Audacity Forum

steve wrote:2) It helps to make the booms show up terrifically on "spectrogram" track view because it "clips" the peaks, creating a surge right across the audio spectrum which shows up as a vertical line:

Because it creates a square wave? My spectrogram isn't as clean as yours, what parameters have you set for it?

pshute wrote:Because it creates a square wave?

Yes, you've got it.

pshute wrote:My spectrogram isn't as clean as yours, what parameters have you set for it?

I tend to change these quite frequently when analysing stuff.... give me a moment and I'll post a screenshot...

steve wrote:I tend to change these quite frequently when analysing stuff.... give me a moment and I'll post a screenshot...

Thanks for that. I'd chosen Hamming by mistake, instead of Hanning. It makes quite a difference.

I change them a lot too. I wonder if the developers would consider adding an option to save/load the spectrogram parameters.

pshute wrote: I wonder if the developers would consider adding an option to save/load the spectrogram parameters.

You mean like "favourites" for the spectrogram page?
What do you have in mind?

steve wrote:

pshute wrote: I wonder if the developers would consider adding an option to save/load the spectrogram parameters.

You mean like "favourites" for the spectrogram page?
What do you have in mind?

I was thinking of something like the Save/Manage Curves button in Eq. Then I could save and name some settings, and load the one I need by looking at the names I've given them. I probably only need two or three, but it might help users get going with spectrograms by providing some predefined ones so they don't have to guess what all those mysterious settings are.

A preview while fiddling with the settings would be nice too.

pshute wrote:I was thinking of something like the Save/Manage Curves button in Eq. Then I could save and name some settings, and load the one I need by looking at the names I've given them. I probably only need two or three, but it might help users get going with spectrograms by providing some predefined ones so they don't have to guess what all those mysterious settings are.

Is this just for FFT window size and type?

pshute wrote:A preview while fiddling with the settings would be nice too.

You mean a visual preview? I'm not sure how well that would work - there may be no audio track.

A patch exists (tied in with quite complex algorithm changes if I recall) that lets you change window size in the Tracks Menu, where the item in the Tracks Menu enabled a shortcut to cycle through the window sizes. I think that was it, but the details may be wrong. Would you like to vote for something like that, to include an item for window type too?


Gale

Gale Andrews wrote:Is this just for FFT window size and type?

No. I experiment with all the settings, and I'm never confident I've got them back how they were when I'm done. I could, of course, just stick a bit of paper on the wall with some favourite settings written on it instead of bothering developers.

pshute wrote:A preview while fiddling with the settings would be nice too.

You mean a visual preview? I'm not sure how well that would work - there may be no audio track.

It's a little tedious to get into Preferences (I know about ^P), change a setting, save the preferences to see how it looks, over and over. If there was a button on that Preferences form to regenerate the current spectrogram(s), if any, without leaving the form, that would save a lot of button pressing and clicking.

A patch exists (tied in with quite complex algorithm changes if I recall) that lets you change window size in the Tracks Menu, where the item in the Tracks Menu enabled a shortcut to cycle through the window sizes. I think that was it, but the details may be wrong. Would you like to vote for something like that, to include an item for window type too?

Window type isn't something I change that often, but I often experiment with gain, etc, too, so I'd want to see them all. I suppose having access to shortcut keys would make it really quick, but I think cycling through, rather than choosing what you want, could be frustrating. I think I like my preview button idea better. Do you know of a thread for that suggestion?

Now that I've tried the spectrogram idea on the long track, I've found that the recalculation times for panning are a little slow with high window size values. (It's slow on the one minute track too, but there was no need to pan.) Splitting the stereo track and working on just one side helps a lot. Can anyone suggest other ways to speed it up?

I'm experimenting with Sonic Visualiser, which is much faster for panning. I think it achieves this by caching the graphics for the whole spectrogram, but that means it takes ages to change a spectrogram value. I think it might be best to stick with Audacity unless I want to learn a whole new set of shortcut keys and how to import labels into Audacity.

pshute wrote:

Gale Andrews wrote:Is this just for FFT window size and type?

No. I experiment with all the settings, and I'm never confident I've got them back how they were when I'm done. I could, of course, just stick a bit of paper on the wall with some favourite settings written on it instead of bothering developers.

Or you could do the digital equivalent and store the groups of settings commented out in audacity.cfg. Before you launch Audacity, uncomment the set you want to use.

pshute wrote:A preview while fiddling with the settings would be nice too.

You mean a visual preview? I'm not sure how well that would work - there may be no audio track.

It's a little tedious to get into Preferences (I know about ^P), change a setting, save the preferences to see how it looks, over and over. If there was a button on that Preferences form to regenerate the current spectrogram(s), if any, without leaving the form, that would save a lot of button pressing and clicking.

A patch exists (tied in with quite complex algorithm changes if I recall) that lets you change window size in the Tracks Menu, where the item in the Tracks Menu enabled a shortcut to cycle through the window sizes. I think that was it, but the details may be wrong. Would you like to vote for something like that, to include an item for window type too?

Window type isn't something I change that often, but I often experiment with gain, etc, too, so I'd want to see them all. I suppose having access to shortcut keys would make it really quick, but I think cycling through, rather than choosing what you want, could be frustrating. I think I like my preview button idea better. Do you know of a thread for that suggestion?

No-one has suggested it before to my knowledge, but now I know what you want I'll add your vote for it and for the settings save and reload.

But with you and Steve apparently changing Spectrogram settings frequently, it makes me wonder if Preferences are the best place. For example instead of the Preferences pane, there could be View > Adjust Spectrograms, which opened a dialogue box with the same dialogue that is in Preferences now. If that menu item was greyed unless there was an audio track in Spectrogram or Pitch view, then it might make more sense for changing the settings to update the window before closing the dialogue.


Gale