>Boy, talk about reinventing the wheel! I have had Spectra
>and it's incarnations about seven years now. DOes
>everything you describe and a bit more.
Hmmmm..., I did considerable prospecting looking for something that fit my
wish list and finally gave up, bought a Delphi compiler, and started
writing. The list of peak frequencies in a sample is one of the things I
didn't find in any of the specs I looked at, nor the split screen display
of the time series grids, nor the sample file database. Some of them hinted
at more than the screen shots showed, or the thirty day trial versions
produced, but I lost enthusiasm for being disappointed by exaggerated
claims at $300 a pop a long time ago.
> It is a neat
>program and lots of fun to play with. The advantage to you
>is that you wrote the code and can modify it as you wish.
Or as I am able. It's amazing how difficult it is to find actual
information on concepts and processes that are spoken of as if they were
too simple, common, and easily obtainable to bother explaining. It took me
weeks just to find the one (one {each [only<sole>]}) coding example of just
obtaining raw microphone input, and rewrite the code to actually get it to
work. I found a bunch of compiled example demos of microphone input, but
none with source unless I wanted to spring $50-$300 for a peek, with no
real indication that I would get the full source even then. Amazing!
Reinventing the wheel seems to be my curse, just because I so often have to
resort to it to get a wheel that will roll in the direction I want it to
go. I wonder what I'm doing wrong.
> WIndows programming is a total
>mystery to me and I am too old to learn new trickies.
No you're not - just too impatient to put up with the frustrations of
starting over with another 14 layers of unfamiliar complication piled onto
the usual organizational and logic mysteries.
>At low freqs there is system noise inherent in the computer
>and especially the sound card. Not much good below 20 or 30
>Hz.
Yea. I don't know how much is sound card, and how much is microphone. The
cheapo condenser mics aren't of much use below 100hz, regardless of what
the sound system thinks of the whole thing, and I haven't had a chance to
play with a decent mic yet. The ambient noise compensation option in my
program makes a dramatic difference in low end system noise, and I don't
remember seeing anything like that in a commercial program either - come to
think of it. I can take a "quiet" sampling of room noise, and subtract it
from further sound sample displays (or not, as I like), to filter out the
60hz multiple peaks from the lights, and the whatever from the computer.
>Interesting thing Chris Robinson discovered, some hammers
>sound better when reversed. He tests every set before
>boring, tapering, coving and tailing. He uses a storage
>analyzer to compare two hammers if he cannot hear the
>difference.
Well, I could be difficult and ask what difference it makes if he can't
hear the difference, but that's one of the major reasons I started this
project - to try to identify and quantify some of what we think we hear
with detailed measurement.
>It is amazing that a program can replace a
>whole rack of discreet components.
You bet it is, and I'm currently wallowing shamelessly in one of those
benefits. I got a new motherboard for Christmas, with a 700mhz CPU. Spent
most of yesterday installing it (30 minutes), and chasing down the
resultant Windows insanities (4 hours and counting). But LORDY it's fast
compared to my old 200mhz! Of course, that doesn't help the laptop any.
>My little laptop does not have a mic built in. I have a
>pair of AKG-D224Es I have been using but I don't trust their
>response curves after some 25 years. Nice thing about
>SPectra is you can input the response curves of various
>microphones and it will automatically re-adjust the
>displayed values to that curve.
That's a nice feature. I had thought of including something like that in
the future, but since I intended my scope to be more for comparison
purposes between samples than for absolute values, and considering the
time, cost, equipment, and effort involved in sampling and calibration, I
haven't done anything about it.
>I want to get some of those unmounted mics, the $3 kind, and
>glue them to the end of a short miniplug. No wires type of
>thing.
I like the wire. I can position the mic for best pickup, get it away from
the computer fan noise, and still reach the computer.
>Once you have a sensitivity value for a particular
>microphone you could then measure dB values without the
>Radio Suck device.
Yes, I could. Eventually.
>I hate to say I am curious and need knowledge. shrug
Good for you. I hope that never changes for either of us.
Ron N
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC