Recomend a good spectrum/rms/analyzer

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
ze2be
Posts: 3496
Joined: Mon Apr 12, 2004 2:17 am
Location: Europe

Recomend a good spectrum/rms/analyzer

Post by ze2be » Fri Feb 18, 2011 8:19 pm

So I got a second screen connected, intended for vst plugin view.
Its nice to have audio analysers viewable at all times when mixing.

For now I have tried the IXL Analysers. To my taste its to much gui noise with those, and to small meters. I prefer plugs that are optimised for screens and pixels. Like the FabFilter Pro series, or even Ableton. (add to L9 wish list: option for floating windows)

3 key words: Big, minimal, funktional.

Khazul
Posts: 3185
Joined: Wed Feb 23, 2005 5:19 pm
Location: Reading, UK

Re: Recomend a good spectrum/rms/analyzer

Post by Khazul » Fri Feb 18, 2011 8:24 pm

If you had an RME audio interface, then I would have suggested the included digi-check which I allways have running now when just doing a mix down / guide/preview mastering etc.

Also you get similar functionality included with T-racks as well, which while touted as a mastering suite is actually alot better for character inserts and havnt ever thought of using it for mastering unless I was planning to master to a tape deck.

Other thought is blue cat audio stuff. They have alot of interesting but busy analysers.

I just like RMEs digi-check - its prety much as you describe - spectrum, levels, correlation and vector scope, big and very clear - all nicely implemented with a distinct hardware-crt like behaviour to the scope unlike most software scopes which are all pixelly and basically horrible.

Downside of digi-check - its not a plugin, its a separate application that reads its data from an RME audio interface main outs, so obviously specific to their audio interfaces and is included with them. CPU use is minimal as well as the data is apparently calcuated by the audio interface DSP and does stereo and surround.
Nothing to see here - move along!

jtdj
Posts: 266
Joined: Wed Aug 04, 2010 9:37 am
Contact:

Re: Recomend a good spectrum/rms/analyzer

Post by jtdj » Fri Feb 18, 2011 8:47 pm

try blue cat stuff, its good.

ze2be
Posts: 3496
Joined: Mon Apr 12, 2004 2:17 am
Location: Europe

Re: Recomend a good spectrum/rms/analyzer

Post by ze2be » Fri Feb 18, 2011 9:27 pm

jtdj wrote:try blue cat stuff, its good.
Alright, now were talking!
Thanks guys. :)

Tarekith
Posts: 19065
Joined: Fri Jan 07, 2005 11:46 pm
Location: Ableton Forum Administrator
Contact:

Re: Recomend a good spectrum/rms/analyzer

Post by Tarekith » Fri Feb 18, 2011 10:34 pm

Voxengo Span?
Tarekith
Ableton Forum Administrator
https://tarekith.com

ze2be
Posts: 3496
Joined: Mon Apr 12, 2004 2:17 am
Location: Europe

Re: Recomend a good spectrum/rms/analyzer

Post by ze2be » Sat Feb 19, 2011 10:05 am

Tarekith wrote:Voxengo Span?
Thanks. Hey, can I ask you a question:
When mixing dance music, do you try to even out the weight of the frequency range? When using those slow colorful analysers, I usually get an un-even range, towards the lower frequencies. But thats maybe how it is with bass heavy dance music?

esemdi
Posts: 20
Joined: Tue Feb 01, 2011 10:52 am
Location: London, UK
Contact:

Re: Recomend a good spectrum/rms/analyzer

Post by esemdi » Sat Feb 19, 2011 12:29 pm

jtdj wrote:try blue cat stuff, its good.
Their FreqAnalyst is pretty unstable, Live is crashing 4 times out of 5.

jtdj
Posts: 266
Joined: Wed Aug 04, 2010 9:37 am
Contact:

Re: Recomend a good spectrum/rms/analyzer

Post by jtdj » Sat Feb 19, 2011 1:46 pm

esemdi wrote:
jtdj wrote:try blue cat stuff, its good.
Their FreqAnalyst is pretty unstable, Live is crashing 4 times out of 5.

I've never had a crash with it once. Used it every day for about 2 months now. (using latest Ableton 8 on 64 -bit windows 7)

Tarekith
Posts: 19065
Joined: Fri Jan 07, 2005 11:46 pm
Location: Ableton Forum Administrator
Contact:

Re: Recomend a good spectrum/rms/analyzer

Post by Tarekith » Sat Feb 19, 2011 3:28 pm

ze2be wrote:
Tarekith wrote:Voxengo Span?
Thanks. Hey, can I ask you a question:
When mixing dance music, do you try to even out the weight of the frequency range? When using those slow colorful analysers, I usually get an un-even range, towards the lower frequencies. But thats maybe how it is with bass heavy dance music?
Honestly you can't really use a visual tool when mixing, as you can see vastly different things between songs that really sound amazing. They're good for spotting issues or confirming when you think you hear one, but they're not meant to provide any sort of 'ideal' curve to use when mixing.
Tarekith
Ableton Forum Administrator
https://tarekith.com

Moody
Posts: 2115
Joined: Tue Feb 10, 2004 7:47 pm

Re: Recomend a good spectrum/rms/analyzer

Post by Moody » Sat Feb 19, 2011 3:53 pm

Blue Cat's FreqAnalyst Multi is quite nice. As Tarekith points out, these types of tools should not be a main stay for a mix, but in the digital mixing world they can help finding trouble spots. Also, do not try to over isolate the frequencies in your tracks. This takes away from the magic of the harmonics occurring in your mix. This makes for a dull dry sound. Good luck!
Ableton’s engineers are hard
at work developing code that will allow our software to predict the future, but we don’t
anticipate having this available until at least the next major release.

dburns
Posts: 139
Joined: Sat Feb 14, 2009 6:04 am
Contact:

Re: Recomend a good spectrum/rms/analyzer

Post by dburns » Sat Feb 19, 2011 4:15 pm

Try the free Signal Analyzer from rs-met: http://www.rs-met.com/

I like Nugen's Visualizer: http://nugenaudio.com/visualizer.php
Dave Burns
Lowell, MA

More equipment than skill.

ze2be
Posts: 3496
Joined: Mon Apr 12, 2004 2:17 am
Location: Europe

Re: Recomend a good spectrum/rms/analyzer

Post by ze2be » Sat Feb 19, 2011 11:37 pm

Moody wrote:Blue Cat's FreqAnalyst Multi is quite nice. As Tarekith points out, these types of tools should not be a main stay for a mix, but in the digital mixing world they can help finding trouble spots. Also, do not try to over isolate the frequencies in your tracks. This takes away from the magic of the harmonics occurring in your mix. This makes for a dull dry sound. Good luck!
Yeah, I kinda have figured out a good mix has a lot about arrangement to do. Making room for the instruments to work together, rather then trying to separate them with eqs afterwords. Kind of like the mix to master relation: a good mix is easy to master, a bad mix is hard.

Regarding the freq analyzers, its mostly for show! :D I got a second screen connected, so might as well have some fun. And it looks good to, like a cockpit sort of.

Khazul
Posts: 3185
Joined: Wed Feb 23, 2005 5:19 pm
Location: Reading, UK

Re: Recomend a good spectrum/rms/analyzer

Post by Khazul » Sun Feb 20, 2011 3:59 pm

Another thought for a spreecturn analysers - years ago I bought a behringer DEQ2496 as a live use limiter and general utility processor. It also has a bunch of useful meters on it including quite a decent sprectrun analyser.

These days it spends its life permenantly setup as just a spectrum analyser getting an aux out from my central station so i all ays have a hardware peak and sprectrum view and is actually very useful for that :)
Nothing to see here - move along!

shuutobi
Posts: 889
Joined: Thu Jul 16, 2009 3:23 pm
Location: Texas
Contact:

Re: Recomend a good spectrum/rms/analyzer

Post by shuutobi » Sun Feb 20, 2011 5:59 pm

+1 for Voxengo span.

Simbosan
Posts: 301
Joined: Tue Aug 05, 2008 11:35 am
Location: Auckland, New Zealand
Contact:

Re: Recomend a good spectrum/rms/analyzer

Post by Simbosan » Sun Feb 20, 2011 11:42 pm

Minor threadjack, but kinda on topic enough.

Is there such a thing as a spectrum analyzer that superimposes different tracks in one display, colour coded for example? Would be useful for spotting areas of contention I think.

S
Ableton 9 Suite - Ozone 5
Room full of guitars!
Akai EWI USB : Loads of Sample Modeling instruments (the best ever!)
M-Audio FastTrack Pro
Turbo Nutter B*stard >>>> WINDOWS <<<< PC
Simbosan on Soundcloud

Post Reply