This FREEWARE package allows the user to view the time-wave and frequency spectrum LIVE from any Macintosh® sound input device. Real-time display is possible on faster Macintoshes; display rates of >110 frames per second are possible on a Power Mac 8100/100; >35 fps on a Quadra 950. A "Waterfall", or raster plot of previous spectral history, is presented in a separate window. Recording and playback of monophonic 8-bit sound is supported; a spectrogram can be made of the captured data; whether recorded by SoundView, or imported from any sound file. A readout provides the frequency value of a point specified by the mouse cursor.
This package contains:
• This file: "SoundView ReadMe".
• The application itself. No special installation is required.
The source code is available via GOPHER or FTP to: www.physics.swri.edu
This includes fast 680x0 assembly code for FFT & Square Root functions; as well as PPC 601 assembly code for integer square root, and fast C code for integer FFT.
System Requirements:
Any Macintosh computer with:
• A 68020 or better processor. (FPU is NOT required. )
• A sound input device.
How to run:
• Open the application "SoundView". Use the INPUT DEVICE selection in the OPTIONS menu to choose from among available devices. Use balloon help for assistance regarding the menu choices.
• For maximum speed (in decreasing order of benefit):
• Set your main monitor to 256 colors.
• If you have more than one monitor, don't let any window overlap a boundary between them.
• Set the Sample Rate in the OPTIONS menu to the highest value allowed.
• Set the Block Size to 256.
• Close other backgrounding programs (Especially Launcher - why, I do not know....)
• Reduce ΔX , ΔY, #Lines in the WATERFALL menu.
• Close the Time or Waterfall windows, whichever you do not need.
• Turn off 'Lines Mode' in the OPTIONS menu.
• Turn off 'Sync' in the OPTIONS menu.
• Turn off TimeWave or Frequency display in OPTIONS menu.
• Close the Spectragram and Capture windows.
• Play a Stevie Ray Vaughan CD. (:->)
Other things not described in the balloons:
• In the WATERFALL menu, set ΔX to zero and the mouse readout becomes active in the waterfall window.
• In the WATERFALL menu, set both ΔX and ΔY to zero and you have a peak-hold display.
• Click in the Waterfall window to clear the old data.
• In the Captured window, the radio buttons are used to zoom in on the captured data. When zoom factor is > 1, use the scroll bar to move the view.
• The time taken to make a spectrogram does NOT depend on the length of the captured data. Exactly 512 FFTs are performed, whether the data is 2 seconds or 20 seconds long. This results in 512 columns in the window. The block size setting, and CPU speed, are the primary factors affecting spectrogram speed.
• You can re-make the spectrogram with a different block size without re-recording. This changes range and resolution.
• The Frames per Second number in the SPEED menu is affected by perusing the menus, the About box, or switching from background. Allow about 3 seconds after any of these before the reading is accurate.
Obligatory Verbiage in the Form of a Disclaimer:
This is not an official product of my employer, despite possible implications by previous versions.
Version history:
1.0.8 - Jun 6,1995.
• Fixed bug when switching to / from background.
• Fixed bug in debugging code (!!!), which had not kept up with changes elsewhere, because it was disabled. Did not affect released app, but could not compile source with my debugging code enabled.
• Fixed bug in menu display of non-integer sample rates. They were rounded to integer values, for no good reason.
• Fixed bug in balloon help regarding rainbow/grayscale choices.
• Fixed bug where if some other program had set the input sample rate to less than the highest value available, SoundView was incorrectly assuming the highest setting. Now I actually set it upon startup.
• Fixed bug where if you captured a large sound, or were otherwise short on memory, then expanded the waterfall ΔX, ΔY, or #lines, the window would expand, but the offscreen buffer supporting it would not. Results were colorful, and amusing, but not useful. Now you get a 'no can do' message.
• Fixed bug: BOOST SPECTRUM did not work on 68K version. Now it does.
• Moved waterfall window to the left side of the screen, and the time / spectrum window to the right. This is because the waterfall window expands downward and rightward, and was expanding offscreen.
• Finished commenting and cleaning up all code. Removed a few obsolete routines, unnecessary #INCLUDE directives, etc.
1.0.7b- Jun 2,1995. Not sent to archives, but available on server.
• Removed gratituitous references to my employer, replaced with more appropriate logo.
• Corrected spelling of "Spectragram" to Spectrogram" throughout source code (Thanks, Paul!). This includes the files named "Spectragram.c" and "Spectragram.h". (Hey, at least I was consistent! :-)
1.0.7a- Jun 1,1995. Not sent to archives, but available on server.
• Source code was cleaned up and comments added. No bug fixes or functional changes.
• Added the 'Other Things..' section above.
• Changed 'System Requirements' section above to reflect the fact that some code requires a 68020 processor, at least. (Previous version said 'Any Macintosh').
1.0.7 - May 30,1995.
• Changed to compile with 'weak' link to PowerMac speech library, so that if Speech Manager is not present, MacOS will not complain. 68K version not affected.
1.0.6 - May 26,1995.
• First public release.
Please send E-mail to the above address with comments or questions.
