in real time from a source fed to it. It cannot read a file and do this. You could play the file somehow on an external player (or loop it back from another application on your computer, but you need software that can do that) and feed that into your computer and TrueRTA could read its frequency content over time. There are programs which will simultaneously display frequency content along with intensity as multi-colored plots, as already mentioned. I have a number of programs which do this, but they are all pretty expensive to just do what you want.

By the way, the free version of TrueRTA can only discriminate 10 bands of frequencies across the entire audio bandwidth. This is far too few bands to do what you want. All this will do is tell you that "there is bass" but won't tell you exactly what frequency the bass actually is. The version which has more discrimination is the $99 upgrade.

However the free "Room EQ Wizard" already has enough resolution to do what you want (http://www.roomeqwizard.com). It has the spectrum vs level analyzer built-in. I don't know off hand if you can import a file and run an analysis on it, but failing that, you can send an external signal to it as above.

Thanks!

As I posted above I do have the Room EQ Wizard software. I wasn't able to figure out a way to get it to display a music file played on the computer. I was thinking about posting a query over at the Home Theater Shack forums (which seems to be the official home of REW), but I spent an hour or so reading some of their posts / replies and then backed away carefully, quietly, and quickly lest I come to their attention.

Once that experience wears off and my head clears, I'll noodle this some more.

Jeff

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

Thanks Franklin.

Can TrueRTA somehow work in conjunction with a music playback program like iTunes or Windows Media Player?

Jeff

TrueRTA is a spectrum analyzer and will display the "instantaneous frequency response" of the signal in real time from a source fed to it. It cannot read a file and do this. You could play the file somehow on an external player (or loop it back from another application on your computer, but you need software that can do that) and feed that into your computer and TrueRTA could read its frequency content over time. There are programs which will simultaneously display frequency content along with intensity as multi-colored plots, as already mentioned. I have a number of programs which do this, but they are all pretty expensive to just do what you want.

By the way, the free version of TrueRTA can only discriminate 10 bands of frequencies across the entire audio bandwidth. This is far too few bands to do what you want. All this will do is tell you that "there is bass" but won't tell you exactly what frequency the bass actually is. The version which has more discrimination is the $99 upgrade.

However the free "Room EQ Wizard" already has enough resolution to do what you want (http://www.roomeqwizard.com). It has the spectrum vs level analyzer built-in. I don't know off hand if you can import a file and run an analysis on it, but failing that, you can send an external signal to it as above.

Thanks!

As I posted above I do have the Room EQ Wizard software. I wasn't able to figure out a way to get it to display a music file played on the computer. I was thinking about posting a query over at the Home Theater Shack forums (which seems to be the official home of REW), but I spent an hour or so reading some of their posts / replies and then backed away carefully, quietly, and quickly lest I come to their attention.

Once that experience wears off and my head clears, I'll noodle this some more.

Jeff

The only way you will be able to get a "file" into an analyzer program like Room EQ Wizard is to play the file back in real time and feed it back into the analyzer program which is also running on your computer. I have an interface which does this, but it probably isn't worth the cost for what you want to do. I would play the file on a music player of some sort and feed that into your computer analyzer via wire (NOT microphone). You could try to launch iTunes (or whatever) and the analyzer both and loop the line out of your computer into the line in and see what happens. Might work, might not. There are programs which will analyze a file, but not free as far as I know.

In any event, I would download the latest version of Room EQ Wizard since its free.