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In Reply to: Complex Sine Wave generator posted by PM on April 10, 2007 at 08:52:32:
I had a similar need and got excellent results with...http://www.nch.com.au/tonegen/index.html
It's a commercial product but it has a long trial period so that may be all you need, it was for me.
Follow Ups:
Rick, thanks much! thats exactly what I was looking for.I am also looking for a simple spectrum analyser program that will show me a FFT of a wav file. Do you know of any such utility ?
RMAA's spectrum analysis didn't quite work very well for me.btw, I was using this to see how much distortion in what order and quantity is really audible. It's fun to play around with it. Can I ask what did you use it for ?
Below are the ones I use. Each has it's own character so it's hard to say which is simplest. If you are used to "real" spectrum analyzers then Wavetools will be the most familiar, otherwise I'd focus on the other two, probably starting with Spectrogram. It's UI is really weird but the program is fast and stable. VA8 has been revised further since I wrote the descriptions below so I don't know how stable it currently is but it's the way to go for resolution in the frequency domain.Visual Analyser 8:
An integrated suite from Italy. This is probably the sort of thing that you are thinking of. I usually use the FFT analyzer, but it's got most everything. There is a learning curve as the UI is a bit idiosyncratic, but logical in it's own way once you figure it out. I have experienced memory leakage on some machines so keep an eye on RAM usage when you start and stop it. I just relaunch the program if it bogs down. The only other problem I've had (unless you count my preamp putting out over a kilovolt per it's voltmeter) is with 24 bit A/D support. The author is apparently working on that issue but I don't know if it will get resolved for USB devices. I just downloaded a new update while writing this so perhaps it will magically work. This program has available the longest FFT's of this batch and is my first choice for seeing close in spurs.
Download Site: http://www.sillanumsoft.com/WaveTools:
By Paul Kellett is an older, but quite usable set of tools for 16/44. I often use the level meter and that's good as the spectrum analyzer works better when the level meter is running!
Download Site: http://www.sonicspot.com/wavetools/wavetools.htmlSpectrogram 5:
This is a surprisingly capable FFT analyzer once you figure out how to set it up. It updates very rapidly so you can watch what's happening spectrally in real time. It's also very easy to capture screen shots. I use it frequently.
Download Site: http://www.electronics-lab.com/downloads/pc/003/That's about the crop, in general they have three things in common:
1. The price.
2. FFT performance suitable for electronic design and validation.
3. Idiosyncratic user interfaces.
I've come to appreciate the performance of these applications and now think of the UI's as charming and unique...
Rick, although I have posted a seperate thread about possible alternatives to rmaa I thought I'd ask you specifically if you knew of any since you seem to have a good idea about PC based audio utilities.
Thanks!
Not really, however you can manually do these measurements with the software tools we've been discussing.I messed with rmaa a little and it seemed to be useful for comparing sound cards, which after all is it reason to exist. However it was a little buggy (the runs would randomly fail)and too automated for me to feel comfortable with it for general use.
However between it and what this other stuff can do I would think you should be in pretty good shape for in-band testing or playing with the audibility of distortion.
I've always had a hankering to build a preamp for some strange reason and was trying to find a cheap, way to get an audio spectrum analyzer. I'm impressed with how well sound cards and this software work. Twenty years ago I paid $12,000 (well, my company did) to buy a dynamic signal analyzer from Hp to make these sorts of measurements and it was state of the art at 12 bits... Some things really DO improve with time.
Thanks again! I haven't yet tried any of these but I am sure its what I am looking for.I'd like to record a wav file of a natural sound - like a piano key, or a guitar/violin string and analyze it to see what the sound "looks" like.
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