This Spectrum Analyzer update just brings a popular ‘mouse-over’ frequency/level readout feature (in its simplest form).
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11 thoughts on “Spectrum Analyzer updated to 1.03”
Great plugin! No, really!
Two small complaints:
1) Why can’t I save the my default style and settings, so whenever I open the plugin it will start with them?
This type of plugin is for frequent use and it should be as quick as just opening it in host and no more clicking or loading presets or resizing…
2) Spectrum window should be the main one and settings should open from it with right click (more logical), not like this. Once you set up your layout you don’t need to see preferences every time you open the plugin.
Thanks,
Thanks for your feedback!
Regarding saving settings – you can save them using presets (via your DAW preset facilities) – just the same way you do with any other VST plugin.
As for windows – well, that’s quite a long story (to be answered in comments), but please review this discussion at kvraudio. Both questions were talked over there in more details.
Thanks!
Hello, Max! Your Spectrum Analyzer is REALLY the best software analyzer I’ve met if we do not say about functionality.
Market is full of FFT analyzers which do not reproduce peaks correctly and have bad time resolution. I was looking for band filtering-based analyzer.
The only one i’ve met was Roger Nichols IXL. And now yors))). IT IS REALLY GREAT!!! Thank you!
I am pro sound engineer and I’d like to suggest you some features which I need in my job.
1) Saving and loading reference curves, at least two: for peak and average graphs.
1.1) calculating one averaged curve when loading several responses simultanously.
2) increase FPS rate or make it adjustable
3) average response is subjective “untruthful” as if it has built in peak hold function. i need to have ability to disable this feature.
4) user defined defaul preset – auto loads each time (see voxengo products)
5) make possible faster reak decay rate up to 120 or 180 dB/s.
6) protools users will be glad to see it in RTAS format))
And some more…
I am limited im my time now. If you are inrerested, I can help improving you product regularly and give you some advises based on pscycho-acoustics.
Sorry for my english…
Max, Are you from Russia? по-русски было бы удобнее общаться)))
Max, Are you from Russia?
Yes, Russian Federation – here i am. I guess I’ll still comment your comment in English (so it makes sense for other visitors), but of course we probably could continue at one of dedicated .ru forums (мне на родном языке, понятно, тоже удобнее :).
Saving and loading reference curves, at least two: for peak and average graphs.
I’ll consider this, but I guess this feature will have low priority.
It’s not that this is too hard to do – but it will require a lot of extra buttons/menus, layout design, intent tests and therefore a relatively large amount of time as a consequence. Considering that there’re already a few good “compare-oriented” analyzers (Melda plugins for example) – well, not in a foreseeable future I suspect).
increase FPS rate or make it adjustable
Just in case, what kind of CPU/Video you tried it with?
It’s not that the default display update rate is really high, but I had somewhat similar software (i.e. drawing some graphs with the same FPS) before – and there we found that in most cases people ask for faster rate only when they actually are running it on an older PC where the actual update is much slower than the default. That is, the FPS increase won’t make it any better if it’s the same “slow” story with your PC (it won’t update faster than CPU and/or Video allow it to do).
Yet again, this maybe irrelevant but i need to make sure before making any changes – the rub here is that both methods will have their negative consequences for the plugin performance:
The switchable rate closes some extra optimizations (possible only when the rate is hardcoded).
And the hardcoded faster rate could make it less usable with slower (but not too slow) PCs.
I need to be very careful when making such changes since I’m not able to test it with a variety of hardware.
average response is subjective “untruthful” as if it has built in peak hold function. i need to have ability to disable this feature.
The average here is a pure RMS one (i.e. objectively speaking it’s the most exact average for the set time) – unlike other features this algo was not “modeled” after those classic analyzers (they had no such stuff since it was somewhat impossible those days). So, indeed, if you compare it to the old-style “analog” average (aka VU-like) it may look unusual.
I experimented with both algorithms during development, and although the old-style average meter is a very usable thing on its own, I decided to keep the RMS average as it gives more information when used together with the peak meters (It’s like a.. mmm.. The RMS metering is a sort of antipole for the peak metering, while the old-style averaging is somewhere in between them).
This is all subjective of course (one still may prefer a classic average meter to the RMS), so I guess an old-style average metering will return to the plugin one way or another (as an option).. eventually. Again, it’s just I had to choose which one to leave, otherwise the release had to be postponed for an undefined amount of time.
user defined defaul preset – auto loads each time (see voxengo products)
That’s already decided.
make possible faster reak decay rate up to 120 or 180 dB/s.
Hmm, this could be somewhat related to the “slow FPS” observation above (i.e. the actual decay rate is slower if the update rate is slower than it’s supposed to be). Otherwise it seems to be very strange – I hardly can imagine any usecase for so fast decay rates (OK, 80 dB/s – maybe, but 120 or even 180? It will be almost like just random blinking pixels – I don’t see what we could catch this way). Well, to be discussed.
protools users will be glad to see it in RTAS format))
:) Very unlikely. You know… that’s not what one really can afford in context of free plugin development.
(Unless he already has the RTAS backend written for other (non-free) plugins. Me has not and likely won’t have it.)
If you are inrerested, I can help improving you product regularly and give you some advises based on pscycho-acoustics.
I’m always open for suggestions. (Though, as you already guessed probably, the bottleneck here is the time and not the lack of ideas. So please don’t kill me when I regard something rather cold. ;)
Thanks again!
It’s not that I can’t save preset as a .fxp file. The problem is I can’t save settings as default preset, so I don’t need to load .fxp file every time I open the plugin. Only colours are remembered, but other settings must be loaded. I’m implying something along the lines of “set as default” or as you say “global defaults”. //I’ve seen it on KVR//
As for the main/sub window – it’s not a big problem, only needs a little time getting used to. Every other plugin I use is contained in only one window and I favor that holistic approach.
Small aesthetic tip: bars should be gradient, darker on bottom, lighter on top, so you can get more visual feedback which frequencies are dominant… and it would look prettier.
Thanks,
Yep. The “default” preset saving is decided to appear in one of next versions.
It will be an explicit “save as default” button (not implicit auto-save of the last used settings (e.g. like it is for colours)).
Colour settings are initially made to be “global” just since it’s most likely we won’t want them to be different for different tracks/projects.
The main/sub windows – that’s decided to be reworked as well (I guess I’ll get to it right after I fix those weird stability issues (Cubase hang/crash in particular)). Yet again, at times I started this plugin development I used two VST hosts which does not support the main plugin window resizing at all – but I needed that feature badly and the detached display was the only way to go. And this is the only reason it is as it is now.
Every other plugin I use is contained in only one window
Hehe, this is a bit unfair… How many of these plugins are fully resizable? ;)
Small aesthetic tip: bars should be gradient, darker on bottom, lighter on top, so you can get more visual feedback which frequencies are dominant… and it would look prettier.
Good point, I was thinking of some fancy graphics too. Every graphics aspect has to be customizable and we can’t hardcode anything there (for example darker-bottom/lighter-top won’t work with a light background) since it’s all can be very subjective in general (e.g. other people may find gradients and other extra details make it harder to read out. Well, you know…). So the fancy graphics is more a matter of very careful layout design (i.e. all those buttons/menus/widgets yet again) – just to not bloat the whole thing out.
Thank you!
@Hehe, this is a bit unfair… How many of these plugins are fully resizable? ;)
I’m not being unfair, that’s just a fact and so is your argument that none of them is resizable. All I was saying is that one window is de facto standard for plugins and it will take some time to psychologically adapt with two windows. Obviously, you can’t have both things (one window AND resizability).
About resizability… there are probably many users that welcome this option. I’m not against it, too. But, IMHO, properly sized (large), fixed proportion analyzer would do just as well, if not better. With analyzers, meters etc., more than with other kind of plugins, visual reference should be “stable” and not so flexible. Ofcourse, I see arguments against my case, so it’s probably highly subjective thing, a matter of taste or practice.
spasibo,
:)
Great Plugin
It Freezes up in Cubase 5
I have Vista business 64 bit Running Cubase 5 32bit
when working its a nice plugin
Thanks Billy.
Yes, I’m aware of this issue. Unfortunately it seems to depend on some unknown factors (hardware/software.. who knows…). So far I was not able to reproduce it here – so it may take some time before I come up with the fixing update.
hi.
really nice plug-in. thanks for giving it to us for free! really appreciated!
Seven Phases 
Great plugin! No, really!
Two small complaints:
1) Why can’t I save the my default style and settings, so whenever I open the plugin it will start with them?
This type of plugin is for frequent use and it should be as quick as just opening it in host and no more clicking or loading presets or resizing…
2) Spectrum window should be the main one and settings should open from it with right click (more logical), not like this. Once you set up your layout you don’t need to see preferences every time you open the plugin.
Thanks,
Thanks for your feedback!
Regarding saving settings – you can save them using presets (via your DAW preset facilities) – just the same way you do with any other VST plugin.
As for windows – well, that’s quite a long story (to be answered in comments), but please review this discussion at kvraudio. Both questions were talked over there in more details.
Thanks!
Hello, Max! Your Spectrum Analyzer is REALLY the best software analyzer I’ve met if we do not say about functionality.
Market is full of FFT analyzers which do not reproduce peaks correctly and have bad time resolution. I was looking for band filtering-based analyzer.
The only one i’ve met was Roger Nichols IXL. And now yors))). IT IS REALLY GREAT!!! Thank you!
I am pro sound engineer and I’d like to suggest you some features which I need in my job.
1) Saving and loading reference curves, at least two: for peak and average graphs.
1.1) calculating one averaged curve when loading several responses simultanously.
2) increase FPS rate or make it adjustable
3) average response is subjective “untruthful” as if it has built in peak hold function. i need to have ability to disable this feature.
4) user defined defaul preset – auto loads each time (see voxengo products)
5) make possible faster reak decay rate up to 120 or 180 dB/s.
6) protools users will be glad to see it in RTAS format))
And some more…
I am limited im my time now. If you are inrerested, I can help improving you product regularly and give you some advises based on pscycho-acoustics.
Sorry for my english…
Max, Are you from Russia? по-русски было бы удобнее общаться)))
Max, Are you from Russia?
Yes, Russian Federation – here i am. I guess I’ll still comment your comment in English (so it makes sense for other visitors), but of course we probably could continue at one of dedicated .ru forums (мне на родном языке, понятно, тоже удобнее :).
Saving and loading reference curves, at least two: for peak and average graphs.
I’ll consider this, but I guess this feature will have low priority.
It’s not that this is too hard to do – but it will require a lot of extra buttons/menus, layout design, intent tests and therefore a relatively large amount of time as a consequence. Considering that there’re already a few good “compare-oriented” analyzers (Melda plugins for example) – well, not in a foreseeable future I suspect).
increase FPS rate or make it adjustable
Just in case, what kind of CPU/Video you tried it with?
It’s not that the default display update rate is really high, but I had somewhat similar software (i.e. drawing some graphs with the same FPS) before – and there we found that in most cases people ask for faster rate only when they actually are running it on an older PC where the actual update is much slower than the default. That is, the FPS increase won’t make it any better if it’s the same “slow” story with your PC (it won’t update faster than CPU and/or Video allow it to do).
Yet again, this maybe irrelevant but i need to make sure before making any changes – the rub here is that both methods will have their negative consequences for the plugin performance:
The switchable rate closes some extra optimizations (possible only when the rate is hardcoded).
And the hardcoded faster rate could make it less usable with slower (but not too slow) PCs.
I need to be very careful when making such changes since I’m not able to test it with a variety of hardware.
average response is subjective “untruthful” as if it has built in peak hold function. i need to have ability to disable this feature.
The average here is a pure RMS one (i.e. objectively speaking it’s the most exact average for the set time) – unlike other features this algo was not “modeled” after those classic analyzers (they had no such stuff since it was somewhat impossible those days). So, indeed, if you compare it to the old-style “analog” average (aka VU-like) it may look unusual.
I experimented with both algorithms during development, and although the old-style average meter is a very usable thing on its own, I decided to keep the RMS average as it gives more information when used together with the peak meters (It’s like a.. mmm.. The RMS metering is a sort of antipole for the peak metering, while the old-style averaging is somewhere in between them).
This is all subjective of course (one still may prefer a classic average meter to the RMS), so I guess an old-style average metering will return to the plugin one way or another (as an option).. eventually. Again, it’s just I had to choose which one to leave, otherwise the release had to be postponed for an undefined amount of time.
user defined defaul preset – auto loads each time (see voxengo products)
That’s already decided.
make possible faster reak decay rate up to 120 or 180 dB/s.
Hmm, this could be somewhat related to the “slow FPS” observation above (i.e. the actual decay rate is slower if the update rate is slower than it’s supposed to be). Otherwise it seems to be very strange – I hardly can imagine any usecase for so fast decay rates (OK, 80 dB/s – maybe, but 120 or even 180? It will be almost like just random blinking pixels – I don’t see what we could catch this way). Well, to be discussed.
protools users will be glad to see it in RTAS format))
:) Very unlikely. You know… that’s not what one really can afford in context of free plugin development.
(Unless he already has the RTAS backend written for other (non-free) plugins. Me has not and likely won’t have it.)
If you are inrerested, I can help improving you product regularly and give you some advises based on pscycho-acoustics.
I’m always open for suggestions. (Though, as you already guessed probably, the bottleneck here is the time and not the lack of ideas. So please don’t kill me when I regard something rather cold. ;)
Thanks again!
It’s not that I can’t save preset as a .fxp file. The problem is I can’t save settings as default preset, so I don’t need to load .fxp file every time I open the plugin. Only colours are remembered, but other settings must be loaded. I’m implying something along the lines of “set as default” or as you say “global defaults”. //I’ve seen it on KVR//
As for the main/sub window – it’s not a big problem, only needs a little time getting used to. Every other plugin I use is contained in only one window and I favor that holistic approach.
Small aesthetic tip: bars should be gradient, darker on bottom, lighter on top, so you can get more visual feedback which frequencies are dominant… and it would look prettier.
Thanks,
Yep. The “default” preset saving is decided to appear in one of next versions.
It will be an explicit “save as default” button (not implicit auto-save of the last used settings (e.g. like it is for colours)).
Colour settings are initially made to be “global” just since it’s most likely we won’t want them to be different for different tracks/projects.
The main/sub windows – that’s decided to be reworked as well (I guess I’ll get to it right after I fix those weird stability issues (Cubase hang/crash in particular)). Yet again, at times I started this plugin development I used two VST hosts which does not support the main plugin window resizing at all – but I needed that feature badly and the detached display was the only way to go. And this is the only reason it is as it is now.
Every other plugin I use is contained in only one window
Hehe, this is a bit unfair… How many of these plugins are fully resizable? ;)
Small aesthetic tip: bars should be gradient, darker on bottom, lighter on top, so you can get more visual feedback which frequencies are dominant… and it would look prettier.
Good point, I was thinking of some fancy graphics too. Every graphics aspect has to be customizable and we can’t hardcode anything there (for example darker-bottom/lighter-top won’t work with a light background) since it’s all can be very subjective in general (e.g. other people may find gradients and other extra details make it harder to read out. Well, you know…). So the fancy graphics is more a matter of very careful layout design (i.e. all those buttons/menus/widgets yet again) – just to not bloat the whole thing out.
Thank you!
@Hehe, this is a bit unfair… How many of these plugins are fully resizable? ;)
I’m not being unfair, that’s just a fact and so is your argument that none of them is resizable. All I was saying is that one window is de facto standard for plugins and it will take some time to psychologically adapt with two windows. Obviously, you can’t have both things (one window AND resizability).
About resizability… there are probably many users that welcome this option. I’m not against it, too. But, IMHO, properly sized (large), fixed proportion analyzer would do just as well, if not better. With analyzers, meters etc., more than with other kind of plugins, visual reference should be “stable” and not so flexible. Ofcourse, I see arguments against my case, so it’s probably highly subjective thing, a matter of taste or practice.
spasibo,
:)
Great Plugin
It Freezes up in Cubase 5
I have Vista business 64 bit Running Cubase 5 32bit
when working its a nice plugin
Thanks Billy.
Yes, I’m aware of this issue. Unfortunately it seems to depend on some unknown factors (hardware/software.. who knows…). So far I was not able to reproduce it here – so it may take some time before I come up with the fixing update.
hi.
really nice plug-in. thanks for giving it to us for free! really appreciated!
beste wishes,
soul one