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Topic: Spectrum Visualization feature requests (0.9.5) (Read 46868 times) previous topic - next topic
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Spectrum Visualization feature requests (0.9.5)

Reply #25
mzso: In order to do that, you would probably use a DFT, which is more computationally expensive. Peter tried implementing it during the alpha cycle but removed that feature after deciding it was too computationally expensive.

There is also the possibility to use a continuous wavelet transform (CWT) to do these calculations, which is significantly harder to code, and I haven't found any good C++ examples, especially in a visualization context.

In order to decrease the blurriness of logarithmic scaling, one can change the FFT size by right-clicking on the vis. Higher numbers mean less vertical blurriness but more horizontal blurriness. The CWT, like the DFT, does not have such a limitation.

Spectrum Visualization feature requests (0.9.5)

Reply #26
mzso: In order to do that, you would probably use a DFT, which is more computationally expensive. Peter tried implementing it during the alpha cycle but removed that feature after deciding it was too computationally expensive.

There is also the possibility to use a continuous wavelet transform (CWT) to do these calculations, which is significantly harder to code, and I haven't found any good C++ examples, especially in a visualization context.

In order to decrease the blurriness of logarithmic scaling, one can change the FFT size by right-clicking on the vis. Higher numbers mean less vertical blurriness but more horizontal blurriness. The CWT, like the DFT, does not have such a limitation.

Thanks for the info. Is the plugin with dft available? I wonder how much of my cpu power it uses.
Do you think it's possible that the disable screensaver feature will be added?

Spectrum Visualization feature requests (0.9.5)

Reply #27
i am very annoyed by the implementation of the fft for the spectogram in foobar 9.552+.
as you know, music can produce aesthetically pleasing imagery, and whilst running foobar this particulare visualisation is the only thing that posseses interest to me.

let me show some screenshots to illustrate my point.

Nine Inch Nails - Quake Soundtrack - Quake Theme (2nd on the original quake cd)

before
after

as abhorrent as it seems, industrial grey noise doesn't seem to be affected (much) by a smudgy piece of crappy imagery done by a poor algorhytm.

However, a texture-rich instrument such as the clavichord or a well-recorded acoustic guitar looks awful at best.
"Harpsichord Concertos, Triple Concerto BWV 1044" (Egarr, Manze, The Academy of Ancient Music)
first 30seconds of the "Concerto in D minor, BWV 1052_ Allegro" (first track on cd1)

before
after

Note, both foobar versions were set on highest possible rendering setting, downmix to mono,
also direct kernel streaming plugin was used for both versions(this is irrelevant to the quality)

Until ver 9,552+ Foobar2000 had the best-looking 3Dspectral graphic (spectogram) of all the players. I was anxious for the addition of the logarhitmic scale-view, but i don't care if my cpu is loaded 25% or 100% if that what it takes to view my spectogram. It would be nice if the user had the ability to select inbetween these engines. Making a FFT with a communist packet-size isn't a compromise, because it is an approximation by definition.
The standard dot by dot method gets a lot better on high res displays, and i don't mind some lag in it. For someone as maniacal on proccessing power as I, I also wouldn't mind spending an extra buck for the computer to do just this: real time, high-quality spectogram rendering.

So far, i'm happy with 9551 therefore i'm too lazy to do it myself.
Hope I made my point clear and brought to your attention a less known artistic aspect of music.

Spectrum Visualization feature requests (0.9.5)

Reply #28
Note, both foobar versions were set on highest possible rendering setting


Just to be sure what you mean by "highest": setting the FFT to 16384 does not constitute the "highest rendering" setting. The optimal size is 4096, unless you're using logarithmic display, in which case the highest transform size is going to give you a bit more detail in the bass regions.

Despite 4096 being the highest quality spectrograph, FB offers the others because some people prefer to display it in a small window/UI-Element, where the extra pixels generated by 4096 would be lost anyway, and CPU time would be wasted.

Spectrum Visualization feature requests (0.9.5)

Reply #29
4096 helps, mea culpa there, but that is beside the point. the old rendering was easier to read, and leaving aside the aesthetics, this could serve a scientific purpose too. But i guess the older version applies more for me. I am not the only one annoyed by this new 'feature'. As I stated before, I couldn't care less how much cpu does it use. But of course, having two rendering engines would be overkill, and implementing the logarhitmic scale without fast fouriers would be a bit of a challenge, wouldn't it?

Of course, you could also use a 3rd party program that only does spectral analysis, or a wave analyzer, but as a rule of thumb, they aren't meant for fast rendering.

Spectrum Visualization feature requests (0.9.5)

Reply #30
I would like to request one more feature concerning differences between spectrum vizualization in 0.9.5.1/0.9.5.2 and higher.
Note that you do not need to be concerned about CPU usage of visualisations embedded in your foobar2000 window when foobar2000 is minimized; they all automatically shut down after a certain period of inactivity.

I would like to request checkbox for this feature being on and off. The reason is the following: I listen to foobar2000 keeping it minimized and when I stumble upon some 'interesting' sounds in the music I maximize foobar2000 to see how they look like. Unfortunately in 0.9.5.2 (and higher) visualization then starts from black screen and I miss stuff i just heard, which is inappropriate for me - so I had to leave on 0.9.5.1. Thanks for attention ;-)

Spectrum Visualization feature requests (0.9.5)

Reply #31
4096 helps, mea culpa there, but that is beside the point. the old rendering was easier to read, and leaving aside the aesthetics, this could serve a scientific purpose too.


I'd say the crispness of the display ties in directly with being easy to read and whatever non-entertainment purpose one wishes to use it for.

I fully agree that your Before pictures look better than the After pictures, but one can still see Bob Ross' Big Brush streaks in the Before images, which has been almost fully eliminated in the later version. I believe that your problem is one of configuration; not a flaw of the visualizer.

Here's a sample of how it looks with me (artist added to indicate music type):
http://pliv.com/things/spect.png (930K)

Colours are set to black-blue-white-white. Double white for that extra push of the high-volume bits*.

I'm a very happy camper. Spectrum <3



*) bits as in parts, not 1/8th byte.

Spectrum Visualization feature requests (0.9.5)

Reply #32
my point: whatever you do, the new visualisation sucks.

And the old one did too: foobar does not display properly music over +0db. With the loudness wars on full rage (although it has diminished slightly as compared to a few years ago), there are a lot of cds recorded on the + side.
And this includes also renown mastering engineers like Steve Hoffman (case: Metallica Ride the Lighnting, DCC Gold) or MoFi\MFSL (case: Emerson, Lake and Palmer - Tarkus) and so fourth.

When things get really nasty, the spectogram will glitch and display the background only (this occured in the old engine)
whatever you say, i still think the old rendering method was crispier and easier to read.

Sample: (ripped from cd)
Lost Signal - [Eviscerate #03] Locked Away.flac

pictures of spectograms: old(also shows the glitch), new and audacity:
.zip

In hope somebody may consider reviving the old stuff, even as an alternate, despite this little bug. I saw it recurring in other songs (high bitrate), but can't remember which.

Spectrum Visualization feature requests (0.9.5)

Reply #33
I experience a rather annoying glitch any time I try to use spectrogram. Instead of nice smooth scrolling like I used to get with 0.8.3, all versions of foobar2000 with the reintroduced spectrogram stutters horribly fast across the screen. I found the following post through Google which I thought was interesting and possibly relevant:

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....st&p=558001

I noticed with 0.9.6 that if I right click and let the spectrogram option menu stay open, the stuttering stops for the most part. As soon as I let it close the stuttering returns. I've experimented with clean installs too see if it might be system related but even so it still does it.

I really missed this feature when 0.9 came along and was so happy to finally see it return. I probably should have posted about this issue sooner but made the mistake of assuming it would be fixed eventually and all I had to be was patient. Unfortunately I don't see it listed in the known issues thread. I can't be the only one experiencing this problem, can I?

I'm running Windows XP SP2, all up to date as far as I'm aware. My PC is made up of an overclocked AMD X2 4400+, DFI LAN-Party UT SLI-DR motherboard, 2GB of memory, Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum, 7800GT graphics card, and the usual array of drives. Nothing special. Hopefully this is the right place to post about this.

Spectrum Visualization feature requests (0.9.5)

Reply #34
Hi,

I have noticed that a decent amount of my source media ill produce bass which actually drops off the bottom of the spectrogram. I work in pro audio development and I think the spectrogram is useful to eyeball the average power/bandwidth of a piece of music. We use this to select music for certain power tests (mostly we use pink noise, before this detail fireballs the thread...)

Is there a way to setup the spectrogram to display 20Hz - 20KHz. I realize the limitations of FFT to reproduce bottom end at high resolution, but I am willing to settle for coarse output. I have the FFT size set to max and the resolution at the bottom edge has very little blur to it.

Thanks for help!

------------------------
Oh, i just posted in the general forum about this...

Hi, I need scrolling spectrogram in 20Hz - 20KHz for work. So we can pick high average power music with lots of low frequency content to blow up speakers and sometimes amps. The bass in my music is falling off the bottom!

Please soon, thanks!

Spectrum Visualization feature requests (0.9.5)

Reply #35
I apologise if this is not the correct place to post such a question.
I recently upgraded to the latest foobar because I saw it had a spectrogram vis and I have to say, it's pretty damn cool, but I have some questions.
1) is it possible to save color settings? Be handy if you could save a few good presets
2) in stereo mode, is it possible to flip the bottom channel vertically like this? (I made it by doing a vertical flip in photoshop)




Spectrum Visualization feature requests (0.9.5)

Reply #36
Columns UI panel support would be nice!

Also, but I guess this would be pretty complicated in implementation, a scrolling spectrogram mode that anticipates a few seconds of music, in order to 'see' the music coming, could be an interesting feature.

However spectrogram is wonderful as it is.

Spectrum Visualization feature requests (0.9.5)

Reply #37
you can see some seconds (buffer length I guess) if you put some spectrogram in DSP chain, like in some VST host
usually people want to see live visualization instead some time ahead

Spectrum Visualization feature requests (0.9.5)

Reply #38
aland - nice idea
but I wait for "channel difference" - like it was in old 0.8.x ...

Spectrum Visualization feature requests (0.9.5)

Reply #39
Sorry for double posting - but I recalled another thing that was really good in that old Spectrum Analyser from version 0.8.x... "Gradient" - changing gradient of colours between linear RGB, clockwise HSV and (my favourite) HSV counterclockwise...