This plugin does most of what you’ll ever need a frequency analyzer to do.īut if you’re interested in something more, Blue Cat also offers a whole “ Analysis Pack” that includes a “Pro” version of this tool along with a stereoscope, oscilloscope, and precision peak meter. If you’re just getting started with analyzers, our list could pretty much end here. But sometimes, the right tools can help us speed up our understanding, crystallize new concepts, or overcome stumbling blocks and plateaus. Nothing is a substitute for hands on practice and deep critical listening. They can also be fantastic teaching tool – in any register. But for beginners, or those who struggle with this balance, analyzers can be a godsend. A bass guitar might occupy the deep registers, while the bulk of a kick drum lives in the upper bass range – or vice-versa.Īt Bob Power’s stage in the game, this may be done by ear more often than not. In our recent interview with producer Bob Power for the Input\Output Podcast, Power reiterated the importance of carving out different homes in the low end for competing bass instruments. And perhaps where they can be of the most help is in sorting out the low-end. If I’m trying to match a punched-in tone and have only managed to get 95% of the way there with my naked ears, a frequency analyzer can help save time. If I’m having trouble getting great results out of a deesser on a particularly tricky vocal passage, I can figure out what exact areas are causing me grief. If a mix is sounding a little boxy in the midrange and I’m having trouble deciding exactly where, an analyzer can point me in the right direction. In the interest of exercise, I’d rather not rely on one too much, but they do help make awkward problems easy, and in extreme cases, make the impossible graspable. I rarely pull out a frequency analyzer on more than one out of every 10 or 15 songs, but when I do, they can be enlightening.Ī good analyzer is a little bit like a calculator. There are practical applications within mixes as well. We can quickly try things for ourselves, make repeatable measurements and share our results. Although we disagreed, frequency analyzers make resolving questions like these easy, and they help keep debates civil and grounded in truth over rhetoric. I had a friendly debate with a colleague just the other day about whether EQs tend to have a more dramatic effect when they’re placed before or after a compressor. But because of the relative weakness of our ears when compared to the power of our minds, audio measurement tools will always be useful at times. No good sound mix will ever be completed by relying on ones’ eyes alone. And this is also why the power of the myths and stories that surround an artist often grab new listeners long before their music does. This is why we can turn an EQ knob and think we hear it working, before we realize that it’s not engaged, or that we’ve grabbed the wrong channel. Our brains become clogged by superstition, placebo and confirmation bias and we think we hear things that aren’t there.Ĭompared to other most mammals, our hearing is weak and even at our best, the most ‘golden-eared’ listeners have minds that are far more powerful than their ears. With that said, sometimes our ears deceive us. When engaged, the Listen plugin will hide your entire workspace, making your screen glow a gentle solid blue, with one directive written out for you to consider: “Listen.” It’s great advice, and in general, it leads to better mixes. Too much visual stimulation can be a hindrance where audio craftsmanship is concerned, and because of this, one of my favorite plugins to date is a promotional freebie from Massey, called “ Listen.” Some of the documentation is highly technical in nature, as you would expect for complicated software like a DAW, and that can be off-putting.There’s no substitute for mixing with your ears. Typical things that a Vamp plugin might calculate include the locations of moments such as note onset times, visualisable representations of the audio such as spectrograms, or curve data such as power or fundamental frequency.Ī overview of the some of the available plugins is here => However, a Vamp plugin does not generate audio output, but some sort of symbolic information instead. Just like an audio effect such as a VST plugin, a Vamp plugin is a binary module that can be loaded by a host application and fed audio data. Its kinda like a DAW in that it can load plugins that affect the source material, but also plugins that are not limited to working in real time, or only on the audio source itself. VAMP plugins can also be loaded into a recent version of audacity.
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