Posted by: "vicki powys"
>
> I am running a Mac with OS 9.1, maybe one day I will upgrade to OS X. I
> note with dismay that my favourite sonagram software 'Audiograph' will ha=
ve
> no furthr upgrades to enable it to run in OS X.
Both my main sources of filtering software have dropped their stuff
entirely. So, I'm now working with software that will die with some
upgrade or another.
> Raven Lite will only run in OS X so I haven't been able to try that one y=
et.
I did not find Raven very impressive.
> I have just downloaded and installed Walt's favourite freeware SoundHack,
> but I can't for the life of me work out how to make sonagrams from it. I
> can navigate to the wanted sound file, but when I try Hack/ Spectral
> Analysis, all I get is a postage-stamp sized window with no sonagram disp=
lay
> whatsoever. How do I get to see the sonagram?
>
> Any advice would be much appreciated! Walt? Anyone?
>
I'm not sure I'd call it my favorite. I do think it's got some of the
nicest sonograms for display purposes. But only if you are willing to
work to get them. Here's the magic incantations (I'm running the OSX
version, so hope the OS9 is the same):
Load a soundfile into SoundHack
Under the hack menu choose a sound process. I usually use Spectral
Dynamics. In that set Affect Sounds Below Thresh and choose a threshold
level that's below the sounds you want to show in the sonogram. Now up
above set Gain/Reduction to something that will move the quieter sounds
off the bottom of the dynamic range. Hit the process button.
A Save As window will appear, make sure it's putting it's output file
somewhere easy to find. You'll want to toss the file at the end unless
you want the filtered result. (it probably won't sound good without a
bunch of fine tuning)
Have your fingers on command comma. Hit save and immediately hit command
comma, which pauses the processing.
Under the Control menu choose Show Sonogram. The input choice is the
unfiltered version, the output is the filtered.
Hit command comma twice in quick succession. This starts processing and
stops it again, and puts up a sonogram window.
Size the sonogram window to suit via the lower right hand corner.
Hit command comma and let it process. Pause it with command comma when
you have the sono you want and do a screen dump of the window to save
your sonogram. If you don't pause before the processing completes, the
sonogram will vanish and you get to do it all over again. There is a
progress bar shown at the bottom of the screen.
The frequency scaling is always 1/2 the sample rate of your original
file. If you want a different scale, resample to the appropriate sample
rate before doing the sonogram. Sometimes it's ok just to use the header
change under the hack menu.
Command period stops and dumps any filtering you are doing if you need
to bail out.
That's the basics. It takes a bit of practice, but SoundHack can produce
some lovely sonograms.
The Spectral Dynamics filtering is useful, particularly to remove quiet
artifacts left by other filters. It's very touchy as to settings to get
good sound, however.
I did write the author of SoundHack and his reply indicated that he just
put in the sonograms to entertain during processing...
Walt
|