Doug Von Gausig wrote:
> At 12:50 PM 3/10/2003, Dominique Laloux wrote:
>
>>Hi,
>>
>>Using a PC under Windows, I currently edit by recordings with CoolEdit 2000.
>>I am no expert, I just like the tool... Do some of you have good arguments
>>for another software under Windows ?
>>
>>When I want a sonogram, I use snagIt to take a snapshot of the CoolEdit
>>spectral view of the wave (as in
>><http://www.pca.be/samples/sonogram>http://www.pca.be/samples/sonogram
>>10b.jpg). But the result is far from what Walt gets for his frog calls
>
>
> I'm sure CoolEdit can produce a sonogram just as clear and precise as the
> ones on Walt's pages - have you tried adjusting the settings? Go to
> Options-Settings-Spectral - there you can adjust the resolution, energy
> range, plot type, etc. Try playing with these until you get the look you're
> after. Once you have an acceptable picture, just press the "Print Screen"
> button on your keyboard - this places the screenshot on your clipboard.
> Then you can paste that picture into any graphics editor for further
> editing if needed.
I should probably point out that the sonograms on my frog pages are of
the calls passed through a dynamics filter. By adjusting it's cutoff
point I can drop out all the quieter background sound from the sonogram
making the call stand out clearly and unmodified. And from the soundfile
itself, for that matter. It's a useful filter, but tricky to use for
listening, easier to use for sonograms.
They are from the program Soundhack (a mac shareware program), which
also has the dynamics filter used. Soundhack's programmer put in
Sonograms just for entertainment while the filters are running. I asked
him about doing some improvements once, he's a music professor. It's a
awkward program to use for this, but I use it because it's one of the
better sonogram displays available.
I spent considerable time suffering through sonogram programs that did
not do as well before finding this one. Later, sonograms were added to
Spark XL, my primary filtering program, and they are pretty good too. No
dynamics filter is provided with that program. I'm looking for a plugin
like Sounhack's spectral dynamics filtering for it. It does do log
scaled plots and you can choose your frequency endpoints easily, as well
as shifting the color scale. And you can have realtime sonograms while
adjusting filters. All of which are missing from Soundhack.
I've found that sonogram programs suffer from being built by people who
are too technical or scientific. They are happy with crude displays that
provide whatever info they were interested in, usually just the main
details. Few programmers really polish their sonogram programs, which is
a shame, as they are capable of providing much more info. There are
technical limits to how well resolved a sonogram can be, but many
programs don't come close to those limits. Programmers seem too timid
about the amount of memory and processing power now available and limit
their programs too much. Sonograms involve very intensive math
calculations.
When you realize that the old machines that did it on a piece of smoked
paper could resolve better than a lot of sonogram programs it's kind of
sad. Those are what I first learned sonograms on.
I do not consider what I use the ultimate, just the best I have found so
far. I keep checking out each program I hear about in hopes of something
better or more user friendly. Both my programs I can only save the
sonogram using a screen dump, for instance. And I cannot edit the colors
used in the color scale either. And lots of settings I'd like to have
are missing.
I really would like to see what can be done with CoolEdit. I've seen a
lot of variation in various posted sonograms from it. But I doubt I've
seen the best it can do.
Walt
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