Dust Analyzer (still "beta") [was: quickie signal analyzer proto]

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mystran wrote:
murnau wrote:yeah, snipping tool is cool! i have a shortcut on my taskbar.
Now, if we could just get larger taskbars.. ;)

edit:

I should stop starting new projects, and finish some existing ones.. but this is what I did last night:

http://www.signaldust.com/files/whatis.mp3

(sorry, a bit drowned in effects.. there's Fruity Flanger and Phaser.. and Abstract Chamber.. but the sound is another project with my arp driving it.. and obviously no samples involved at this point.. but hey it's one day old ;))
Another really good example why Abstract Chmaber sounds so damn awesome. Really love it. :)

Regards
Sebastian

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Thank you for nice updates!
Ichad.c wrote:Did some quick samplerate tests - works well here. Reaper, XP sp3, Focusrite Pro40 - 44.1kHz, 48kHz, 88.2kHz, 96kHz. Thanks!
I did some tests too.

So, 44,1kHz, 48kHz, 88,2kHz, 96kHz and 192kHz are working ok, but 48 and 96 are introducing some artifacts in the end of the spectrum. It seems, that they appear around 10 and 20kHz for 48kHz samplerate and only around 20kHz for 96. Unfortunately i'm using 48 mainly :D
Artifacts are crystal clear to see in linear scale, with 12dB/oct weight and lowapssing signal.
Samplerates below 44,1kHz doesn't work at all, but i don't even know for what they are.

Btw, what type of metering is in spectrum mode? It shows always values about 10dB lower compared to other spectrum analyzers.

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Prestidigitator wrote:
So, 44,1kHz, 48kHz, 88,2kHz, 96kHz and 192kHz are working ok, but 48 and 96 are introducing some artifacts in the end of the spectrum. It seems, that they appear around 10 and 20kHz for 48kHz samplerate and only around 20kHz for 96. Unfortunately i'm using 48 mainly :D
Artifacts are crystal clear to see in linear scale, with 12dB/oct weight and lowapssing signal.
Internally it resamples the signal to 44.1kHz for analysis (because getting the graphics code to work consistently at varying samplerates would be a bit too much work). Especially in the case of 48kHz the resampling probably needs a bit more quality; some attentuation is expected at the high frequencies due to the conversion but the current filter is probably not good enough.

But I'll take a look and see if there's something else going on. I wrote the resampling stuff pretty quicky, just to get some kind of support for other rates, so it might need some additional tuning. The artifacts introduced are purely on the analysis/graphics side though, so pass-through audio will still be "as-is" without any modification.

But yeah, I'll see if I can improve this in the future.
Samplerates below 44,1kHz doesn't work at all, but i don't even know for what they are.
Yeah, there's no support for these. I figured it's not really worth the effort. :)
Btw, what type of metering is in spectrum mode? It shows always values about 10dB lower compared to other spectrum analyzers.
The spectrum is a pretty standard FFT, but as far as the levels go, I did a fairly large shoot-out of various analyzers when I was initially working on that and I found that many are somewhat inconsistent (eg levels depend on window, size, samplerate, etc) and even among the consistent ones there was some variation. So I picked the level definition that (1) seemed to be a popular choice among the consistent ones and (2) makes some sense mathematically.

So it's matched to the "general consensus" as extracted from fairly unscientific study across a dozen or so existing plugins that often get mentioned. That's what applies to flat weighting anyway, but ultimately the choice is somewhat arbitrary and consequently you see several variations on the market.

[edit: also, since Dust Analyzers draws two individual channels at "mono-reference levels" you might see somewhat higher results in another analyzer that draws the combined power, even if the actual definition is the same; the combined "fill" in Dust Analyzer is actually offset -3dB from the true stereo power to align it with the individual curves for cleaner visual look]

The other thing is, if there is spectral weighting active, then there's multiple ways to set the reference point for that. I chose to use a (fairly arbitrary) definition where the weighting curves are fitted such that the signal at 1kHz stays at nominal level. There's some practical reasons why I chose to pick a frequency roughly in the middle of the range, but you could pick any other reference point, and get different results. I can't remember if this matches any other analyzers, but ultimately it's an arbitrary choice anyway.

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Anyway added the resampling thing my issue list.

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wow, great explanation, thanks again :)

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IDK how possible this is, but it would be awesome to get some feature to view multiple channels at the same time, for mixing purposes.

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Panphobia wrote:IDK how possible this is, but it would be awesome to get some feature to view multiple channels at the same time, for mixing purposes.
Your thinking about something like spectrum from multiple tracks overlaid, right? I don't think that fits too well, as it would pretty much require re-thinking the whole thing, would IMO make more sense to split such functionality into a separate plugin designed for the purpose. But I'll keep it in mind anyway, maybe I'll do something like that in the future at some point.

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Hi,

This scope looks like a really good piece of kit for sound design. One feature request I might add is for zooming (like in rs-met's signal analyzer). I find it hugely useful to have a zoomed-out view of the oscilliscope when I'm mastering tracks (helps to determine how much I'm compressing/clipping, etc). Is this something you think you might add in the future?

Thanks
Breame

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Breame wrote:Hi,

This scope looks like a really good piece of kit for sound design. One feature request I might add is for zooming (like in rs-met's signal analyzer). I find it hugely useful to have a zoomed-out view of the oscilliscope when I'm mastering tracks (helps to determine how much I'm compressing/clipping, etc). Is this something you think you might add in the future?
Vertical zooming should be added. Horizontal zooming (especially zooming out) is a bit problematic for a few reasons. The data-collection would need some changes, the drawing would have to be different (without some averaging the performance would be rather horrible), the synchronization would make no sense (it would have to either scroll or scan from left to right or something), and so on. Lots of changes really.

As I've stated earlier, more likely I'll add another "dynamics scope" or some such thing that will give a better idea of what's going on in terms of dynamics. I don't know when such a thing would happen, but the current scope is really designed in terms of wave-form analysis only, because that's where I had the most trouble with the existing scopes.

Essentially it comes down to two different use-cases, which I think are different enough that they should be solved with different strategies, and my analyzer doesn't attempt to solve the "dynamics evolution" problem yet.

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Actually I am pretty glad that there is no zooming because most of the plug ins that offer zooming are driving me nuts after a while and I stick to the default layout. I really like it how it is now. I have other stuff that could go deeper into everything and I have them on my bus too but this one is my goto analyzer because I can switch modes pretty fast and love the whole layout. Pretty clear and lots of information in a small window. And not too much options to change the behaviour.

Actually this remind me a lot on your other plug ins like your reverbs. They come only with one algorithm but that one sounds awesome. Same here. Only the most basic stuff but it a)looks good and clear and nothing distracts & b) have exactly those att/rel timings I need. No more resolution switching or threshold settings etc. Simple and effective. Thank you.

Regards
Sebastian
Underground Music Production: Sound Design, Machine Funk, High Tech Soul

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mystran wrote: Vertical zooming should be added. Horizontal zooming (especially zooming out) is a bit problematic for a few reasons. The data-collection would need some changes, the drawing would have to be different (without some averaging the performance would be rather horrible), the synchronization would make no sense (it would have to either scroll or scan from left to right or something), and so on. Lots of changes really.

As I've stated earlier, more likely I'll add another "dynamics scope" or some such thing that will give a better idea of what's going on in terms of dynamics. I don't know when such a thing would happen, but the current scope is really designed in terms of wave-form analysis only, because that's where I had the most trouble with the existing scopes.
This makes perfect sense - I can see how and why you designed it the way you did. I'll keep an eye on this over time to see whether you add a separate zoomed out view (which would be hugely useful for an 'amplitude over time' use case). Anyway, thanks for listening.

Breame

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The Dust Analyzer is great!
Just a couple of suggestion.

1. Zoom factors ( y and x axis ) for the Spectrum Analyzer and for the Oscilloscope.

2. A more traditional bar style for Spectrum Analyzer with selectable number of bars ( the standard 31 and more options )

many thanks for this great metering tool!
a.

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Just catching up to this nice scope plugin. Well done .. thanks!

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The latest version uses a lower fps?
I ran 0.6 and 0.7 next to each other and there is a clear difference in smoothness in the scope. (havent checked the other modes tbh)

Also the 600px of 0.6 is good enough for me. If you keep the larger size can I opt for a resizable version? :)
Best scope imho!

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Mace404 wrote:The latest version uses a lower fps?
I ran 0.6 and 0.7 next to each other and there is a clear difference in smoothness in the scope. (havent checked the other modes tbh)
I don't remember any changes and I don't have any listed in the change logs, but I've adjusted the sync mechanism a few times, so maybe there's some problem. I'll take a look. The scope is quite intensive in terms of CPU though, so it's also possible it's dropping frames or something.
Also the 600px of 0.6 is good enough for me. If you keep the larger size can I opt for a resizable version? :)
Best scope imho!
I'll probably be keeping the current size, and adding resize functionality to Dust Analyzer would pretty much require a full rewrite. I have some plans for a more adjustable analyzer since it's clear that there are some common trends in terms of what people would like to have. :)

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