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

[mystran]

just tried it - sadly no. still the same behaviour as 0.5.5. s1 doesn't scan it, it's like it isn't existing at all... ist's working in energy xt, used as a subhost though...

If you're absolutely positive that it isn't black-listed, then without more information (realistically from other people experiencing problems, so I can try to find the common trend) there's not really much I can do.

[brok landers]

just tried it - sadly no. still the same behaviour as 0.5.5. s1 doesn't scan it, it's like it isn't existing at all... ist's working in energy xt, used as a subhost though...

If you're absolutely positive that it isn't black-listed, then without more information (realistically from other people experiencing problems, so I can try to find the common trend) there's not really much I can do.

i know, don't worry. and no, the blacklist is empty... s1 simply ignores the plugin completely. an older version (pre 0.5.5) at lesat was seen by s1 and gave me a crash (i believe even with errormessage) on instanciating... maybe that helps...

[snigelx]

Thank you for this, mystran. I've actually been using it non-stop now for many days on several projects. If a beggar could choose, I wonder if a non-scrolling display for the Oscilloscope is possible. Also zoom functionality for time axis? I'd love to replace S(M)exoscope with this for shaping sound and other general tasks. Thanks again so much.

[Davias]

I was thinking the strong point of the oscilloscope is that it "fixes" the waveform in the time axis, thus avoiding the scrolling introduced by previous oscilloscopes ?

Myself I use it especially for this purpose, makes sound design a breeze ! Of course with a complex always changing waveform the oscilloscope starts to looses it's anchor points and then the waveform is scrolling in the screen. Maybe this is what u got ?

This plugin is fantastic mystran, just amazing (I'm still using an old release that is rock stable for me, since I've read somes have problems with the latest versions), so thank you again ! ^^

[snigelx]

I was thinking the strong point of the oscilloscope is that it "fixes" the waveform in the time axis, thus avoiding the scrolling introduced by previous oscilloscopes ?

Hi, yeah it is better than many I've used in this respect but I suppose aamof it could be fixed in the time axis as you say, but I doubt it because when I have a forward moving signal input I can see the signal move from right to left.. or perhaps just difficult to see when I am unable to get an overview of an incoming signal. I am not quick enough to freeze it.

It is only certain tasks like looking at specific sample portions of a progressing signal(s) that this becomes difficult. In S(M)ex one can Amp up or down the incoming signal readout while adjusting how much of the Time axis one can view in the analysis window. It is like a zoom in certain respects, but you clearly see that progressing signals running into s(M)exoscope are fixed on the time axis aamof now that I think about it.

[mystran]

I was thinking the strong point of the oscilloscope is that it "fixes" the waveform in the time axis, thus avoiding the scrolling introduced by previous oscilloscopes ?

Hi, yeah it is better than many I've used in this respect but I suppose aamof it could be fixed in the time axis as you say, but I doubt it because when I have a forward moving signal input I can see the signal move from right to left.. or perhaps just difficult to see when I am unable to get an overview of an incoming signal. I am not quick enough to freeze it.

Basically, it attempts to align the next block with the previous block for "best correlation" fit. So if the input is steady-state stationary (or reasonably close) then it'll stay more or less fixed. If the input is changing significantly, then it can be somewhat unpredictable, yes. Something I'll probably add for the next update is spectral weighting for the correlation such that it would prefer a good match at the low frequencies, which should help a bit.

But yeah, well, it's mainly designed for stationary signals, because I felt most of the existing scopes weren't that helpful for such signals.

It is only certain tasks like looking at specific sample portions of a progressing signal(s) that this becomes difficult. In S(M)ex one can Amp up or down the incoming signal readout while adjusting how much of the Time axis one can view in the analysis window. It is like a zoom in certain respects, but you clearly see that progressing signals running into s(M)exoscope are fixed on the time axis aamof now that I think about it.

Variable gain is something I've been thinking of adding, possibly with an auto-scale similar to the phase-plot, or maybe just manual adjustment. As far as the time-axis goes, if you're thinking about "zooming out" to see longer time-scales, then I think the current method is less than ideal for that kind of metering. I'll probably be adding more analysis methods (including another type of scope) in the future though. There's certainly plenty that it doesn't currently do that I'd like to have integrated.

[Prestidigitator]

I'm using this nice analyzer for a few months and i like it. It's Great tool for experimenting with sound and learning, how things work in audio path.
This is my instant plugin in every session when i want to understand somenthing new. In modular environment which i'm using, it's my essential tool for this purposes.
I realy like the idea of saving default settings too

I have had crash a couple of times, but i'm not sure it was because of Dust Analyzer...
I have only one issue, besides of that. Plugin force focusing on itself, or something like that. So, when changing presets in native plugins, plugins disappearing (like alt+tab) and i can see only combo box with presets to choose. It's pretty disturbing.
Running plugin in separate process without "embedded vst gui" fix this issue, but then i have two windows for one plugin

What are you thinking about adding multiple inputs for comparision many signals, especially in spectrum mode. GUI resizing would be nice too.

Thanks

[mystran]

I found a small bug in some multi-threading optimizations (framework general stuff), so it's possible some crashes might have been related to that (I've not experienced any, but I don't regularly run every possible host either, so who knows). I also rolled back the "separate GUI thread" (in last few builds) in my development versions, because it seems like it was a bit problematic..

Basically the keyboard focus stuff (which host is this happening in?) is probably an artifact of the threading stuff. It shouldn't take focus, but I noticed some weird stuff going on, so who knows. I'll keep the visualization drawing stuff in a separate thread, but put the rest of the GUI back into the host thread in next build. Should fix a bunch of oddities that I didn't notice initially.

As for multiple inputs and GUI resizing.. yeah both are things that would certainly be useful, but also things that are somewhat non-trivial. I'd say "probably at some point" but that "some point" might not necessarily be "soon" in whatever sense of the word. There are other plugins I want to work on, and there are other features I want to fix in Dust Analyzer first (supporting samplerates other than 44.1kHz is probably the top one right now).

But thanks for comments. Obviously things that a lot of people miss tend to have a higher chance of happening, so it's always nice to hear suggestions.

PS. I'll actually try to sort a new build (with a bunch of fixes to various things) soonish, when I manage to clear the queue of all the other things to do.

[murnau]

PS. I'll actually try to sort a new build (with a bunch of fixes to various things) soonish, when I manage to clear the queue of all the other things to do.

thank you so much! that are great news! i love your analyzer! really i do!

[Prestidigitator]

Basically the keyboard focus stuff (which host is this happening in?) is probably an artifact of the threading stuff. It shouldn't take focus, but I noticed some weird stuff going on, so who knows. I'll keep the visualization drawing stuff in a separate thread, but put the rest of the GUI back into the host thread in next build. Should fix a bunch of oddities that I didn't notice initially.

I've tried many things, like disabling multithreading or enabling "prevent focus stealing" on Dust before. Today i've checked it again and only method with GUI in window separated from DAW works correct. I'm using Jeskola Buzz.

The most odd thing is that i can move sliders, enter values, apply check boxes, play notes, but when mouse cursor appear on the combo box, it's happening.

After investigation i've found VSTi, which behave like native plugins. Entering values in shortcircuit sampler behave exactly the same way.
It can be reproduced like that:
- do something in analyzer,
- go to the second plugin and enter the value (shortcircuit) or change preset (Jeskola Buzz native plugin), plugin starts to disappearing every time you want to change parameter,
- click on your DAW window on taskbar, to fix it.

As for multiple inputs and GUI resizing.. yeah both are things that would certainly be useful, but also things that are somewhat non-trivial. I'd say "probably at some point" but that "some point" might not necessarily be "soon" in whatever sense of the word. There are other plugins I want to work on, and there are other features I want to fix in Dust Analyzer first (supporting samplerates other than 44.1kHz is probably the top one right now).

Yes, it's very logical. I gave just a simple idea, because i doesn't seen it in the thread. And I suppose that "non-pro" land lacks this kind of feature.

Thanks again.

[mystran]

Ok...

0.6.0 has arrived:

- now runs in host GUI thread again, hopefully for better compatibility (just offloads the software-render parts to a worker thread now).

- implemented resampling for data-collection (internally it now always runs analysis at 44.1kHz for efficiency reasons), so it should now work with any host sample-rate properly.. this isn't tested very well (my audio-interface appears to have a "difficult day" when it comes to changing sample-rates) but it appears to work anyway..

- another analysis mode for "cooked" spectrum view.. basically 1/12 octave averages, but derived from the FFT and somewhat "too wide" to keep it smoother.. this always has 3dB/oct weighting and essentially tries to measure "average energy" so generally shows much less peaks than the regular spectrum (which draws the raw peaks from the FFT).

[mystran]

Unlike most of the other stuff, the "bargraph" mode isn't entirely serious, or entirely well-founded in terms of analysis.. it's supposed to be more of a "feel good" analyzer when you're not looking for the most accurate "scientific" measure, but would still like something that isn't total garbage..

edit: next on the TODO list (except fixes/tuning) is probably spectrograms and an "RMS" scope for long-term dynamics evolution..


edit2: also let me know if I broke the downloads for good.. links from kvr and my site should work.. but..

[mystran]

Screenie of the silly new mode



Might add solid-bars option later.. but ..

[DuX]

Nice analyser, mystran!

[bmanic]

please: suggestions on what "weights" are useful.. this are rather trivial to add but I'm not sure which ones to bother with..

I'd like 4.5dB/octave weight. I know the dB(A) thing is quite close in a way but somehow I'm so damn used to 4.5dB/octave as it's the default of Voxengo SPAN (and it's much more useful than 3dB/octave).

Cheers!
bManic