User Manual
Contents
1. 20 0dB oa ka 46 048 CT de Fui wa 50 006 Freeze Infinite a elie 60 006 200 400 800 Right Fallback Er Average Response T 00 400 800 The spectrum analyser views are turned on using the spectrum analyser View Selector controls 1 The adjustable parameters are displayed on the Edit Control Panel 3 which is accessed via the adjacent Edit Selector control 2 4 NUGEN Audio L L L O Spectrum Analyser display This is an FFT Fast Fourier Transform spectrum analysis view graphing level against frequency The FFT settings for all FFT windows can be adjusted globally via the Stats and Setup control Stereo Spectrum Analyser display This is a stereo differential FFT Fast Fourier Transform spectrum analysis view graphing level against frequency Bias to the left is indicated above the centre zero level and to the right below The FFT settings for all FFT windows can be adjusted globally via the Stats and Setup control Mouse over readout When the mouse is moved around a Spectrum Analyser display the pointer becomes a cross hair and a readout of the X Y values at that point is displayed top right Zoom and scroll zone Click and drag in this area to activate zoom and scroll mode Movement in a horizontal direction zooms the dB range and movement in a vertical direction scrolls up and down To reset the scale to the full range hold down control Ctrl and click the scale2. parameter determines how rapidly it falls back down again 15 Colour Selection Click to change the display colours selecting from a grid of colour options The left hand side selects the fill colour and the right hand side selects the peak envelope colour Le 2 Pd A Z 10 2014 NUGEN Audio Spectrograms 200 400 BOO 50 40 5 200 400 gg The spectrogram views are turned on using the spectrogram View Selector controls 1 The adjustable parameters are displayed on the Edit Control Panel 3 which is accessed via the adjacent Edit Selector control 2 4 Spectrogram display This is an FFT Fast Fourier Transform spectrogram plot graphing level colour depth against frequency with respect to time The FFT settings for all FFT windows can be adjusted globally via the Stats and Setup control 5 Stereo Spectrogram display This is a stereo differential FFT Fast Fourier Transform spectrogram plot graphing level colour depth against frequency with respect to time Bias to the left or right is indicated according to the colour scale displayed at the foot of the view The FFT settings for all FFT windows can be adjusted globally via the Stats and Setup control 6 Mouse over readout When the mouse is moved around the Spectrogram display the pointer becomes a cross hair and a readout of the frequency value at that point is displayed top right 7 dB colour depth scale Indicating the level in
3. Pre set selector Clicking in this area will call up a drop down menu showing various pre set options for the level meter Click on a choice from the list to automatically configure the various settings to your selection Where two NUGEN Audio 2014 NUGEN Audio L L L N meter types are chosen the first named will be the inner primary meter and second the outer secondary meter 7 Appearance setting Using this drop down menu you can select the appearance of the meter to suit personal preference or the audio material in question 8 Splits These controls define the split points and colours for the 3 sections of the meter To understand these options more clearly try adjusting the settings with the meter appearance set in Sharp mode 7 if you get lost simply select a pre set 6 and begin experimenting again 9 Splits These controls define the split points and colours for the 3 sections of the meter To understand these options more clearly try adjusting the settings with the meter appearance set in Sharp mode 7 if you get lost simply select a pre set 6 and begin experimenting again 10 Peak Controls This section outlined in grey contains the parameters for adjusting the peak hold bar The Peak button toggles the function on off The numeric window allows the peak hold time to be adjusted to suit personal preference The infinite button overrides the peak hold time setting it to hold foreve
4. This control can be used to fill the graphicsl display area 1 entirely with the chosen view to allow an instant detailed inspection of the chosen view This control operates as an exclusive solo and is available even when a view is not currently displayed 3 Edit Control Panel The Edit Control Panel is where the various controls for adjusting the different displays are shown and is accessed via the edit selectors 2 What is shown here will depend upon the active edit selector The panel can be hidden from view so as to maximise the available view space by clicking the active edit selector 4 Link control The link control is a handy feature designed to allow rapid changes to be made to multiple displays simultaneously Simply put when Link is selected the interface automatically updates equivalent parameters for all views including the one being adjusted on screen E g If the link is selected and a view is magnified using the zoom feature all other views with a like scale will also be magnified in the same way If Link is not selected then only the individual control being adjusted will be affected Another example would be using the link control to turn on off all the peak hold views at once Clear The clear button can be used to reset current views removing peak hold envelopes This can be useful when a specific section of audio is being inspected in a larger piece NUGEN Audio L L L Un 2014 NUGEN
5. Visualizer cannot be broken by changing parameters and it is recommended that the user refer to this section whilst using Visualizer in practice so that the direct result of modifications can be seen in the displays An introduction to FFT analysis is also provided for those who are interested in understanding how digital audio analysis works within Visualizer The strengths and weaknesses of this approach are discussed which will allow the more advanced user to make informed decisions particularly with respect to the Set up options which allow the user to adjust several of the underlying algorithmic parameters 2 Er lt lt LL 2014 NUGEN Audio L L L U9 Interface Overview The Visualizer interface is divided into three main sections The graphical view display area 1 the view selector controls 2 and the control panel 3 The top edge of the interface also contains several generic functions described below 4 5 amp 6 aoa D E Audio Visualizer Compare N Mix Spectrum P EI NU Custom Dig RMS fa aa Agi D 0 d S 1 vi nl LL P il Li Sh TP Infinite MILITE D ios i N n TE CR Fallback 200 400 a00 1 00 Splits Response 1 Graphical View Display Area This is where the results of the audio analysis are displayed This area is treated as soft space and can be configured to show a variety of different views This is a distinct a
6. Zoom and scroll zone Click and drag in this area to activate zoom and scroll mode Movement in a vertical direction zooms the frequency range and movement in a horizontal direction scrolls to the left and right To reset the scale to the full range hold down control Ctrl and click the scale View selector Stereo Analyser time averaging only Click here to select 2014 NUGEN Audio various options from a drop down menu The Time Averaging modes average the displayed input level over time 10 Freeze control When selected this control will freeze the view to capture an instant in time De select to reactivate the dynamic view 11 Fill control Use this option to enable solid fill in the graphs displayed 12 Frequency Banding Selector Choose from smooth multiple point graph into Octave 1 3 Octave 1 6 Octave Bark Bark thirds Mel Mel thirds and Chromatic views Bark and Mel are pycho acoustic banding scales which place greater definition in the frequency ranges where the ear is most sensitive 13 Peak hold options Turn on and off using the Peak control The peak hold time can be set using the numeric window or over ridden by selecting Infinite which enables hold forever mode 14 Display ballistics These values adjust the way in which the display responds to the incoming audio signal The Response parameter determines how quickly the meter will jump up to the level of the audio and the fall back
7. dB s as represented by the Le Spectrogram Click and drag left or right to shift the dB bands represented by Er each colour not Stereo Spectrogram Left and Right are indicated separately in the case of the Stereo Spectrogram LL 8 Zoom and scroll zone Click and drag in this area to activate zoom and scroll mode Movement in a vertical direction zooms the frequency range and PA line 11 2014 NUGEN Audio movement in a horizontal direction scrolls to the left and right To reset the scale to the full range hold down control Ctrl and click the scale 9 View selector not Stereo Spectrogram Click here to select various options from a drop down menu 10 Smoothing Select to smooth out the display data or deselect to view the raw values 11 Freeze control When selected this control will freeze the view to capture an instant in time De select to reactivate the dynamic view 12 Frequency Banding Selector Choose from a smooth multiple point graph or Octave 1 3 Octave and 1 12 Octave chromatic views 13 Spectrum Selector Click here to select a colour spectrum to represent the levels within the Spectrogram NUGEN Audio 2014 NUGEN Audio 12 Vectorscope Lissajous View Zoom Mi TE Grid Response oo The Vectorscope view is turned on using the Vectorscope View Selector control 1 The adjustable parameters are displayed on the Edit Control Panel 3 which is accessed via the
8. input signal where as the thicker line responds with an inbuilt inertia to give a wider perspective 6 Freeze control When selected this control will freeze the view to capture an instant in time De select to reactivate the dynamic view T Solid control Determines whether the polar envelope is filled or not 8 Response value Adjusts the response time of the meters 9 Colour Selection Click to change the display colours selecting from a grid of colour options 10 View Selection Choose between X Y Lissajous presentation and Polar view 2 Er lt LL 14 2014 NUGEN Audio Correlation by Frequency Dynamic Full Freeze Infinite Negative Fallback i MINI 1 0 40 Response noe The correlation meter view is turned on using the correlation meter View Selector control 1 The adjustable parameters are displayed on the Edit Control Panel 3 which is accessed via the adjacent Edit Selector control 2 200 400 800 4 Correlation by Frequency display This is an FFT Fast Fourier Transform spectrum analysis view graphing level against frequency The FFT settings for all FFT windows can be adjusted globally via the Stats and Setup control 5 Zoom and scroll zone Click and drag in this area to activate zoom and scroll mode Movement in a vertical direction zooms the frequency range and movement in a horizontal direction scrolls to the left and right To reset the
9. right hand side selects the peak envelope colour NUGEN Audio 2014 NUGEN Audio 16 Correlation Meter i E Spectrum Selector The correlation meter view is turned on using the correlation meter View Selector control 1 The adjustable parameters are displayed on the Edit Control Panel 3 which is accessed via the adjacent Edit Selector control 2 4 Correlation meter The meter position represents the correlation between right and left hand signals A value of 1 indicates 100 correlation mono 0 indicated no correlation and 1 indicates 100 negative correlation out of phase signals 5 Freeze control When selected this control will freeze the view to capture an instant in time De select to reactivate the dynamic view 6 Response value Adjusts the response time of the meter 7 History Toggles the history view on and off 8 Colour Selection Click to change the display colours selecting from a grid of colour options 2 Er lt LL 17 2014 NUGEN Audio Statistics and Setup Blackman Harris None 61413 No toclip Total Stats pot A The stats and setup view is turned on using the stats and setup View Selector control 1 There is no graphical display associated with this selection 2 FFT window selection Choose from a selection of standard window functions using the drop down menu 3 Audio weighti
10. Audio 6 Resize The Visualizer interface is fully resizeable via the bottom right hand corner 6a drag click to choose the aspect ratio and size desired There are also two size memories that can be toggled using the resize button 6b This can be especially useful if screen real estate is at a premium allowing a compact display which can be immediately expanded for detailed inspection if required 7 Compare The compare function allows two different audio streams to be overlaid in the one interface for direct comparison and is described in it s own section of the manual below 8 Presets Visualizer comes with a number of preset configurations Most Visualizer parameters can be stored with a preset allowing rapid reconfiguration for different tasks by recalling a previously stored setting Use the arrow controls to step up down through the available presets or click the end control to bring up a preset menu 9 Plugin Title Click in this area to open the credits and licensing screen Zoom and Scroll Several views within Visualizer are scaled either in dB or against frequency or both These views can be adjusted to show ranges in greater detail by zooming and or scrolling the scales This is achieved by moving the mouse over the scale in question and dragging along the line of the scale to scroll and dragging in a perpendicular direction to zoom in out To reset the scale to the full range hold down control Ctrl and click t
11. Operation Manual Visualizer Operation Manual NUGEN Audio 2014 NUGEN Audio Contents Page Introduction 3 Interface Overview 4 Displays and controls T Level Meter 7 Spectrum Analysers 9 Spectrograms 11 Vectorscope 13 Lissajous 13 Polar 14 Correlation by Frequency 15 Correlation Meter 17 Statistics and Setup 18 An introduction to FFT analysis 19 Reporting a Problem 21 Version History 22 Le 2 Pd fi gt L L L NO 2014 NUGEN Audio Introduction Visualizer is a comprehensive user definable real time audio analysis tool designed to give you rapid access to the information you need to fully understand your audio Visualizer is capable of providing a great deal of detailed information coupled with options that allow a high degree of user customisation This manual is intended to help both the novice and professional quickly navigate the interface and achieve the results desired The manual is divided in to several sections as listed on the contents page 2 The overview section is intended to give the new user a broad run through generic operations such as selecting different views opening control panels etc This section is recommended reading for anyone new to the software introducing concepts and highlighting themes that run through the interface improving workflow and intuitive operation The displays and controls section is a detailed reference to every available parameter view by view
12. adjacent Edit Selector control 2 A Vectorscope display Traditional X Y plot rotated through 45 degrees 5 Zoom control Use this to zoom in X Y simultaneously Auto zoom will scale the data to automatically fill the screen 6 Freeze control When selected this control will freeze the view to capture an instant in time De select to reactivate the dynamic view 7 Join control When active this parameter joins the discreet points of the graph to give a continuous display 8 Response value Adjusts the response time of the meter please note this does not effect the joined lines if that option is selected 9 Colour Selection Click to change the display colours selecting from a grid of colour options 10 View Selection Choose between X Y Lissajous presentation and Polar view 2 lt LL 13 2014 NUGEN Audio Vectorscope Polar View Freeze Infinite Envelope a m Tr F Grid Response G og The Vectorscope view is turned on using the Vectorscope View Selector control 1 The adjustable parameters are displayed on the Edit Control Panel 3 which is accessed via the adjacent Edit Selector control 2 4 Vectorscope display In this view the rotated X Y parameters used to construct the traditional Lissajous view are presented in Polar form 5 Stereometer Gives an indication of the overall Left Right balance The shorter thin line responds quickly to the
13. brain perceive audio signals Our perception of audio is more to do with what frequencies are present in the signal and at what volumes so to give a useful visual representation of an audio signal a common approach is to try to display a graph showing the strength of any frequencies in the signal Unfortunately finding which frequencies are present in a signal is not a simple matter The mathematical process used to decompose a signal into its constituent frequencies is known as the Fourier Transform The simplest way of programming in this transformation is so processor intensive that it cannot be used in real time applications Thankfully there is a well known much faster way of implementing a Fourier Transform known as the Fast Fourier Transform FFT which does make signal to frequency conversions possible in real time Sample Rate Digital audio signals contain samples taken at a particular sample rate for example 44 1kHz The higher the sample rate the more disc space you need to store a given length of audio and the more processor power you need to manipulate it but also the higher the frequencies you can store Each sample rate has a maximum frequency it can represent mathematically called the Nyquist frequency although it could be argued that human perception of frequencies would start to degrade below that absolute limit As an example a 44 1kHz audio signal which was transformed by an FFT would not show any frequ
14. dvantage over many audio analysis tools which often require the user to select another interface module in order to change the display or even prohibit certain view combinations entirely Visualizer uses intelligent window optimisation to reconfigure the displays changing size and positioning to allow the optimum view possible automatically without the user needing to juggle them around by hand 2 View Selectors This column of controls selects the various views available for display Clicking a control on will cause the corresponding view to appear in the graphical display area 1 clicking an active control will remove that view from the display The icons on the controls depict the view in question as shown below Level Meter Spectrum Analyser 2 Er lt lt LL lt 2014 NUGEN Audio P Stereo Spectrum Analyser Spectrogram EUR Stereo Spectrogram Vectorscope Correlation by Frequency Statistics and Setup Stats re Correlation Meter Alongside most of the view selectors is an edit selector control These are used to select the controls available in the Edit Control Panel 3 Click the control adjacent to the View Selector you wish to adjust and the Edit Control Panel will display the controls available for adjusting that view To hide the Edit Control Panel all together click the active Edit Selector to turn it off Most of the views also have a view solo control
15. encies above 22 05kHz FFT Sample Size When an FFT is carried out on an audio signal it is usually on separate chunks of the signal to give a reading of the frequencies present in each section of the audio For example one could carry out an FFT on a 100ms section of audio to find out the strengths of each frequency in that snippet The number of samples in the chunk that the FFT is applied to is called the FFT sample size There are trade offs involved in choosing the correct sample size to use Asmall sample size will only contain a short sample of audio data for example a sample of 256 values from a 44 1kHz audio signal will only be sampling over approximately 6ms which means that it will be hard for the FFT to accurately detect low frequencies in our example we are sampling over 6ms which corresponds to the wave length of a signal near 170Hz so we couldn t expect any kind of accuracy for frequencies below this Choosing a larger sample size will give us more detail and accuracy in the lower frequency range however as well as increasing the CPU loads slightly this can lead to a lack of responsiveness in the readings As an example if we are using a sample size of 16384 from a 44 1kHz audio signal each chunk will be over approximately 350ms 3 PA gt 19 2014 NUGEN Audio meaning that the frequency view will only be updated less than three times a second giving a rather sluggish feeling display FFT Window Func
16. he scale Numeric Windows The numeric values indicated in Visualizer can be adjusted either by click and dragging vertically or double clicking and entering the desired value directly Default values Holding down control Ctrl and clicking a control will return the control to the default position Le 2 Pd fi gt 2014 NUGEN Audio L L L ON Level Meter D OR Custom Cig RMS 140 Horiz a Shrp Infinite spits Response a The level meter view is turned on using the level meter View Selector control 1 The adjustable parameters are displayed on the Edit Control Panel 3 which is accessed via the adjacent Edit Selector control 2 L_ HR _ 2p The level meter offers several pre set scales and is also fully customisable to suit individual requirements using the following controls NB To adjust both primary and secondary meters together 4 activate the link control If you wish to adjust the meters independently ensure link is not active The parameters will then only affect the primary meter 4 Level Meter Display Shows the level meter bars as configured by the controls below The centre two bars are the inner primary meter the outer bars secondary meter when this is active 5 Meter Orientation Toggles horizontal mode on and off The meter will automatically resize and position itself to make the best use of the screen space available
17. nction in Visualizer is chosen to have very low frequency leakage at the expense of some resolution Le 2 Pd fi gt 20 2014 NUGEN Audio Reporting a problem lf you encounter a problem with any of NUGEN Audio s products please let us know to help us improve them Please email NUGEN Audio at support nugenaudio com giving a clear explanation of the problem Please state how frequently you ve experienced the problem If there are any particular steps you need to go through to see the problem please detail these Please also state your operating system and the rough specs for your machine e g CPU speed RAM in Windows XP you can get this information by right clicking My Computer and selecting properties Please be patient with any problems you may experience particularly with products at a beta stage of release At NUGEN Audio we take problems with our software seriously and will endeavour to correct them as quickly as possible C NUGEN A 21 2014 NUGEN Audio Version History 2 0 Initial release NUGEN Audio 2014 NUGEN Audio 22
18. ng Choose from None A B C D standard equal loudness weightings or from various log scale linear spectrum slopes 4 FFT window size Choose from the drop down menu The larger sizes are recommended for use with the Time Averaging modes 5 RMS window size Choose form the drop down menu 6 Clip Counter parameters Visualizer constantly monitors the input signal for clipping The number to clip parameter determines how many digital overs Samples over OdBFS are required to be considered a clip The total parameter counts the total number of such clips Running records the largest O D number of consecutive over events in one section of clipped material and 2 Blocks counts the number of events which qualify as a clip i e the number of events where the overs exceed the number to clip parameter LLI PA line 18 2014 NUGEN Audio An introduction to FFT Analysis This section is intended as a slightly more technical introduction to the world of FFT analysis It is not essential to understand the contents of this section to use Visualizer but a broad understanding of FFT analysis and the trade offs involved may help users appreciate some of the finer points Audio signals are represented as digital waveforms of signal value against time so a pure 1kHz tone signal is represented by a waveform which rises and falls over time in a sine wave However this is not how the ear and
19. r 11 Meter ballistics These values adjust the way in which the meter responds to the incoming audio signal The Response parameter determines how quickly the meter will jump up to the level of the audio and the fall back parameter determines how rapidly it falls back down again 12 Margin The margin indicates the dB remaining below true digital Full Scale If the audio clips see the Setup and Stats module this will be indicated with a red warning light Click in this area to reset the margin The white lager size figure reflect the margin for the inner primary meter the smaller sized grey figures represent the value for the outer secondary meter where appropriate 13 Zoom and scroll zone This is achieved by moving the mouse over the scale and dragging along the line of the scale vertically to scroll and dragging in a perpendicular direction horizontally to zoom in out To reset the scale to the default range hold down control Ctrl and click the scale When zooming the level meter additional divisions at 1dB 0 5dB and 0 1dB will show once the scale is significantly expanded Note RMS levels apply the standard 3dB correction so that pure sine waves read at the same level on both RMS and Peak meters in accordance with hardware mastering meters Dorrough etc and the K Metering mastering system o E z gt L L L OO 2014 NUGEN Audio Spectrum Analysers IATH T0 3dE
20. scale to the full range hold down control Ctrl and click the scale 6 View selector Click here to select between dynamic and time averaging modes from a drop down menu The Time Averaging modes average the displayed input over time 7 Freeze control When selected this control will freeze the view to capture an instant in time De select to reactivate the dynamic view 8 Fill control Use this option to enable solid fill in the graphs displayed TD x 9 Frequency Banding Selector Choose from smooth multiple point graph into 7 Octave 1 3 Octave 1 6 Octave Bark Bark thirds Mel Mel thirds and LLI Chromatic views Bark and Mel are pycho acoustic banding scales which 5 place greater definition in the frequency ranges where the ear is most PA bob 15 2014 NUGEN Audio sensitive 10 Peak hold options Turn on and off using the Peak control The peak hold time can be set using the numeric window or over ridden by selecting Infinite which enables hold forever mode 11 Display ballistics These values adjust the way in which the display responds to the incoming audio signal The Response parameter determines how quickly the meter will jump up to the level of the audio and the fall back parameter determines how rapidly it falls back down again 12 Colour Selection Click to change the display colours selecting from a grid of colour options The left hand side selects the fill colour and the
21. tion As FFTs are applied to limited sized chunks of an audio signal they can only approximate the frequencies which are actually in that signal Indeed the frequencies present in the signal might be changing over the period of that chunk By using different windowing functions the approximation of the FFT can be made more precise in some ways at the expense of less accuracy in other ways The main trade off is of frequency leakage against resolution To illustrate the meaning of these two terms consider an audio signal with a pure tone at 1kHz In theory the perfect frequency graph of this would have 0 at every frequency except at 1kKHZz where it would have a perfect spike up to the volume of that frequency In reality a FFT graph from this signal will show a graph rising to a peak at 1kHz and then dropping off again With better that is less frequency leakage the regions of the graph on the two sides of the peak would be lower ie less frequencies would be leaking through where they shouldn t be With better that is higher resolution the actual peak of the graph would be sharper With a lower resolution the peak of the graph would be rounded and flatter at the top Higher resolution is more important for distinguishing individual frequencies in a signal lower leakage is more important for signal which contain a lot of different frequencies For audio signals lower leakage is usually more important and so the default FFT window fu
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