Ableton Forum

I find spectrum analyzers most useful when designing instruments or sounds and something audibly noticeable is occurring but the source of which is not immediately known. unwanted noise, artifacts, phasing, etc...

Otherwise it is great to space out to when you are at that point in your day.

very cool use..

been messing with it today the 'wedge shape' comment was most useful, and looking what a good track looks like, thx all...

I strongly use it after a compressor with side chain.
Or on some sounds I wanna be sure of the freq range.
Always the before - after thing to check the efficiency of an FX

this I understand: see what a well mixed track looks like in spectrum, but this obviously very specific for that track, is it not?
I have a very hard time using spectrum, it all seems a bunch of wrigly lines and bars to me, even if I carve out a band with EQ8 from a distorted guitartrack it hardly makes a difference in the spectrum of that individual track. I know EQ8 can cut a max of 16dB but it makes a big difference in sound, it just doesn't show in spectrum.
btw what I would like is a spectrumanalyzer on the master showing the graphs of all individual tracks in a different colour.

ah, found voxengo glissEQ

I use it to check what frequency range any of my sounds are in so I can add sounds in ranges that have none. Keeps things unmuddled...