Dust Analyzer (still "beta") [was: quickie signal analyzer proto]

[eidenk]

5.3 systematically crash on instantiation for me in any host (didn't get a chance to try 5.2). Example of what gets logged in faultlog.txt:

WAVOSAUR caused an exception 406d1388H in module DUST ANALYZER.DLL at 0177:01544093.
Registers:
EAX=00000000 CS=0177 EIP=01544093 EFLGS=00000246
EBX=834585ac SS=017f ESP=0173fee0 EBP=0173ff14
ECX=0173feec DS=017f ESI=ffffffff FS=7d57
EDX=0154b190 ES=017f EDI=008fb394 GS=7b46
Bytes at CS:EIP:
89 75 fc 8b 4d f0 64 89 0d 00 00 00 00 5f 5e 5b
Stack dump:
008fb394 00000008 834585ac 00001000 015a227c ffffffff 00000000 0173fee0 0173fb90 0173ff48 01590e44 015ad080 00000000 0173ff8c 0154b1b6 015a227c

Don't waste any sweat trying to fix it if you think it's only my old outdated OS that's the reason, but perhaps it also crash on XP, let's wait and see.

[mystran]

Oh right.. so it's still related (kinda) to the same thread-id thing: on NT you set "name of a thread" by causing an exception 406d1388H. I was actually a bit worried about whether that works on Win9x series.. apparently not.

Since the whole purpose is to get nicer names if someone looks at the list of threads (eg in debugger), it's not exactly essential. I'll fix that for future versions, but won't bother with an updated build right now (let's see if there are other issues first).

edit: actually the exception SHOULD be caught by the plugin.. but I guess the structured exception handling (or whatever it's called) doesn't work on Win9x at all.. (though MSDN claims it does.. but whatever)

[eidenk]

There surely is an other way to set thread names as I can read thread names for many apps (some of which are normally NT only) using appropriate utilities (taskinfo for example).

Anyway who (apart from you) would inspect this plugin in a debugger? Peeps trying to suss out your algos perhaps? Very thoughtfull of you to try making things more immediately meaningfull to them. Just joking

[mystran]

There surely is an other way to set thread names as I can read thread names for many apps (some of which are normally NT only) using appropriate utilities (taskinfo for example).

The method I'm using is the "documented undocumented" way to set a thread name as far as debuggers (and other similar utilities) are concerned. Don't know why it doesn't work; maybe the compiler runtime is too recent or something. Whatever the case, I added some sanity-check code to skip it unless it's an NT system.

I actually uploaded it (0.5.4) in case you want to try.

Anyway who (apart from you) would inspect this plugin in a debugger? Peeps trying to suss out your algos perhaps? Very thoughtfull of you to try making things more immediately meaningfull to them. Just joking

Well, in the case of this particular plugin, that could be a developer of another plugin using my plugin to analyze his plugin while debugging, no? Basically I just didn't see any reason not to do it. Like I said it's "not exactly critical functionality" so yeah, I could leave that out from release builds...

[Halma]

Hey mystran,

great job with this plug in. I just want to let you know that I have some strange problems with the newest build (used the stable one for a few weeks now).

I could not load the previous build. Reaper refused to find it.

Your last build worked fine the first time. I had better a cpu performance in scope & phase mode than before (stable release). Spectrum mode lets my cpu jump from nearly 5% to 50%. But I can live with that for now. I love the new dark mode.

BUT...as I closed my host (Reaper) I got a Runtime Error! - C:\.....\reaper.exe - abnormal program termination.

I tried it a few times and it happens everytime (at leat for me). And I couldn't open the plug in UI mode anymore. I always have the parametric mode inside reaper (only sliders) as default. And behind all those sliders I can barely see the spectrum. And when I try to switch to UI mode the spectrum background disappears completely. I already tried to load a new instance but same thing.

Just wanted to give you some feedback. Otherwise great plug in. Best so far. Neon scope is great but hard to see sometimes.

Cheers,
Sebastian

[eidenk]

I actually uploaded it (0.5.4) in case you want to try.

Loads fine now, thanks a lot!

[mystran]

Hey mystran,

great job with this plug in. I just want to let you know that I have some strange problems with the newest build (used the stable one for a few weeks now).

I could not load the previous build. Reaper refused to find it.

Your last build worked fine the first time. I had better a cpu performance in scope & phase mode than before (stable release). Spectrum mode lets my cpu jump from nearly 5% to 50%. But I can live with that for now. I love the new dark mode.

What kind of CPU?

The spectrum especially can vary quite a bit in terms of CPU though, depending on what exactly it's drawing... though 5% to 50% variation still doesn't sound quite normal hmmh..

BUT...as I closed my host (Reaper) I got a Runtime Error! - C:\.....\reaper.exe - abnormal program termination.

I tried it a few times and it happens everytime (at leat for me). And I couldn't open the plug in UI mode anymore. I always have the parametric mode inside reaper (only sliders) as default. And behind all those sliders I can barely see the spectrum. And when I try to switch to UI mode the spectrum background disappears completely. I already tried to load a new instance but same thing.

I'll look at it.. but what windows version and which brand of GPU (if it's Intel I might have broken something with their rather fragile drivers again)?

edit: actually I can reproduce this.. Reaper seems to do something weird..

[mystran]

Update 0.5.5:
- should work in Reaper again..

[Halma]

Update 0.5.5:
- should work in Reaper again..

Works great now. CPU spike is still there. Unfortunately I have no time right now so I will post my specs later.

Thank you so much. Awesome plug (love dark mode )

Cheers,
Sebastian

[Mutant]

Thank you

[brok landers]

hi mystran,
first off, thanks for all your freeware, which imo is incredible quality, i always wanted to tell you that. really high quality stuff, honestly. and i am usually vey picky...

Thanks.

honour whom honour is due, that easy.

however, have to ask:
could you maybe add an alternative bargraph view with 128 bands (1/12 octave) into your analyser, overlaid with the fft curve? like thisone, (thisone will never go 64bit and also has "only" 64bands/1/6 octave):

What should said bargraph show? Should it run 128 parallel band-passes or some derived version of the FFT information?

honestly, i don't know how you do it already, as well as i don't know what's more accurate and last but not least how easy it is for you to implement it. i only was told that when using fft, the speed response can only be globally adjusted (as opposed to using parallel bandpasses for analysing), meaning that if i would want slower release response, the attack is slowed down as well. if this is true, i of course would prefer parallel bandpasses for the analysing, as based on my experience, this would allow the user to adjust the release/falldown time independantly from the attack/rise time. but really, i could talk out my arse here, you're the master when it comes to such decisions... i'd blindly trust you on that...

also, could you maybe add an option to specify the amplitude range? when mastering a pop song, mostly -40db to -6db range is way enough, especially when wheighting is 6db (pink noise flat response), whereas if i have to analyse potential aliasing in a synth, -140db to 0db has to be used...

Yeah. I guess something like that is on the list of things to do. With regards to weighting, you get flat response from pink noise with 3dB/Oct actually, though empirically a number of commercial tracks (especially dance music) seem to roughly fit 3dB/Oct at lower spectrum (below 1kHz or so) while the fit tends to be closer to 6dB/Oct at the higher frequencies.

you might be right here, i may have confused this... however, you nailled it - especially when mixing/mastering clubmusic, i use references that sound fabulous, and look at the analyser constantly - and the great thing on this wheighting is, that you don't waste the analyser screenspace on dynamic portions in level, where there's nothing happening, as well as the high frequency matches lineary with the bottom end... that way you always kinda know, you're not too off (in the end it's of course the ear that has to make the decsisions)...

edit:
dustanalyser sadly doesn't show up in studio one pro 2.5.2 and energy xt, both 1x and 2x...
i'm on win xp pro, sp3...

Will investigate.

just great. thanks for lending me your ear!

[mystran]

edit:
dustanalyser sadly doesn't show up in studio one pro 2.5.2 and energy xt, both 1x and 2x...
i'm on win xp pro, sp3...

Will investigate.

just great. thanks for lending me your ear!

Hmmh... did the updates fix it for you, or is this problem still there?

[loopdon]

I really enjoy this one.
Some ideas i have include:

- Snapshots
- Overlay / Multichannel View
- Option to show Note Values
- Spectograph view

I have more but i might be pissing you off already

[brok landers]

edit:
dustanalyser sadly doesn't show up in studio one pro 2.5.2 and energy xt, both 1x and 2x...
i'm on win xp pro, sp3...

Will investigate.

just great. thanks for lending me your ear!

Hmmh... did the updates fix it for you, or is this problem still there?

actually no, i tried the 0.5.5 version... studio one just doesn't even scan it, it simply ignores it completely... i mean, it's not that it sees it, checks it internally and gives an error and puts it on the blacklist, it's just that it's not there for studio one for some reason...

btw, what's open gl? i read that it's mandatory to make it work... do i have to install it additionally, or so?

[mystran]

edit:
dustanalyser sadly doesn't show up in studio one pro 2.5.2 and energy xt, both 1x and 2x...
i'm on win xp pro, sp3...

Will investigate.

just great. thanks for lending me your ear!

Hmmh... did the updates fix it for you, or is this problem still there?

actually no, i tried the 0.5.5 version... studio one just doesn't even scan it, it simply ignores it completely... i mean, it's not that it sees it, checks it internally and gives an error and puts it on the blacklist, it's just that it's not there for studio one for some reason...

btw, what's open gl? i read that it's mandatory to make it work... do i have to install it additionally, or so?

OpenGL is a graphics API (and provided by graphics card drivers), but you should get an error message if there was a problem with that (same thing if your CPU doesn't support SSE2).

Few more questions:

- did some earlier version work?
- does that version work in eXT for you?
- are you using the 32 or 64 bit version?

Does anyone else have it working in Studio One?