Octave Band Analizer

[sugapablo]

Does Audacity (or even just Mac) have a simple freeware Octave Band Analyzer like this one:
http://www.faberacoustical.com/products ... _analyzer/

I don't need that whole package (it's expensive). I just want a real time look at the levels I'm using in this kind of format.

[kozikowski]

The key phrase in the web page is "In Real Time." Audacity doesn't do anything in real time except straight capture.

Audacity does have the spectrum analyzer tool which can be set for a much more comprehensive display, but that's a post-production tool.

Koz

[sugapablo]

Well like I said, I'd be happy with a good one that's separate from Audacity for Mac that can run as I'm playing back files in Audacity. Do you know of one that's freeware, or cheap shareware? The one I linked to is over $400.

[soundsun]

There's actually a bunch of free analyzers e.g...

http://www.arizona-software.ch/audioxplorer/

or

http://dogparksoftware.com/iSpectrum.html

or

http://soundlab.cs.princeton.edu/software/sndpeek/

among others.

--Phil

[kozikowski]

<<<http://www.arizona-software.ch/audioxplorer/>>>

That one has possibilities, probably because they don't show you any graphics on the web site.

<<<http://dogparksoftware.com/iSpectrum.html>>>

Too Much Information. I think what they consider the spectrum view is that waterfall thing. Pretty, but hard to understand. The joke with that display is that it's most useful as a prop in cops and robbers TV shows. "Let's apply this Ferris-Trankis Anaylizer to the voice and you can go right out and arrest the culprit." [camera zooms into the display] "Ooooooo. Clearly a tall Caucasian male wearing a tasteful red dress and patent leather pumps."

<<<http://soundlab.cs.princeton.edu/software/sndpeek/>>>

I'm interested in this one for the wrong reasons. They have a Lissajous pattern which means they have an audio vectorscope in there. I've been dying for one of those forever. That's the definitive tool that tells you your show is out of phase.

Or not.

Unfortunately, everybody thinks that in order to differentiate themselves from the world, they have to make a graphics heavy, enormously complicated tool. That's pretty much the exact opposite of what the poster wants.

Koz

[soundsun]

<<<http://www.arizona-software.ch/audioxplorer/>>>

That one has possibilities, probably because they don't show you any graphics on the web site.


Koz

Did you check out the screenshots?

http://www.arizona-software.ch/audioxpl ... shots.html

--Phil

[soundsun]

<<<http://www.arizona-software.ch/audioxplorer/>>>


Unfortunately, everybody thinks that in order to differentiate themselves from the world, they have to make a graphics heavy, enormously complicated tool. That's pretty much the exact opposite of what the poster wants.

Koz

Well, "horses for courses" as the English say, but my point is there are quite a few options out there. If you are actually willing to pay $$$ you can find a lot more.

One more free one to look at is the RNDigital INSPECTOR FREE Native.

--Phil

[sugapablo]

One more free one to look at is the RNDigital INSPECTOR FREE Native.

--Phil

This looks great, but it seems the only app I can find to use it in is GarageBand.

Audacity Wish List Item:

• The ability to watch a program like RNDigital INSPECTOR FREE while playing back audio in Audacity. Then have EQ controls that I can change as the audio is playing so I can't watch in real time how the levels change. After I'm happy, THEN apply the EQ settings.

Not happening in Audacity any time soon, huh?

[kozikowski]

http://audacityteam.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=20

Your request boils down to wanting Audacity to apply analysis and filters in real time. This is a very old feature request.

Real time is enormously hard to do because of the large selection of different machines that run Audacity. There was a posting a while back of someone who was having trouble getting Audacity to run on his Windows 98 machine. Do you even own anything that's over ten years old?

So not only do the developers have to get the tools to work, but they have to test the system to make sure it's powerful enough to do it all. Nobody's interested in real-time tools that cause the playback to stutter, or worse yet, cause a capture to distort.

Koz